Korakrit Arunanondchai
With history in a room filled with people with funny names 4
20 October – 28 November 2018
Video: 23:32 mins.
Copyright Korakrit Arunanondchai. Courtesy Carlos/Ishikawa, London
The performance character ”The Denim Painter” and his fictive universe was invented by the Thai-born artist Korakrit Arunanondchai. In the format of a monologue he is addressing ”Chantri,” a drone whose sweeping viewpoint may offer a new gaze up on the world. “Who carries the memory of the world? And who will recover it once we are no longer here?” The artist returns to these questions. In the fourth film in the series, ageing is addressed as a topic. Forgetfulness and memory may carry its own reincarnation. Arunanondchai’s imagery swiftly moves from the public mourning rituals of the deceased emperor in Bangkok to demonstrations in response to the inauguration of the current US president, to models of prehistoric humans, captured wales, or fictive creatures. In this era of conflicts between civilisation and the planet, advanced technology and trans human conceptions, may offer an alternative? The artist asks the drone, “Do you have any beliefs, Chantri?” or, “Will we manage to become one with you and dematerialize into the flow of the great spirit?”
About Korakrit Arunanondchai
Born in 1986 in Bangkok, Thailand, Korakrit Arunanondchai received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from Columbia University in 2012. Today he lives in New York and Bangkok. Arunanondchai is internationally active in the fields of film, sculpture, and performance art. He has had major solo shows at Palais du Tokyo in Paris in 2015 and Kiasma in Helsinki in 2017. Currently Korakrit Arunanondchai is one of the exhibition artists at the Athens Biennale together with Alex Gvojic.
Rebecka Wigh Abrahamsson
Curator Uppsala Art Museum
Uppsala Art Museum in collaboration with Uppsala International Short Film Festival.