THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Pioneer Pramuan to be honoured

Pioneer Pramuan to be honoured

Singaporean Author-curator Zhuang Wubin will be in Bangkok next Saturday for the opening of “Destination: Still Unknown”, the retrospective of photographs by Pramuan Burusphat.

The show is at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Zhuang and Manit Sriwanichpoom – who mounted Pramuan’s solo show at his Kathmandu Photo Gallery in October – have assembled this larger collection, for which Pramuan will return from his base in New Zealand to give a talk at 5.30pm on Saturday. 
The exhibition covers four decades in a career that has embraced art, education and advocacy for photography as an art form.
Pramuan, 64, was a pioneer of conceptual photography in Thailand, often incorporating collage and drawing in his graphic works. He experiments with different photographic and printing processes. Since the 1990s he has examined the way artists too indulge in wasteful consumption even as they create socially progressive pieces.
All of this is included in the retrospective while celebrating Pramuan’s impact on Thai contemporary art.
In Southeast Asia, Zhuang says, photography’s place among the visual arts remains uncertain, and for decades Pramuan operated in an unsympathetic environment. Nevertheless, since the late ’70s he has had 10 solo shows and participated in more than 70 group exhibitions around the world.
With a master’s degree in photography from North Texas State University, Pramuan taught art history and printmaking at Srinakharinwirot University in the early ’80s and was a founding member of the Fine and Applied Arts Faculty at Chulalongkorn University. As head of the faculty he helped launch the country’s first bachelor’s programme in photography, producing many graduates who are now accomplished artists, photographers and educators in their own right.
“Destination: Still Unknown” continues through February 28. The curators will host a discussion on Pramuan’s career on February 11 at 2pm. 
 

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