Pratchaya Phinthong Thailand, b. 1974
Pratchaya Phinthong (b.1974) creates situations as an invitation made to the visitor to share an experience with him - which often arise from the confrontation between different social, economic, or geographical systems. His projects without any specific or pre-defined forms suggest a crack in which the spectators are invited to fill the gaps. He builds a set, a fiction, or a process where he can test our perceptions. He proposes to his audience a story with multiple paths, combined with subjective perceptions. His projects are often constructed in a dialogue between the artist and the others, making the artist’s movement glide towards the social field. Phinthong’s often open-ended projects intervene in global social and economic structures and engage directly with geographical and social contexts, trafficking in everyday meanings, hopes and troubles. In 2012, a new commission Sleeping Sickness (2012) for dOCUMENTA (13), which develops from Phinthong’s ongoing research in Africa, attempts to counter a deadly disease, transmitted throughout Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zambia by the tsetse fly, with an ecological flytrap produced by a Thai company and deployed by local people. Meanwhile, a series of his collaborative sculptures Spoon responds to conflicts in Laos between 1964 and 1973 when the United States dropped two million tons of cluster bombs, which later turned into spoons by Laotian villagers as part of their efforts to clear farmland.”
reference: Delfina Foundation
His major solo exhibitions include Singapore Art Museum (upcoming in 2024); Art Centre Silpakorn University, Wang Thapra, Bangkok (2020); Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok (2015); Lothringer 13, München (2013); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2013); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Rennes (2012); Modern art museum, GAMeC, Bergamo (2010); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brétigny (2010).
Phinthong has also been represented at the Istanbul Biennial; Gwangju Biennale; 2nd CAFAM Biennale, Beijing; dOCUMENTA (13); New Museum Triennial, New York; Taipei Biennial, Taipei; Singapore Biennale; Dhaka Art Summit; The Center for Contemporary, Tel Aviv; Kunsthalle Basel; Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Centrale, Brussels; National Art Center and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; 14th Biennale de Lyon; Biennale of Contemporary Art, Timisoara; Para Site, Hong Kong; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, MACAN, Jakarta, amongst others.
Phinthong’s work is included in the collections of prestigious institutions including M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; GAMeC, Bergamo; and SF MOMA, San Francisco.
Reference: gp agency, Chisenhale Gallery, Delfina Foundation, KADIST, The Island Club
