Dark history through art’s lens

IF THE MEMORY of October 6, 1976, is fading and the facts of what happened remains unclear, art attempts to address the terrible truth in three different shows around Bangkok commemorating that incident, in whole or in part.

Today is the anniversary of the day when paramilitary police and a rabid mob of civilians descended on a student demonstration at Thammasat University and adjacent Sanam Luang and slaughtered dozens of the protesters.

The most disturbing photograph taken that day shows a man beating the lynched corpse of a student as a crowd looks on. Known simply as “Folding Chair”, for the weapon of defilement being used, the picture won Associated Press photographer Neal Ulevich a Pulitzer Prize.

Now Chumpol Kamwanna has commandeered the incident for his “Selfies Series”, on view in the aptly named People’s Gallery at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. In vivid pop paintings, he depicts himself as the victim, freed from the noose but naked, in various poses that might seem to mock the seriousness of the original ghastly occurrence.

Chumpol’s grinning protagonist is seen lying on the ground taking a selfie, surrounded by soldiers and police with guns drawn, and standing bare-bottomed taunting them as they threaten to beat him with a chair. 

Visitors to the gallery happily take selfies of their own, with the paintings as backdrops. “Seeing the selfie painting, I wanted to get my own selfie,” says a 19-year-old student who’s evidently unaware of the tragic story behind the art.

That’s pretty much the point of Chumpol’s deeply dark humour. 

“I noticed that a lot of people attending commemorations of important political events these days post selfies online, seemingly carefree about social concerns and history,” he says. “Last year I attended the memorial of the October Uprising near the Democracy Monument. Everybody just took photos together and then left. So I wondered whether our history is only going to be recalled through photographs.”

Chumpol was only three at the time of the 1976 massacre, but his father taught him about it. “The student movement served society back then,” he says, “whereas today’s selfie culture serves only selfishness.”

Chiang Mai-based Kosit Juntaratip offers a more literal reading of Ulevich’s “Folding Chair” in his show, “Allergic Realities”, at the Bangkok University Gallery. He’s faithfully recreated the photo in the manner of American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, with Ben-Day dots forming the non-white tones, as in a blown-up (pre-digital) photograph. But in Kosit’s work, the thousands of dots aren’t paint – but rather his own blood.

The image was not made to mark the 1976 anniversary but instead is one of several examining violence in historical events around the world, all captured in famous pictures. Eddie Adams’ gruesome “Head Shot” of a captured Viet Cong prisoner being executed at point-blank range during the Vietnam War is among them, as are photos of the 9/11 attacks, the Holocaust and the horrific reign of the Khmer Rouge.

Appropriated from the Internet, the original images are reconstructed with Kosit’s blood. He regards the finished pieces as “double images”.

“One image is layered over another. In one sequence or one frame you can see two different situations at the same time. This series is different because it also entails painting and other forms of reproduction.”

Conceptual artist Thasanai Sethaseree has titled his show at Gallery Ver “What you don’t see will hurt you”, the strongest of these three exhibitions in terms of political message – and the most thought-provoking. 

Thasanai, also from Chiang Mai, includes the other two significant recent dates for the Thai democracy movement – October 14, 1973, and “Black May” in 1992. He was a witness to all of them. Also examined are the dozen military coups since 1932.

In place of brutal imagery, however, the gallery walls bear 30 vividly colourful, non-figurative collages, all massive and all spectacular. They’re made with shiny paper in bright hues – the sort of material used during festive celebrations.

“Historically we’ve always hidden our mistakes underneath,” says 48-year-old Thasanai. He’s layered the canvas surfaces – actually monks’ robes – in a laborious studio process that draws on design motifs and Lanna decorative traditions. You have to look closely to see what lies beneath: the grim archival photos of those awful past events. 

His preparatory sketches reveal the source materials, including images from the 1976 Thammasat massacre and a shredded copy of the 2007 constitution. 

“These horrors are literally masked by the high spectacle of ornamentation that’s linked to magical beliefs in Thai society,” curator Roger Nelson writes in the catalogue.

“The process of carefully cutting up the paper and carving them into a motif is like meditative process in its repetitive intensity. But this is |not a meditation that provides healing or spiritual enlightenment. It provides insight into the political violence and upheavals that have marred Thai history throughout my entire life.” 

On receiving his Pulitzer Prize, Ulevich said his happiness “must be tempered with grim memories of the day. If there is any value in the pictures, it is that they may have made some people pause and think about the wider issues such as hatred and violence.”

In that context, the three Thai artists have brought the terrible past into the present so it can be reconsidered in the light of creation rather than brutal suppression.

  A DIRE PAST

TO PONDER

- See Chumpol Kamwanna’s “Selfies Series” in the People’s Gallery on the second floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre through October 30. Learn more at www.BACC.org.th.

- Thasanai Sethaseree’s “What you don’t see will hurt you” is at Gallery Ver until November 24. Get the details at from the “GalleryVer” Facebook page. 

-Kosit Juntaratip’s “Allergic Realities” will be at the Bangkok University Gallery (Kluay Namthai campus) through October 26. Find out more on the school’s Facebook page.