Between Art and Politics: A Report from Bangkok

Brian Curtin

In March this year, the Thai pro-democracy activist Chaiamorn Kaewwiboonpan, a musician who goes by the nickname Ammy, was arrested after publicly burning a portrait of the incumbent king of Thailand, Rama X Maha Vajiralongkorn, in Bangkok. This incident took place a few days earlier in front of a prison, to protest the detention of four activists there on accusations of lèse-majesté, the country’s notorious criminalising of insult to royalty. The incident was part of a groundswell of youth-led activism since early 2020 which is demanding reform of the Thai monarchy, the dissolution of the current government, and a new constitution. Bangkok has since seen mass rallies, violent stand-offs between protestors and the police and the declaration of a state of emergency.

Ammy’s iconoclastic action is remarkable not only because it explicitly solicits the ferocity of the regularly used lèse-majesté law. This affront to a traditionally revered, sanctified, figure — a reverence rooted in premodern notions of divine kingship — is so unprecedented and taboo that rumours of a possible execution of Ammy have circulated. And here we can recall how the infamous October 1976 massacre of leftist protestors at Thammasat University in Bangkok was partly provoked by (untrue) media claims that they had mocked an effigy of royalty, with members of the public then joining the actions of police and paramilitaries.

But, however, the young man’s belligerence could be seen as inevitable, or not entirely a shocking surprise, or not, as some commentators have suggested, an exceptional, youthful revolt. While the protestors initially organized last year because the current parliament, led by military strongman Prayut Chan-o-cha, dissolved the progressive, youth-oriented Future Forward Party, their agenda then led to open criticism of Rama X’s increasingly imperious conduct and called for reform of the monarchy. International media have regularly reported on the monarch’s lavish spending and crude political maneuvering to consolidate power since his coronation in 2019. Moreover, the current protests can be linked to recurrent popular unrest since the early years of the new century which “led” to Prayut’s coup d'état in 2014. In that earlier context, the academic Somsak Jeamteerasakul, an opposition figure, publicly issued an eight-point proposal to reform Thailand’s monarchy.

In a word, there has been a steady thread of near-republicanism for some time as part of Thailand’s fractious political landscape. And, anyway, how convincing could the notion of divine kingship be in the contemporary world? What role are artists playing amidst this radical shift? And what types of artists have emerged in its longish shadow? My book ‘Essential Desires: Contemporary Art in Thailand’ (2021) broadly maps the evolution of the splits and divisions among artists and curatorial projects that have grown since the political meltdown began in the early years of this century. Pertinent examples for the current crisis include an exploration of how certain events became legible in regard to context. These include the new Bangkok Art Biennale which was inaugurated during the time of military rule (2014-2019) and, in spite of claims of subversiveness by curator Apinan Poshyananda, arguably functioned as a spectacular panacea to autocratic governance. Prayut segued from dictator to Prime Minister in widely criticised elections after military rule officially ended. Jim Thompson Art Centre’s on-going support for projects related to the Northeast of Thailand, known as Isan, assert a firm claim of cultural difference for a region that has been historically disenfranchised by Bangkok elites. Isan is the powerbase of the so-called ‘red-shirts’ who led the initial protests against the dissolution of a democratically elected government in 2006.

Many contemporary artists are critically rethinking tropes of nationalist sentiment and the range of ideologies that have been formed under a mantle of “Thainess” such as tradition and Buddhism. They are approaching local politics in subtly deconstructive terms. Be Takerng Pattanopas and Jakkai Siributr have complexified Buddhist iconography and questioned the role of belief and spirituality in contemporary life. And Pratchaya Phinthong marked the “anniversary” of the coup in 2014 with an installation on one of the public protest sites in central Bangkok, a sealed space that suggested exclusion and surveillance.

Be Takerng Pattanopas, 'My Heart Is on the Right Side (HAL-O 2)', 2015, mixed media, 210 x144 x 35cm. Photo by Oat Rujeraprapa.

Pratchaya Phinthong, 'Who Will Guard the Guards Themselves', Bangkok, 2015. Image courtesy of gb agency.

And yet others are pointing to, or staging, issues of antagonism and conflict with a sense that the current upheaval is an aberration and will pass. There has been much metaphorising of the symbolism of different political factions among certain artists, without insight into the problems that caused the rifts.

Therein lies the significance of Ammy’s public burning of a sacred icon. The alleged importance of the King of Thailand as a figurehead of unity and securer of the nation’s future has become so entrenched in the modern era that to attack it is to demand an entirely different type of society. That difference is one where citizens would be agents of rights and representation, not expected to be enthralled to a given, profoundly hierarchical power. As one means of thinking about how and why this is desirable, we can note recent reports on Rama X’s budgeting of billions of Thai baht for merely one year of royal duties, the disappearance of eight prodemocracy activists since 2014, and the regular intimidation and imprisonment of individuals on trumped-up lèse-majesté accusations and charges.

As my book argues, the more interesting of contemporary Thai artists typically unsettle what art critic Max Crosbie-Jones perceptively characterised as the “smooth image” of Thailand1 , the country’s famed international profile as halcyon, tolerant and liberal. Only last year, Bangkok mounted the sprawling (and ironically titled!) exhibition ‘Spectrosynthesis: Exposure of Tolerance’, an unprecedented showcase of Asian LGBTQ artists-and, indeed, Thailand is one of the few countries in Asia that could allow an exhibition with this theme. But within weeks of the opening night, Ohm Phanphiroj’s harrowing film ‘Underage’, in which he interviews teenage male prostitutes about their miserable lives in Bangkok, was quietly removed due to complaints. With this example, and though Ammy’s fate is still unknown, we can see that the influence of the Thai state’s concern to guard against uncomfortable truths is clearly steadfast and thorough. But perhaps now we can begin to ask less about the artists who are challenging the political status quo, and rather why any artist interested in supporting it would continue to do so.

Ohm Phanphiroj still from 'Underage' film, 2012.

Note

1. Max Crosbie-Jones, “Why Are They Here?’ – Bangkok Art Biennale, ‘Escape

Routes’, Review”, ArtReview, February 17, 2021, https://artreview.com/whyare-they-here-bangkok-art-biennale-escape-routes-review/