Special Edition Magazine by Annie Wu

Issue 1

Summer 2018

SPECIAL EDITION An ode to the man, the legacy, Montien Boonma

By Annie Wu

$30.00 SGD

Installation in Context Melissa Chiu

Interview with Boonma Albert P. Wongchirachi

Dearest Montien Navin Rawanchaikul

Only, he is not here Ketsiree Wongwan

AN ODE TO... BOONMA

A glimpse into the life, work and after(life). Featuring a lovingly curated collection of found articles, essays, and images from the internet. See each page for author details.

SPECIAL EDITION MAGAZINE We, first and foremost, believe good things take time. Our magazine is only published when the quality of content is up to par (GOOD). Sign up to our newsletter for updates about new issues and relevant info. @specialeditionmag.co.nz

Celebrating the most innovative contemporary artists of our time.

I. LIFE Introducation

II. WORK Influences

ABRIDGED ESSAY: Installation in Context

House of Hope

INTERVIEW

Lotus Sound The Annuciation and Trio TIMELINE

13 15

Rockbell Garden Das Haus der Sternzeichen Pleasure of Being, Crying, Dying and Eating

21 23 25

III. DEATH Tribute II Montien Alteir

27 31

Introduction

Ode to Bonma

Montein Boonma (1953-2000)

As one of Asia’s most gifted contemporary artists, Montien Boonma’s death in 2000 (age 47) was not only a great loss for Thailand but also for the international art community. His work explores the tensions and transformations between the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern, and developed and developing countries. Montein portrays Thailand’s shift from an agrarian culture and economy towards industrialization. This is communicated through drawings, mixed media works, and installations. sociopolitical, and later spiritual approach to explore different subject matters. He draws from local content with experiments with readymade materials, oftening conveying Buddhist teachings and human experience.

His contemplative art provides a way of life that is an alternative to the Western idolatry of the ego. His practice brought a fresh perspective to modern art.

Montien Boonma studied art in Bangkok, Rome and Paris and began exhibiting internationally in the late 1980s. Initially trained as a painter, he is best known for his sculptures and installations, which combine traditional and organic substances (such as herbs and spices, wax, gold leaf and lotus petals) with cement, steel and other industrial materials. Montien Boonma consistently searched for alternatives to conventional expressions in Thai art and looked critically at 20th century art movements, including Fluxus and Arte Povera. Boonma’s deepening belief in Buddhism drew him to the ancient concepts and symbolism of that faith, through which he found his creative voice. Herbs and healing practices played a central role in much of Boonma’s work from the 1990s when he lost close family members, including his beloved wife, to cancer, the disease to which he also succumbed. Many of his works are metaphors for hope, faith and healing, symbolising religious devotion and the possibilities of connection with the spiritual realm.

Outtake from Exhbition Introduction: Temple of the Mind, 2004, by Melissa Chiu.

Right: MANIT SRIWANICHPOOM, Montien Boonma, 1995, gelatin silver print, 50.8 x 41cm. Taken at the Art Centre, Chulalongkorn University with Montien Boonma standing with his installation Sala of Mind, 1995. Courtesy the artist and Gridthiya Gaweewong.

3 Ode to Bonma

Inspiration

Ode to Bonma

INFLUENCES

Buddhist Proverb The notion of transience is at the heart of Buddhist belief, "The lives of sentient beings are like clay pots destined to break sooner or later". Just as the Buddhist proverb above suggests, much of Montien Boonma’s art is ephemeral in nature, destined to crumble and decay.

From the exhibition catalogue, Montien Boonma: Temple of the Mind, Asia Society, NY, 2003. Apinan Poshyananda.

03. House of Hope, 1997. 05. Perfume Painting, 1997. Herbs on paper, herb essence on wood. Courtsey of National Gallery of Australia. 06. Sala for the Mind, 1995. Wood, brass bells, medicinal herbs. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia. 10. Nature’s Breath: Arokhayasala, 1995. Metal and herbs. Courtesy of Max-Ole Casdorff.

Through the use of earthenware objects, including bowls, pots and burnished terracotta bells, Montien Boonma embraces the everyday, the domestic and the temporary nature of life.

Loss and Grief

Healing Both Montien Boonma and his wife sought spiritual and physical healing to overcome their illnesses. They visited Buddhist monasteries, pagodas and other sacred pilgrimage sites. Boonma’s work is imbued with the questioning of suffering and particularly with the hope of healing using traditional medicinal herbs and spices. Boonma depicts symbols and places of healing with medicinal herbs.

Aromatics 03

During the last decade of Boonma’s life, tragic events unfolded for Boonma and his family. Boonma and his wife, Chancham, lived apart for ten years on the advice of a trusted Buddhist monk. During this time, Chancham, developed breast cancer. Subsequently, she died from the illness in 1994.

Buddhism In Buddhist teaching, sacred enclosures are the cosmic centres of contemplation and concentration. Montien Boonma’s constructions embrace this concept and visitors are invited to physically enter his installations and sculptures. In these tactile and sensuous works, Buddhist spirituality finds contemporary expression. Boonma’s work includes references to different traditions of faith and, in the case of works inspired by a visit to Europe, incorporates Christian symbolism alongside Buddhist symbolism and architecture.

Aromatic herbs and spices are used extensively in Buddhist ritual and healing, which had a strong impact on Boonma’s works. He often made his paints from herbs and spices, as well as incorporating them into his installation works. Boonma uses sandalwood, cinnamon, turmeric, jasmine and pepper. Their aromatic smell, appealing to both the senses and the spirit, entices the viewer into the space.

Ode to Bonma

Lotus The lotus in Buddhist symbolism represents purity: it blooms out of the mire but is, itself, pure. The petals, stems and budding flower represent different spiritual levels.

The lotus (buds and flowers) enhance Buddha statues in temples throughout Thailand.

Lungs In Nature’s breath: Arokhayasala, fragile lungs replace bells inside the temple structure. They represent the human body and its frailty. Here, breathing is a reference to the physical link between the inside and the outside of the body and the spiritual link between mind and body that is established through mindfulness – the awareness of breathing in and out in the practice of meditation.

Alm bowls Buddhist communit gain merit by placing food and other gifts in the bowls (alms) carried by Buddhist monks.

Bells 07

Stupa or Pagoda The shapes of Montien Boonma’s installations allude to the stupa or pagoda (Buddhist structures that house religious relics - in Thailand, they have a bell-like shape). Boonma’s work imitates the qualities inherent in Buddhist architecture, such as stillness, lightness and a sense of ascension.

Candle wax The burning of candles is a symbolic part of many Buddhist rituals. Boonma viewed burning as a symbol of the creative process that is initiated by the artist but then takes on a life of its own.

Montien Boonma was inspired to make a structure of bells, a work he called Lotus Sound, after listening to bells in the tranquil gardens of a Buddhist temple. He found that imagining the sound of a bell relieved his stress, suffering and pain and he visualised the temple melody in his stacks of terracotta bells. Interestingly, the brass bells coated with medicinal herbs inside Temple of the Mind do not contain a clapper to make them ring. Entering this space of quietness provides endless possibilities for the mind.

"For me [the shape of a monk’s bowl] is organic and geometric and ambiguous. The bottom of the bowl is curved so it can stand by itself without support from anything underneath. Monks always hold the bowl … When I think about the space in the bowl, I prefer to be inside this space which is separated from the outside world. I would like to place my mind inside the bowl"

Question marks Montien Boonma covered the walls of his wife’s hospital room with question marks. These marks represented the unknown, surprise, discovery and hope. Boonma saw faith itself as a never ending cycle of questions and answers, with answers only creating more questions. To Boonma, the spiral shape of the question mark represented movement from the outer realm, or self, to the inner, which can only be achieved through meditation.

Paragraphs

Ode to Bonma

NEW YORK: 2003 This is an abridged version of Chiu's essay in the "Temple of the Mind' exhibition catalogue.

An Architecture of the Senses

“With the fall of the Wall (Berlin) in 1989, a boom in globalization and multiculturalism resulted in Western curators turning to the periphery”

INSTALLATION IN CONTEXT

By Melissa Chiu, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Asia Society and Museum. NY.

Notes

For a detailed discussion of this work, see Michael Desmond, ‘Montien Boonma: Temple of the mind: Sala for the mind’, Islands: contem porary installations from Australia, Asia, Europe & America [Exhibition catalogue], Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1996, p.31–34.

2. Raoul Birnbaum, The healing Buddha, 1979, Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, p.12. 3.

Albert Paravi Wongchirachai, Montien Boonma: grief, Buddhism and the cosmos’, Art Asia Pacific, vol. 2, no. 3, 1995, p.74–81.

4. An account of Room in the context of Buddhist practices can be found in Somporn Rodpoon, Montien Boonma, Adelaide installations [exhibition catalogue] Adelaide. 5. Octavio Paz The labyrinth of solit ude, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1985, p.196. 6. Chôt Kanlayânamit, Sathâpat tayakam baê Thai Doêm, cited in Hiram W Woodward, The sacred sculpture of Thailand [exhibition catalogue], Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1982.

ROUNDING A CORNER at Islands, an exhibition of installations at the National Gallery of Australia in 1996, I caught a whiff of herbs. There was no definite scent, or at least not one I could identify, although the musty smell reminded me of traditional herbal pharmacies in Hong Kong, where I spent time as a child, and in other parts of Asia. But here was something different. Montien Boonma’s herb-infused terracotta-coloured wooden boxes, stacked in the shape of a stupa and with brass bells suspended inside, sought to stimulate almost all the senses: smell, hearing, touch, and sight. Although the version installed in Australia was too narrow to enter (there are photographs of a person inside the installation at other venues), the herbal aroma in the room created a cloying atmosphere, akin to the sanctuary of a Buddhist temple. Boonma’s Temple of the Mind: Sala for the Mind 1995, a fantastical building, turns upon sacred Thai architecture along with a curious confusion of the senses.1 You can smell the herbs, visually take in the height of the tower, touch the boxes, and imagine the sound of bells. The architecture itself is equally layered and complicated. The tower is made of methodically stacked yet roughly-hewn wooden boxes; each box, daubed with herbs, is painted a different shade of brown, ranging from the red of terracotta to the near-black of dark chocolate. Together, they resemble handmade mud bricks. The 18 copper-coloured bells suspended inside the installation are also smothered with herbs. Muted in appearance yet oddly statuesque, like the crumbling stone stupas piercing the skyline in so many Thai cities — especially Chiang Mai — Boonma’s modest enclosure provides a mesmeric and haunting space for reflection and meditation. Or is it a Thai Tower of Babel, an ivory tower, a control tower, a skyscraper of the mind? And what’s it all for, this architecture of the senses that seems to define Boonma’s installations? Relief, is my provisional answer — a desire to provide a space of consolidation, escape, even alleviation from the pain and the stress of modern life. But most of all, they give us relief in the sense of ‘replenishment’. 'Sala' means temple or house in Thai, suggesting that Boonma’s edifices are temples both of the mind and for the mind. They are as much about thinking as they are about believing. They are also a kind of theatre, in which ideas are acted, sung, played and mimed. This complexity, reflects the myriad oppositions underlying Boonma’s work: for example, prosaic oppositions between interior and exterior, longing and belonging, life and death, reality and totality. The opposition between interior and exterior is inherent in many of Boonma’s structures: they frequently require viewers to step inside or around them. The opposition between longing and belonging reflects both an immersion in Buddhism and a desire for a modern reunion between art and religion; because Buddhism has been the state religion in Thailand for more than 13 centuries, religious iconography dominated Thai art history until modern times. The opposition between life and death reflects events in the artist’s life following the shattering diagnosis of his wife’s terminal illness in 1991. Boonma’s works present us with a catalogue, even a cabinet, of sensual signs. Smell is the most common. Herbs — soft-stemmed plants used for medicine, among other things — have played an important role in Boonma’s work since 1995. Symbolising healing, religious devotion, and sacred space, they also cleverly entice viewers with their smell. For example, installations such as House of Hope 1996–1997, which contained black balls made from medicinal herbs;

Ode to Bonma Perfume Painting 1997, a circular painting infused with herbs; and Nature’s breath: Arokhayasala 1995, a tower made from perforated metal blocks filled with herbs, all immerse viewers in a sensual and spiritual space. The connection is apposite: herbs and healing practices have a long association with Buddhism and with the Buddhist monks who frequently cared for those who were ill. In fact, monk–physicians used their skills to spread the dharma as they travelled from India to China in the fourth century CE. There are even specific Buddhas and bodhisattvas of healing, and scriptures on them are still in circulation today. In Mahayana teachings, an important aspect of healing is the conversion of suffering into an aspiration for enlightenment; the Lotus Sutra equates healers with teachers of the law. The sinologist, Raoul Birnbaum, classifies the links between healing and Buddhism in a number of ways, the three most significant of which are the cure of disease through healing agents such as herbs and foods, surgery and other physical means; the identification of spiritual causes of and cures for disease; and, finally, the healing process as a metaphor for spiritual growth, with Buddha, the ‘King of Medicines’ seen as the Supreme Physician. In addition to herbal healing as a form of spiritual enlightenment, teachings on impermanence were said to be one of the lessons given to Shakyamuni (the first incarnation of the Buddha) to those who were terminally ill. Birnbaum states: ‘In most of the incidents where Shakyamuni took the role of healer (either as teacher or miraculous physician), the experience of disease or injury served as a catalytic factor leading to new insight and — in some cases — to Liberation.’² In 1992, Boonma discovered the writings of Luang Poh–Cha Suphatto, a respected monk from Wat Nong Phong in Ubolrachathanee in northeastern Thailand. The monk’s teachings opened Boonma’s mind to the possibility of using art to create calm, contemplative environments and spaces for meditation. Boonma’s Lotus sound, 1992 is an expression of silence. This installation is made of dark, glazed terracotta bells balanced in alternating rows to form a semicircle against the gallery wall. The terracotta bells form a shield, preventing access to gold lotus petals attached delicately to the wall, but this shield is neither monumental nor permanent, since the bells are balanced one atop another: the slightest movement could send them tumbling down. Boonma’s use of bells as a barrier is as much about a visualisation of silence as it is about the creation of an intimate if ultimately secular space for reflection and contemplation. Nonetheless, a religious allusion is achieved through the curvature of the bells, which are oddly reminiscent of Dvaravati-style stupas (1st–14th century) or the classic Sukhothai pagoda (Thai chedi: 13th–14th century). The gold lotus petals attached to the wall are the other important feature of Lotus Sound. The symbolism of plants in Buddhist mythology and teachings is complex and multi-layered, and the lotus is of unique importance. The flower has direct associations with the Buddha’s physiognomy (it is said that his foreskin was a lotus, and that lotuses sprang up beneath his feet wherever he walked), and is often used to symbolise purity: the lotus blooms out of the mire but is not itself muddied. Lotus buds and flowers accompany statues of the Buddha in temples in Thailand, frequently smothered in gold leaf to reflect their preciousness and symbolic value. Boonma has gilded the lotus petals in Lotus sound to reflect this history, but in so doing creates a palpable tension between the permanent (gold) and the impermanent (petals). The awareness of this tension is at the heart of all Buddhist teachings. Sala of the mind 1995 was another of Boonma’s installations involving sound. The work consisted of four metal sculptures, each resembling a tower constructed from three concentric black metal circular tubes tapering towards the top. Supported by three spindly legs, and the height of an average person, the towers were designed to enable a single viewer to step inside the structure, from which he or she could look out through small slits in the shape of question marks cut from the metallic tubes. Meanwhile, a voice repeated the end of a prayer or chant, creating once again the impression of being inside an enclosed, contemplative space. But why the question mark, which has been a feature of other works by Boonma, such as The prayer for Abhisot (quiet listening) 1994? According to Boonma, ‘The question mark is the symbol for the unknown realisable through meditation. The spiral shape of the question represents the movement from the outer to the inner (and vice versa) achieved through concentration.’³ Through repetition, Boonma transforms the question mark from a grammatical symbol into a device for meditation. Another interesting parallel can be drawn between Boonma’s question marks and forehead marks (urna) of the Buddha: there are distinct similarities between the curlicue style of the urna based on the syllable ‘Om’ and Boonma’s question marks. Boonma’s artworks rarely offer a simple two-dimensional viewing experience. We only ever get a glimpse or partial view, a piece or fragment of the whole that is being presented to us. This was especially so with Sala of the mind,

which, having invited viewers to step inside a black metal structure, only allowed a view of the world outside through question marks. Taking this fragmentation of vision to its limit, Room 1994 was a work that almost completely shut out the outside world.⁴ This installation conceived for the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (Adelaide Festival), consisted of a series of seven wooden structures placed in a clearing framed by large pine trees at the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. Each structure was composed of a small platform upon which an enclosure of horizontal slats rested on four legs. The height of each enclosure alternated between the structures, variously enabling viewers to stand, sit, or lie down — poses dominant in sculptures of the Buddha. The interiors of the structure were sheathed with black cloth printed with gold question and exclamation marks, while the sky was just visible through the top of the works. Here, Boonma created individual temples for inward meditation within a natural environment. The sense of interiority in Room is intrinsically linked to the notion of solitude, of which Octavio Paz writes, ‘Solitude — the very condition of our lives — appears to us as a purgation, at the conclusion of which our anguish and instability will vanish. At the exit from the labyrinth of solitude we will find reunion (which is repose and happiness), and plenitude, and harmony with the world.’ 5 According to Paz, solitude is the experience of life itself. One could say that Boonma’s consistent creation of spaces for individual contemplation is informed by such an idea. Chôt Kanlayânamit draws a connection between sacred architecture and Buddhist thought in Thailand. Kanlayânamit identifies the principles of quietude, lightness, and levitation as being foremost in both disciplines.6 Boonma’s structures reflect such qualities in their placement, materials, and structure. The architectural presence in Room, echoes the verticality of the surrounding trees, while each was designed to accommodate no more than a single person at one time. The central structure was the tallest and most complex, resembling a pagoda where the relics of monks and the ashes of others are kept. The slatted structures, made of light untreated pine wood and mostly open to the air, also provided a fantastic space of immersion or shelter for meditation — a space, it is worth recalling, in which viewers cannot see anything but the sky. Such structures abound in Boonma’s practice, although the installation is remarkable for the beauty of the sculptural units as much as for its canny use of architecture to allow another kind of vision to emerge. Boonma’s installations are almost invariably participatory: you need to get inside them to understand them. An example is Arokhayasala: Temple of the Mind 1995–6, a work shown in New York as part of the Traditions/Tensions exhibition at the Asia Society in 1996.7 This work consisted of a tower made from packing boxes painted with herbs. Inside some of the boxes were human lungs cast in aluminium, each dusted with a mix of rare and valuable pigments, spices, and herbs such as sea-holly, sickle pod, knotgrass, Indian long-pepper, citronella grass, black pepper, rose-coloured leadwort, turmeric, and many others. The substances were also scattered across the floor. The constrictive aromatic structure was similar to that of Temple of the Mind: Sala for the Mind, although Arokhayasala replaces the bells with a part of the human anatomy. This work is much more about the body than Boonma’s other works, with the artist introducing dried-out, discoloured, and seemingly preserved lungs, as a metaphor for human mortality, into a temple-like structure. Lungs could also be said to be a metaphor for the link between the inside and the outside of the body, since the lungs take in air. Lungs are also linked to meditation, in as much as the practice of meditation is defined by the breath establishing a link between mind and body. Boonma’s early work Stupa 1990 makes a similarly evocative reference to the body. Cement casts of the area inside the clenched fist, taken from many people, formed distorted and misshapen balls linked to one another by metal rods to form a pyramidal shape reminiscent of a Buddhist stupa. While revolutionary movements — most notably the Black Power Movement of the united States — have employed the clenched fists as a symbol of freedom, the use here of clenched fists as a sculptural mould is less about political freedom than it is about the creation of an imaginary community linked through architecture. One could describe Stupa as a network of touch, in fact, with each individual mould representing an imprint of an individual person’s fingers and hand — the identity of that person. By utilising the imprint made by a clenched fist, moreover, Boonma was able to evoke the presence of the human body, its scale and surroundings, without direct representation. It is in this sense that Boonma’s installations might well be considered architectural, gently stimulating all of our senses in an effort to immerse viewers in mystical structures that are profound, alluring, and subtly transforming.

Work

Ode to Bonma

House of Hope Grief carefully masked, sublimated, and then reversed.

1997

A tinge of sadness lingers, along with the intoxicating scent of spice.

Concentration of Boonma's personal experiences with the spiritual world.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT; one’s first impression here is the fragrance of Oriental spices. The artist mixed Saffron, Ginger, and Eucalyptus (to name a few) with rice paste, then painted cloudlike swirls in a band encircling a “house” of hanging beads, this enclosure broken only by a doorlike break at the far end. The beads, too, are of spice. A low platform rises into and under the “house”. The painted walls simulate the stains from candle and smoke in temples. The thousands of lines of prayer beads made of herbal medicinal balls are like chants of the Buddhist idea of 'no-soul' which can lead us to transcend suffering.

The first impression: beauty, pleasure, a relief. Only later does one learn that HOUSE OF HOPE is a kind of prayer, an offering, an elegy dedicated to the artist’s wife, who died of cancer not long ago. This work is an act of faith performed despite the failure of prior offerings. House of Hope suggests an invite to step into the house through thousands of prayer beads to experience walking in meditation. In traditional Thai iconography, the walking Buddha offers freedom from fear to his followers. Outtake from Artseensoho.org

Ode to Bonma

Montien Boonma Installation View, MONTIEN BOONMA, House of Hope, 1997.

Interview

“When we got married, a monk said we would not last together. He said we had to live apart for ten years. So I went abroad to study for three years. As soon as I got back, the monk told me to stay in Chiang Mai, and did not permit me to return to Bangkok. It was all very strange. And when I returned to Bangkok, we were again told to live separately. The monk would always remind me: ‘You must wait ten years, has it been ten years yet?’

“September 1991, I went to stage my exhibition in Japan, we found out she had cancer. So the ten years were up, and she died. All this made me believe more in the spiritual, because it seemed as if it were all fated.”

1995 / Montien

Boonma's own experience with loss, grief and faith.

“

I N T E R V I E W Excerpts from an interview by Albert Paravi Wongchirachai

Boonma With Albert from the Council of the Siam Society.

“When my wife was bedridden, in critical condition, I went and made propitiations at shrines everywhere. I would chant continuously the Jinapanjara (an ancient mantra popularised by thelate Buddhist saint, Somdej Toh of Wat Rakhang) and whatever I found in Lok Thip magazine (literally ‘Heavenly World’, a journal focused on the Buddhist supernatural). I took an oath to Mother Khun (I'm Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion) to stop eating beef. I went to pray at the Buddha relics of Doi Suthep and Khruba Sriwichai. I recited the names of all the Buddhas, gurus, and deities - it was what I hung on to, like a kind of plea.”

“I donated a pair of buffaloes, hoping to find a pregnant one. The temple did a ritual saying, ‘may you be free from calamity and bad Karma’. The buffalo was named ‘Boonrod’ (the merit of escape), because my name is ‘Boonma’ (the approach of merit). In the end it gave birth to a pair of twins, one male, one female. It turned out I saved three lives from the slaughterhouse, so I thought my wife would make it... The omens seemed to suggest that we had made merit in time.”

5 “When we pray, even monks, they never really get there. Though they might feel they receive some kind of blessing, or inspiration. Every person’s life is a process of building belief or faith - an empire for us to be able to survive. Without this empire, or this faith, we would be uncontrollable, we wouldn’t know what to do, why should we work...

Why should we live?

6 Even though we know we must die, we still try to discover something, so that we can pass a better day. Those who are sick understand this'

Work

Ode to Bonma

permanence

solidity

JUXTAPOSES transience

ÂŠ Queensland Art Gallery

fragility

Ode to Bonma

“Lotus Sound” consists of a semicircular wall of stacked tarracotta bell structures which, when installed, corner off a segment of a given space. Behind the screen, gilded wood leaves are attached to the walls, suggesting the falling petals of a lotus flower.

Lotus Sound Words by artisgoodstuff.wordpress

1993 INSTALLATION 300x350x300cm - Terracotta bells - Glided wood Queensland Art Gallery Collection

Montien Boonma’s belief that an artist must have a sound understanding of his own place in relation to religions, cultural conditions resulted in his works having a great influence from the national religion, Buddhism. His works usually comment on the cultural and religious identity of modern Thai. In the work of “Lotus Sound” (1992), Buddhism influenced various areas, such as the material used, intentions, symbols chosen, installation and presentation. Materials used in the work are made with the used of simple local materials such as gilded wood and terracotta. Besides, the commonness of the used materials in Thailand, representing native Thai art, terracotta and gilded wood are popular mediums through out history used in sculpturing of wooden statues of Buddha and other spiritual forms. This suggests the long-live of Buddhism. Boonma’s work expresses his concern over the decline of cultural identity. This piece, also concerned by the receding importance of Buddhist practice in daily Thai life, he sought to re-create the inspiring and resonant sounds of bells in temple sanctuaries. Boonma was inspired to make a structure of bells after listening to bells in the tranquil gardens of a Buddhist temple. Then he found

that imagining the sound of a bell relieved his stress, suffering and pain and he visualised the temple melody in his stacks of terracotta bells. In this installation, the structures of bell provokes the audiences’ imagination to the ring of the bells. However, as the bells does not contain a clapper to make them ring. Entering this space of quietness provides endless possibilities for the mind, creating peace and calm to the viewers. This is related to the teachings of Buddhism, to gain inner peace and harmony. Also, the structure of the installation, draws its inspiration from both traditional symbolism in Buddhism— interpreting the walls of bells as at once permanent but perishable, solid but fragile. From the sculptural operations of minimalism—repeating the same sculptural object over and over again to build a wall, this suggests the routine Buddha worship practiced by the Siamese on a daily basis, reminding the viewer of their religious practices. For the same reason of creating inner peace for the viewers, the symbols chosen are carefully considered. The Lotus is a symbolic flower in Buddhist thought and is associated with the birthplace of Buddha and enlightenment. It is also a coveted plant with many medicinal properties. It symbolizes purity: it blooms out of the mire but is itself pure. The petals,

Inspired by the Buddhist notion of existence as a state of constant f low.

stems and budding flower represent different spiritual levels. Lotus buds and flowers enhance statues of the Buddha in temples throughout Thailand. This again reminds the viewers of their religion. The way the petals of lotus are arranged, suggests the holiness of them, as if angels, from the heaven above. However the fact that they are falling may suggest that decline of the religion identity. Or on another hand, as the resemblance of holy water being dropped, it suggests that Buddha is sending forms of protection and blessing (in the form of holy lotus) to the people. The terracotta bells are part of the installation also because bells are very frequently seen in the worshiping temples.

Attempts to convey the message of fragility and impermanence feelings evoked within Boonma after the loss of his wife.

If one bell is to crash to the ground by simply being touched by one of the falling ‘lotus leafs’, it'll have an adverse affect on the remaining bells, ending their existence and changing the direction their life may take.

Artist Statement

Ode to Bonma

1991

SCULPTURAL BOWL Hollow or solid, the interior may be light or dark, full or empty. SIGNIFICANCE Members of Buddhist communities gain merit by placing food and other gifts (alms) in the bowls carried by Buddhist monks.

Ode to Bonma

The Annunciation "The “SPIRITUAL IMAGE" is an abstract idea which performs or represents it's image in various kinds of materials and in different objects’ forms. In my works, I'd like to play with the functions and forms of these objects about the holy spirit" M

Queensland Art Gallery Collection

PANEL A Charcoal, pigment and glue on paper. PANEL B Earth, pigment and glue on paper. PANEL C Ashes, pigment and glue on paper.

Trio

Timeline

Ode to Bonma

Birth FEB 25th, Bangkok, Thailand. Second child of six.

1953

1978

B.F.A. (Painting), Silpakorn University, Bangkok.

Became a monk at Cholaprathrangsti Temple, Nonthaburi, Thailand. Married Chancham Mukdaprakom in Bangkok.

1986 1988

STUDIED in Sculpture, Ecole Nationale Supeireure des Beaux - Arts, Paris, France.

TEACHER: mixed media sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiangmai University, Thailand.

Ode to Bonma

STUDIED Maitrise Nationale en Arte Plastiques, Universite de Paris VIII, Faculte de Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arts Plastique Saint- Denis, France.

1989

M.F.A. (Painting), Silpakorn University, Bangkok. Birth of Montien's son, Choompong Boonma.

WIFE, CHANCHAM, DIES FROM BREAST CANCER (APRIL).

1994 1995

INSTRUCTOR (Intermedia): Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

1996 1997 2000 INSTRUCTOR: Faculty of Painting, Scuplture and Graphic Arts, Silpakorn Unviersity, Bangkok, Thailand.

Death Died at Siriaj Hospital, Bangkok. AUGUST 24th, cremated at Nonthaburi, Cholaprathanrangsit temple, Thailand. AUGUST 25th, ashes released on the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok.

Buddhist proverb

Ode to Bonma

Boonma began to draw alms bowls early each morning as part of his meditation.

MONTIEN BOONMA, Untitled, 2000. Metal, plates, bowl, tables. » »

UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER, The late Montien Boonma. Unknown date.

Ode to Bonma

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The lives of sentient beings are like clay pots destined to break sooner or laterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - Buddhist proverb

Work

Ode to Bonma

Rock Bell Garden BRONZE AND STONE SEEN IN TACHIKAWA

1994

Within a secluded garden, there are two structures beaded together from perforated bronze bells that have weathered a cool green hue, like oxidized copper. The smaller of the two is a metre high conical sculpture with a rock supported in the centre. The larger is an enclosure about four metres tall and consists of two walls that form incomplete cylinders that wrap around one another to enshrine a rock in the centre. Although the bells may be touched, it’s not immediately apparent that access to the garden is permitted, and although they would make a sound; the clappers have been excluded, rendering the bells silent and lending the structure the ambience of a temple. Frequently cited in relation to his Buddhist beliefs, Boonma’s garden seems almost kōan-like, producing as he has an almost unattainable refuge for meditation that is seldom entered.

Originally published in Tokyo Art Beat, 2013

LEFT: Montien Boonma, Sketch for Rock Bell Garden (installation). Collection of Piphitmaya. RIGHT: Montien Boonma, Rock Bell Garden 1994. Japan.

The element of the bell-shaped vessel continued to appear in other works by Boonma, and in 1994 he produced “Rock Bell Garden” in Tokyo as part of a public art commission. For this work, more than a thousand brass bells were stacked to create a cylindrical enclosure around a black stone, once again surrounded by a circular passageway. The straight approach to and circular movement through the work resembled the circumambulatory movement typical of Buddhist stupas.

Outtake from Culture Base, 2013

Ode to Bonma Ode to Bonma

Work

Ode to Bonma

Das haus der Sternzeichen Liverpool Biennial

Exhibited at John Moores University

1999 Outtake from biennial.com

Montien Boonma's subject matter is profoundly grounded in the spiritual traditions of Thailand, yet he has consistently sought alternatives to the strict confines of traditional art.

For TRACE, Boonma installed six cylindrical canopies raised on tripods. They stood like a group of monumental figures under the skylight of the old sculpture court at John Moores University, and were designed so that the viewer could duck under the canopy.

ONE'S FIRST IMPRESSION of the dark interior was likely to be strong smell of spices applied by the artist to induce a meditative state. The bright autumn light from the skylight penetrated small holes drilled into the sculpture, creating the appearance of constellations in the night sky. The bodily state of meditation was thus linked to the infinity of space.

Uses shapes, forms, and different textures to explore the process of meditation and healing. The bodily state of meditation linked to the infinity of space. Reflects an tragic yet inspirational life in which love, death, and rebirth intertwine.

Ode to Bonma

PRIVATE

OPAQUE

OPRESSIVE

OPEN

P UBLIC

PERFORATED

TRANQUIL

Â»

CLOSED

Montien Boonma, Das Haus der Sternzeichen, 1999. Courtesy of Anita Carey-Yard, Schloss Post.

Work

Ode to Bonma

The Pleasure of Being, Crying, Dying and Eating This installation is a reflection of the cyclical and transitory nature of human life. It's title refers to the Buddhist belief that life entails the stages of pleasure (eating) and suffering (crying) from birth (being) to death (dying) and again in rebirth.

Ceramic bowls, wooden tables, cloth and brass

Ordinary objects and bodily motifs

Exploration of Buddhist worldview

Expression of his own personal grief

Ode to Bonma

1995 RECONSTRUCTED 2015

Currently on exhibtion at the National Gallery of Singapore (2018)

RIGHT: Anita Hackethal, MONTIEN BOONMA, Bone shaped chopsticks (details), photographs. Courtesy of Designboom. BELOW: Annie Wu, MONTIEN BOONMA, The Pleasure of Being, Crying, Dying and Eating, photograph, 2018.

Tribute

Ode to Bonma

A TRIBUTE DEAREST MONTIEN Sunday June 16 2013

FUKUOKA, JAPAN

BY NAVIN RAWANCHAIKUL Outtake from artasiaparcific.com

DEAREST AJARN MONTIEN, Greetings from Japan! It has been almost three years since I last wrote to you. Today I would like to consult with you about a project that has something to do with your family. As always, I trust that you will once again guide me along the right path. Yesterday, I met Mr. Masahiro Ushiroshoji, the former Chief Curator at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. Do you remember him? He is one of my mentors and we were neighbors when I first settled in Japan almost 20 years ago. At that time my wife and I lived in a co-ophousing project called Murozumi Danchi: the type of community with lots of apartment buildings that represents the urbanization of Japanese society. I found that the place was filled with lots of elderly people living alone and, after years of wandering around, in early 1998 I came up with an idea for a video work that gives them a voice. The result was a public exhibition in front of a supermarket located in the center of the community. It was held at the beginning of spring so we celebrated the show with a picnic under some Sakura trees. At the picnic I remember those elderly collaborators sang a traditional song of spring about the beauty of blossom and its short life. A much-loved cultural icon in Japan, Sakura is a reminder of our humanity—our mortality. The flowers that bloom today are soon dead and falling, but there is still a beauty in the cycle. Recalling this reminds me of how you once said that you like the way the Japanese think the beauty of pottery lies in its fragility. With such awareness of impermanence, I can understand why you were satisfied when your towers of ceramic bells and bowls collapsed and smashed into pieces. Over lunch with Ushiroshoji-san, we talked about you a lot and he was happy to receive a copy of an old photo of you both. Taken at the opening of the “New Art from Southeast Asia” show in Japan back in 1992, I found it at the Jim Thompson Art Center. They had borrowed it from your house when preparing a commemorative exhibition on the occasion of your would-be 60th birthday. Put together by our dear friend Jeab and her team, it is a unique show featuring unseen sketches and archival materials recently found at your house. It is still on view and I am glad that I went to the opening-day symposium. Everyone who attended said it felt like your birthday party! I was still a student but that year meant a lot to me. It was the time when I became your assistant and you kindly brought me and some of my fellow students to Bangkok for our debut show under the label of “New Art from Chiang Mai.” The first Chiang Mai Social Installation, in which we used temples and cemeteries as exhibition sites, was also launched. I vaguely remember joining my friends to install your work in a pond at Wat Umong temple—a set of terra-cotta alms bowls that sank into the water after a few days of floating. I know you often used alms bowls as metaphors for the mind, or what you used to call mind practice, but I did not discover their meaning until recently, when I got a chance to carry one myself during a spell as a monk. During this time I often thought about you and felt we were connected again. I would also like to share with you that I recently got a chance to visit your mother-in-law, whom I know you were close to. She is 88 now but still in good shape and as elegant as I remember her. She could not remember me at first, but when I told her my name she knew immediately who I was. We had a great time talking about the old days and found it funny that I still remember her home phone number. This is because back when you moved from Chiang Mai

Ode to Bonma

After II

to Bangkok to look after your sick wife she was our main means of communication. As things turned out, I did not get a chance to meet her in person until shortly before you departed, but 13 years on I was glad to see her again. It brought memories flooding back. A few days later I got a chance to meet Bank and asked him about it. While I respect that this empty canvas is for his use, I proposed to him that he let me share his legacy by creating a dialogue between your work and mine. As a father of a young child, I feel that it is somehow relevant to my own life. I am also reminded about my relationship with my own dad and would like to share my experiences with him. Bank has accepted my proposal but asked me to tell you about it, so let me explain further. I plan to create a painting with the same dimensions as your frame but nothing will be removed from the original wall. The painting would portray your family all together through traces of memory and photographs found at your house. In it, Bank’s grandma would sit in front of the piano, surrounded on both sides by loved ones from past and present. Bank would appear twice, both as a little boy and as giant as he is now! I have already shown a sketch of it to them. They like that I have included the two family dogs, Coke and Cake, and have also suggested that I add Kib-kab, the late dog that you and your wife adopted from Silpakorn University. Bank is searching for a photo of Kib-kab for me, as well as other dogs that were part of your family. I would also include Bank’s dinosaur toys and some souvenirs from your travels abroad that still decorate your house. Among these items there would also be a telescope that connects to the final stage of your life and work. Jeab told me that she took you out in a wheelchair to buy it for Bank as a birthday present. I was moved to learn that you hoped to use it with him to watch a lunar eclipse that was happening soon. That was less than a month before you departed, so we are wondering whether you got the chance to do it. It is a sad but beautiful tale that helps us to recall how thoughtful you were and how much you value family. In my painting of your family reunion, the lunar eclipse is seen against a starry sky, amid reflections of your question marks and exclamations. I will name this work after one of your masterpieces, House of Hope, and I have told Bank that I would love to do another after finishing this one. The end result will be a pair of similar paintings. One would be given to your family, and the other I would display at my new studio in Chiang Mai. Speaking of which, there is a long drama about this dream studio that has landed me in a sea of depression. I pray that the reconciliation of the two paintings at both our houses of hope will help me to reevaluate things before I continue in whatever life path is best. Finally, to complete the project, I would like to request something from your late wife. At the exhibition at the Jim Thompson Art Center, I learned that one of your unrealized projects was an installation about your family that would accompany Chopin’s Funeral March. I was subsequently told that your wife used to play this tune on her piano and that you were very fond

of it and even chose it for your funeral music. To pay homage to your love for each other, I would like to use this music to reconnect your family. We are still searching for the original “Piano Pieces for Children” scorebook that she used to play from but we have already found a lovely young girl who is willing to collaborate. Her name is Mimi. She was really inspired after I told her about you and why I would like to do this project. If you accept, she will come over to your place and perform the Funeral March on your wife’s piano. I know that this tune is a token of love, but I promise to do it with tenderness and respect. Bank and the rest of his family have accepted and his grandma has agreed to be filmed as well. I hope you will grant me permission to realise this project. Please be with us for the shoot next Sunday and come to visit the exhibition at Chulalongkorn Art Center, where I will present this work among pieces by your former student-cum-assistants from Chiang Mai. The show is being put together by Ajarn Somporn, your beloved teacher. I have told my wife all about this work and she would like to see the result. We are talking about going to Bangkok in mid-August during Japan’s Obon Festival, when people return to their hometowns and the spirits of ancestors are said to visit their homes. My daughter Mari has said she would prefer to go to her grandma’s place in Japan and join them in carving small horse and cow offerings out of cucumbers and eggplants. The Japanese believe the horses enable their ancestors to travel home quickly and the cows help them to return slowly. Let’s see if we can convince her to make those horses and cows in Bangkok traffic. Or maybe we should create a Taxi Gallery salad instead? By the way, my wife has just reminded me to call Bank, as he phoned when I was out. I’m sure you’ll be proud to hear that, having followed his parents’ path, he graduated recently from your alma mater. He also seems to have his dad’s passion for Japanese culture, but a different side of it. Currently, he is in Tokyo studying Japanese before fulfilling his dreams in anime world! Before I sign off, I would like to tell you that I recently visited the ruined pagoda near Chiang Mai city gate. I know that was the place where you found inspiration for the pagoda series you created when you lived in Chiang Mai, so in front of it I prayed for you and recalled how you believe in art and its power to engage with society and our roots. Thank you so much. I hope that your great spirit continues to guide me. To this day, I always say I am a proud student of Montien Boonma. Without you, I would never have made it this far (or ever written this long a letter!). We all miss you! Humble Regards, Yours, Navin

Tribute II

Ode to Bonma

NAVIN RAWANCHAIKUL, House of Hope, 2013. Oil on canvas, 100 Ã&#x2014; 180 cm. Courtsey of the artist.

After

Ode to Bonma

He (Montien Boonma) was a truly experimental artist as one can see from the sketches and photographs, or even the models he made and collected throughout the development of his artworks.

What has become of Boonma's works?

Only, he is not here By Ketsiree Wongwan

Ode to Bonma

Article orginally published in art4d

Montien Boonma would have been 64 years old this year if he were here, instead his archive is left behind in 40 Sq metres.

ontien Boonma passed away in 2000 but his artistic legacy accumulated throughout the 17 years of his glorious career, earning him international recognition with exhibitions in countries across the world including activities held as an homage to one of Thailand’s most revered artists. Recently, in 2017, his only son, Jumphol Boonma, officially opened ‘Montien Atelier,’ a space that brings together works, sketches, photographs, notebooks, letters, books and bits and pieces from his artworks, etc., essentially everything related to Montien’s artistic opus.

intended, partly because the limited space of only around 40 square meters can barely accommodate the large scale of Montien’s artworks (particularly the installation pieces and not including the number of works that have been regularly exhibited). Storage, according to Somsuda, is a space that brings together Montien’s artistic repertoire for interested individuals to learn more about the artist’s working process. The selection of exhibited objects highlights the display of works that are rarely shown and embody the thought and working process as well as artistic experiments of Montien Boonma.

Montien Atelier occupies the second-floor space of the house that Montien once lived in. The residence is located on the street called Soi Ngamwongwan 25 in Nonthaburi province. After years of being left unattended, the house was renovated following the idea of Jumphol and close family members with the ground floor functioning as a restaurant/coffee house. The space at the front of the house is used to host workshops while the second floor has been transformed into a gallery space, following the project owner’s initial intentions.

“From every piece of his work, we can see how Professor Montien was a keen researcher with an interest in and study of so many different things. He was a true experimental artist as one can see from the sketches and photographs or even the models he created and collected during the development of his works. For instance, the configuration of the bricks in one of his installations was the result of his interest in local wisdoms. The exhibited bricks were taken from the items left at his house and from our speculation these bricks were used as an experiment for one of his installation pieces. The idea is to show how the works were developed, and what his thought process and working methods were,”

“When we went through dad’s stuff kept at the house, we came across a great number of items such as sketches, photographs, or parts of his installation pieces. The discovery got us thinking about what we could do with all these objects that we found,” said Jumphol of the origin of the project. “That was one problem. Another problem was the rather confined space on the house’s second floor, which could barely hold the sketches that we had, especially if they were framed. It just so very happened that I went to Chiang Mai and had a chance to meet Rirkrit (Rirkrit Tiravanija), and he suggested that we should create an archive instead of a gallery. We discussed this idea with Tarn (Somsuda Paimsamrit – a curator of Jim Thompson Gallery who co-curated “Montien Boonma: Unbuilt/Rare Works”), and she proposed that we should create storage where father’s story could be told in a timeline. So we decided to go with that idea and put everything we found into categories with an additional digital archive.” Apart from Somsuda, the key members behind the project included Aphisit Nongbua, Montien’s important protégé and assistant who joined the team as the project’s consultant with part of the funding for ‘Storage’ as Somsuda calls it, is not a gallery space that exhibits the artist’s works like Jumphol initially

Somsuda told art4d before further explaining how all the exhibited works in Montien Atelier mark only 25% of all the items found in the house, thanks to Montien’s organized documentation. “The photographs range from when he was a student at Silpakorn University all the way to his Poh Chang College years. We got a hold of some photographs with unusual compositions and paintings done directly on the photographs. They are proof of his interest in collage and attempt to break away from two dimensional forms since he was young as well as how such interest might have been developed into the installation pieces that we all know today.” The order of the presentation of the exhibited works in the storage is done wchronologically from the time when Montien was an art student at the Faculty of Painting of Silpakorn University, to when he was working primarily in watercolor with White Group during his post-college years in France, before

The selected works encapsulate these turning points while the chronological arrangement of the storage allows for viewers to have a better understanding of Montein's artistic process and the invisability between his life and art.

ADDRESS SOI NGAMWONGWAN 25 NONTHABURI PROVINCE, BANGKOK, THAILAND

<< he returned home and worked as a professor at Chiang Mai University when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and the final years of his life before he passed away from lung cancer. In each period, presented are turning points in Montien’s artistic career such as the time when he began using found objects instead of pricey materials, a decision speculated to be influenced by Italy’s Arte Povera movement. With financial limitations, considering the fact that he was working only as a governmental officer, and his interest in social issues during the transitional period that changed Thailand from an agricultural to an industrial country, his artistic consciousness became more engaged in religious issues after the sickness of his wife. It was a time when Montien became more oriented toward the use of hard objects as well as installations that played with viewers’ sensory perceptions and experiences such as smell, sound and sense of insecurity. The selected works encapsulate these turning points while the chronological arrangement of the storage allows for viewers to have a better understanding of Montien’s artistic process and the indivisibility between his life and art. House of Hope (2013) by Navin Rawanchaikul is the only piece of art in the space that is not Montien’s. Comprised of a painting and a work of video art, this tributary piece’s connection with Montien is its creator, Navin, who was one of Montien’s closest assistants and helped the master in the installation of his works. Navin visited the house and found a canvas Montien had prepared for Jumphol to work on a painting. After measuring the frame, Navin painted a family portrait of the same size, depicting the assemblage of the family’s memories from past to present. The video documents the images of the house with the sound of a piano playing Chopin’s Funeral March in the background. The song, which was one of Montien’s favorites, was regularly played by Montien’s wife when they lived in the house together. “We included this particular piece of work because we want the viewers to see what the house was like before it was renovated” Somsuda succinctly explained of the reason behind the decision, which seems to be another successful attempt by the curatorial team to overcome the project’s spatial limitations by choosing only the works that are meaningful to the story they wish to tell.

Ode to Bonma