
Pratchaya Phinthong Thailand, b. 1974
A group of six photographs seems to each depict a different cluster of stars in the night sky, but a few photographs among them hint that they may not be what they appear to be. In them, hands are holding the flat plane that was thought to be the very skies. They are in fact cardboards used to display lottery tickets now left with only the traces of the pins that fixed the merchandise; all unpinned by those who had dreamt of the odds. The hands holding the cardboard belong to various street vendors such as a tuk-tuk driver and a ravioli vendor. Then the boards are backlit by the vendors’ kiosk and vehicle lighting, from which the constellation of holes is rendered more definite and glamorous. Abstracted from its surrounding reality, it is like the blind hope that caused the holes from the beginning. Each puncture belongs to individuals who took part in the pipedream, which may be the same mechanism of economic abstraction that seduced them into the promise of wealth in the first place.
Exhibitions
2018/2019 Peindre la nuit / Painting the night, Centre Pompidou, Metz, curated by Jean-Marie Gallais, head of exhibitions, Centre Pompidou-Metz (now Curator of Pinault Collection, Paris/Venice)
2023 signals…瞬息: signals…storms and patterns, Para Site, Hong Kong