NanaChen.com

Runway models, Harvard lawyers and jet-setting executives have a lot more in common than you might think – at least in Bangkok. They and other serious art lovers have joined forces to make the city an important destination for contemporary art.

Bangkok is a city known for spreading itself around, and the way in which art galleries have proliferated across the city is no exception. Rather than being densely packed into one area, with endless buildings stacked with floor upon floor of paintings and frame shops, the galleries are dotted in various locations around town. A number of them have filled their floor space with tables, giving us gallery cafés and restaurants.

Ask anyone about modern art in Bangkok and the name, or, rather, the initial that invariably pops up is “H”. It belongs to H Ernest Lee, the owner of H Gallery.

When H, as he prefers to be called, first arrived in Bangkok in 1998, the only plan the US national had in mind was to do something related to art. He imagined he would be taking Thai art back to the US. Soon after he arrived, however, he was given the opportunity to hang some paintings at Eat Me Art restaurant, an upmarket gallery restaurant owned by Australian Darren Hausler.

The two men began organising exhibitions at the restaurant, and their efforts were soon to have a profound impact on the contemporary art scene in Thailand.

“It just exploded,” H says of the concept. “We did a lot of fun exhibitions at Eat Me and got a lot of social coverage, and it became a trend.”

Soon, galleries and gallery cafés started to spring up around town. During openings, the galleries would be packed with trendy Thais sporting the latest in fashion design, keeping the art in good company.

Attending gallery openings and art exhibitions became the thing to do; the gallery scene gave middle-class Thais the chance to rub shoulders with entrepreneurs, politicians and entertainment personalities. It also gave those among them who had travelled abroad the opportunity to learn more about art at home, rather than acquire contemporary paintings from overseas, as they had done in the past.

Not long after his successes at Eat Me, H started to look for his own walls on which to hang art. In 2001, he began restoring a colonial house, which became H Gallery a year later. The two-storey house sits quietly in a little lane with a terrace and upstairs balcony, where a large sculpture of a slab of bacon positioned opposite a robot are comically juxtaposed to their conventional urban setting.
The interior of the house gives the paintings the perfect light and space. It is so serene and spacious that one is tempted to lie on the floor gazing up at the colourful paintings by Thai artist Sujin Wattanawongchai.

Taking several fabric pieces out of an antique trunk from his office, H rolls out Jakkai Siributr’s stunning tapestries on the dark hardwood floor. Each tapestry hides messages with a twist. Pink, yellow, turquoise and a multitude of threads are stitched through cartoon dogs or figures cut from felt and cotton pieces in pink and other vibrant colours. A closer look reveals Thai script. One discovers something new with every glance.

At Eat Me Art Restaurant, where H still organises exhibitions, Dominic Rouse’s digitally manipulated photographic prints surround the dining area. The monochrome pieces suit the interior of the restaurant perfectly. Diners gaze up at the art on display while enjoying delicious dishes, such as pan-fried foie gras and sea scallops with port jus and truffle mash, chorizo and pinot noir, or Thai dishes such as lemon grass prawns with coconut cream and betel leaves.

Eat Me, at Soi Pipat 2, off Convent Road, Silom, is where the rich and famous, and even European royalty, have dined and perhaps pondered which painting to ship home.

Not far from Eat Me is Art Republic. Located in Peninsula Plaza, it is run by Anglo-Thai sisters Claire Chatikavanij and Emma Satayamana. Claire collected art for 18 years before starting the gallery. Showing only Thai contemporary abstract work, the sisters have been running the gallery since 2003.

Claire says half of their collectors are young and successful Thais who have developed an appreciation for contemporary art by living abroad and travelling.

They tend to buy art because they like it, unlike older generations who bought art solely to decorate their walls. It is hard to determine the origin of the work on display. “What I like about Thai abstract art is that you cannot tell where it is from. It transcends boundaries and is not specifically Thai,” says Claire.

On the other side of the city in the Sukhumvit area s Tamarind Café, which houses one of the few photographic galleries in town. It is run by former fashion models Luka Wong and Sylvie Bruzeau, who met during a fashion show audition in Japan and later decided to quit the catwalk to bring Tamarind Café to Bangkok, creating F-Stop Gallery along the way.

“We have an appreciation for good top-rate photography,” says Luka. “When we run short of photographers, we leave the space open for painters”.

The café will feature the work of world-renowned Australian photographer Patrick Brown from October to December.

On this day, paintings by 16-year-old Bua, a girl living with HIV, adorn the walls in bright colours. Several are marked as sold; the proceeds raised form the sale of the paintings will support her and her family.
Tamarind Café also serves up vegetarian cuisine, making it a rare find in Bangkok, and offers spectacular desserts that resemble chocolate sculptures.

Its spacious loft-style interior and Scandinavian-inspired wooden furniture make you want to stay all day, and visitors generally do. On this particular afternoon, a group of Swedes look very much at home resting their elbows on the pale wooden tables.

“Bangkok ins an international hub. It attracts people from everywhere and I want to show the diversity in our gallery and food,” says Sylvie. Looking for something with an edge? One main source is The Livin’, a showroom housed in the luxury flat of owner Adam Bryan-Brown in Klong Toey, making it one of the city’s most sought after addresses. Visits are by appointment only. On display in the flat are paint-on-acrylic sheet collages by Anan Pratchayanan. There’s one of Mickey Mouse standing under the words “What Are U Thinking” and another of a skull and crossbones in black and pink.

The Livin’ also runs a blog that will keep you up to date on the scene. According to Bryan-Brown, this is just the start of it. Contemporary art is still very young and there’s plenty of room for experimentation. Later this year, he plans to create The Warehouse in the up-and-coming Ekamai neighbourhood. It will display the kind of provocative Thai contemporary art that is sure to attract more art lovers.

During a recent art opening at Number 1 Gallery, Silom Galleria, even the traditional Buddhist art by Kriangkrai Wongpitirat is given a more updated look. If you still have the energy, take a look across the hall at Tang Contemporary Art. Be warned – after visiting a handful of galleries you’ll be hooked on Thailand’s contemporary art scene. The café galleries that are proliferating across the city serve a number of purposes: they make modern art as accessible to everyone as the food and drink they serve, they put the artists in touch with people who appreciate their work and, most importantly, they enable the artists to continue experimenting.