Conceived by the late Petch Osathanugrah and brought to reality by his son Purat, Dib Bangkok has emerged as the first international contemporary art museum in the capital.
Housed in a former 1980s warehouse, Dib Bangkok was transformed by Kulapat Yantrasast of Why Architecture. Located on Sukhumvit 40, Dib Bangkok features 11 gallery spaces totalling 7,000m², a 1,400m² central courtyard, an outdoor sculpture garden and a penthouse space for special events.
The three floors of the exhibition space follow a minimal yet nuanced design inspired by the Buddhist concept of enlightenment.
Its inaugural exhibition "(In)visible Presence" showcases 81 significant artworks by 40 Thai and international contemporary artists. The exhibition title refers to a multisensory exploration of memory and the unseen.
Miwako Tezuka, director of Dib Bangkok, explained that the exhibition theme reaches beyond the sense of vision.
"This theme is partly driven by our wish to honour our founding father Petch Osathanugrah, and translating this impetus into our curatorial framework. We selected 81 works by 40 artists that ask how we sense and remember what is meaningful yet unseen. It is also a response to our time where the world is in image overdrive and in need of an intimate attentiveness and stillness to counterbalance it."
Here are some highlights of "(In)visible Presence".
Pars Pro Toto by Alicja Kwade. photos: Somchai Poomlard
Title: Pars Pro Toto Artist: Alicja Kwade
Located in the courtyard, Pars Pro Toto is a collection of spherical sculptures of varying sizes. Purat, founding chairman of Dib Bangkok, explained that these sculptures are single cut stones including white granite and malachite. The collection is presented to look like a planet system or constellation. The artist tries to convey the concept that humans and/or our world are a part of everything. The sculptures were created from single cut stones because Kwade aimed for these art pieces to last on Earth for 10,000 years, which is longer than a human or city lifespan.
Memory by Sho Shibuya. photo: Wisuttipong Rodpai
Title: Memory Artist: Sho Shibuya
New York-base artist Sho Shibuya is known for his painting series "Sunrise From A Small Window" where he used The New York Times as his canvas, but preserved the masthead. He began to create the series during the Covid-19 pandemic when he was stuck in his apartment and decided to capture colours of the sky from his window.
His paintings also reflect current events, such as the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia, the Black Lives Matter movement in the US and the supermoon phenomenon.
Memory consists of 14 billboard-sized paintings (8.5m by 2.5m) located outside a building by the Dib Bangkok's courtyard.
When Sho visited the city during the grand opening of Dib Bangkok, he created a special painting using the Bangkok Post as a canvas for his artwork. The painting, which preserves the Bangkok Post masthead, depicts the sky of Bangkok and is on display on the 2nd floor in the museum.
Incubate by Subodh Gupta. photo courtesy of Dib Bangkok
Title: Incubate Artist: Subodh Gupta
Incubate is a series of egg-shaped installations crafted from numerous stainless-steel utensils. The installations also incorporate chandeliers hanging from a high ceiling. Purat explains that Incubate can be interpreted as a critique of the caste system in India. While stainless steel utilities represent the middle class, the chandeliers represent the upper class. However, from a positive point of view, the chandeliers could symbolise hope or a better future.
Emotional Machine (VW) by Surasi Kusolwong.
Title: Emotional Machine (VW) Artist: Surasi Kusolwong
Emotional Machine depicts an upside-down frame of a Volkswagen Beetle hanging from the ceiling while other interior parts of the car are scattered on the floor below the frame. Pimpakaporn Pornpeng, assistant curator, explained that Emotional Machine represents artwork inspired by Surasi's childhood memories.
Surasi grew up on a houseboat in Ayutthaya and while in Finland, he travelled with his family in a Volkswagen. Viewers can get in the car and feel a floating sensation as if they were on a boat.
In addition to the artist's childhood memories, the Volkswagen Beetle holds an even greater significance in terms of history.
"The Beetle was a model that Hitler's government encouraged Germans to use in order to lower the cost of cars. In the US, the Volkswagen Beetle was also a symbol of anti-materialism," said Pimpakaporn.
Zodiac Houses by Montien Boonma.
Title: Zodiac Houses Artist: Montien Boonma
Montien created six installations inspired by the roof structures of churches and cultural architectural structures in Stuttgart, Germany. These six buildings are only a 15-minute walk apart. Inside each installation, there are constellation maps. Montien created the installations when he had cancer and realised that he was in the final stages of life.
Pimpakaporn explained that Montien attempted to question life after death and encouraged viewers to look up at the stars and ask themselves the same question.
Straight Up by James Turrell.
Title: Straight Up Artist: James Turrell
Turrell is an artist renowned for light and movement. Straight Up looks like a tower where visitors have to climb many steps to reach an entrance into a spherical room. In the room, the centre of the ceiling has a circular opening, allowing a view of the sky outside.
Pimpakaporn explained that Turrell designed the space and the light to transform our visual perception into something extraordinary. According to the colours of the light set by Turrell, the sky's colours appear as the opposite shades of the room's colour even though the sky outside remains the same colour.
The Unheard Voice by Soomboon Homtientong.
Title: The Unheard Voice Artist: Somboon Homtientong
The Unheard Voice consists of vihara temple columns, glassware, libation vessels and pieces of cloth. Somboon found these temple columns originally in Mae Sariang in an antique shop near Chiang Mai. He carefully cleaned and wrapped the columns with pieces of cloth to resemble the bodies of deceased loved ones. After that, Somboon collaborated with 14 monks to perform a funeral ritual for them. They are at rest now.
Curator Ariana Chaivaranon hopes that Dib Bangkok will be a platform for international discussion of Thai art.
"I am so excited for our local artists get the opportunity to see how Thai art, can be part of a conversation that is so much larger than one nation. They can enter a conversation that is global and transcends these boundaries and speaks to something deeper," she said.
"I want artists to be able to gain this inspiration and form a relationship with the collection and with each other and to see themselves contextualised within this broad conversation. And for the public, they finally have a space where they can form a deep relationship with the artwork here, almost like a friend that you revisit over time."
"(In)visible Presence" runs until Aug 3 at Dib Bangkok. The museum opens Thursday to Monday from 9am to midnight. The fee is 550 baht (700 baht for foreign visitors).
