Bangkok jumps aboard the art biennale boat – well, it was called Venice of the East
- Thai capital joins the ranks of cities hosting contemporary art biennales
- Three-month Bangkok Art Biennale 2018 starts this week with Beyond Bliss the theme. Krabi to host another
Plans for the first Bangkok Art Biennale were first unveiled at a ceremony held at the Venice Biennale 18 months ago, and this week, the three-month celebration of contemporary art in the Thai capital kicked off, with a distinct whiff of Venice about it.
Guests are ferried along the now rubbish-free Chao Phraya river from one grand venue to another. Religious sites dot the landscape and a number of Buddhist temples, or wats, have agreed to display site-specific artworks, just as churches do in Venice during the biennale there.
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The historic, colonial-style East Asiatic Building isn’t quite as old or grand as a palazzo but it is nonetheless an impressive venue: its vacant halls filled with contemporary art and its waterfront facade opening up to a pier where artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset’s eight metre-high Zero (2018) stands on the water’s edge.
Comparisons between a fast-growing Asian metropolis with a population of 10 million and an Italian city that is one giant museum piece with just over a quarter of a million inhabitants only go so far. But the Bangkok Art Biennale is part of the city’s continuing struggle to transform its international image from sleaze capital to refined cultural centre and live up to its 19th century sobriquet of Venice of the East.
The global fashion for hosting contemporary art biennales has reached Thailand late. There are dozens of major international art fairs and biennales in Asia alone and new ones are added to the list every few months.