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Installation artist Arin Rungjang is one of the standout figures of Bangkok’s emerging generation, but T-shirts are his bread and butter. On any given Sunday, he can be found at the Chatuchak weekend market, where he runs three small stalls selling shirts to dek naew—members of Thailand’s indie youth culture that shuns the consumerist mainstream—and the odd backpacker sniffing around for local alternative merchandise. Chatuchak is a sprawling microcosm of the city’s incessant mercantile traffic; the atmospheric clutter conceals everything from chic homewares to pre-loved sneakers, from exotic pets to pirated art films. On and off since the 1980s, it has been a favoured meeting place for the experimental art scene, including the Ukabat (meteorite) Group around veteran political artist Vasan Sitthiket. But for Arin it is more like a day-job, and a far cry from the European galleries where his work is increasingly being placed.
The Western art world only really discovered Thailand in the 1990s, fast producing globetrotters of luminaries like Surasi Kusolwong, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Navin Rawanchaikul. Though their careers are primarily pursued elsewhere, this generation of artists still likes to call Thailand home, and includes others more firmly rooted here, such as Araya Rasjdamrearnsook, Manit Sriwanichpoom and Sakarin Krue-On. Their success has fuelled demand for a new generation, and a steady stream of European curators, many in town for a mere weekend shop-over, but some with a more sustained interest in Thai contemporary art. Curiously, the younger artists that seem to fare best are the ones most firmly planted here. Most have some foreign education, and show their work abroad, yet the pull of the cosmopolite does not seem to affect them.
Arin secured his... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline