Bangkok Art Biennale 2024 | Anish Kapoor at the mall

A large coral-coloured resin horn, Good Like Gaia by Italian artist Lello Esposito, curves to the sky in the gardens at the Wat Prayoon temple complex. Eyeballs pop up at the most unexpected places across Bangkok: British artist Bruce Asbestos’s wobbly, green Eye of Newt at Museum Siam, inspired by frogspawn and the idea of change, and the late French-American artist Louise Bourgeois’ carved granite Eyes, signifying introspection, at Wat Pho.

And 10 minutes away, at Siwamokkhaphiman Hall, part of the Grand Palace complex, a 19th-century clock — a gift to the monks from Thai king Rama V — takes on significance juxtaposed with a video installation about the king’s Europe tour in 1897. The four-minute piece by Thai artists Nakrob Moonmanas and Chitti Kasemkitvatana delves into concepts of time, and how it changed from the Buddhist non-linear format to the more western one defined by productivity.

These seemingly distinct installations cohesively come together when viewed through the lens of Bangkok Art Biennale’s 2024 theme, ‘Nurture Gaia’ — embracing themes of hybridity, contemplative ecology, femininity, disappearing knowledge, and the supernatural.

Curated by Apinan Poshyananda, artistic director of the biennale since its inception in 2018, and a team of curators, the fourth edition features 76 artists from 39 countries, and exhibits across 11 venues in the city. “The theme reflects an urgent call to address the Anthropocene impact while also offering hope. Through art, we explore the duality of crisis and care, showcasing works that advocate for environmental awareness, activism, and healing,” says Poshyananda. Among the big Indian names are Anish Kapoor, with his iconic S-Curve, Ravinder Reddy, George K., and Chitra Ganesh.

Anish Kapoor’s iconic S-Curve
| Photo Credit:
Seni Chunhacha

One for families and tourists

In contrast to the Venice Biennale, with its formal pavilions and art cognoscenti flying down to visit, biennales hosted in the heart of a city, especially a tourist hub, are quite different. At the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India, you spot families and tourists wandering the bylanes of Fort Kochi, slipping into old warehouses and walking up wooden staircases in historic cafes to interact with the art. There is a similar, familiar air in Bangkok, where parents with children in tow, tourists, and art lovers dog each other’s footsteps as they follow the river and city routes. Spread across temples, museums, galleries and convention centres, the art merges seamlessly with daily life.

Reddy’s Parvati draws large crowds at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, as does Anish Kapoor’s gleaming S-Curve displayed at the new lifestyle hub, One Bangkok. At the National Gallery, I meet George K., a retired banker and self-taught artist whose Aravani series of sculptures and paintings of transgender women from Tamil Nadu explores inclusivity and gender fluidity. The life-sized hyperrealist fibreglass sculptures are eye-catching with their bright costumes, and inscribed words in English, Tamil and Hindi. “Thai and Indian aesthetics overlap in many ways, so I can see how people relate to my work,” says George. “The concept is also timely because Thailand will legalise same-sex marriage in January 2025. I am in the right place at the right time.”

A sculpture from George K.’s Aravani series
| Photo Credit:
Preecha Pattaraumpornchai

The Aravani series
| Photo Credit:
Preecha Pattaraumpornchai

Elsewhere at the gallery, Ganesh, a visual artist from New York, uses images from billboards, product labels, advertisements and comics in The Thick of Time to ‘speak to contemporary realities of conflict, power, and desire’.

Chitra Ganesh’s The Thick of Time
| Photo Credit:
Preecha Pattaraumpornchai

Among the more unique exhibits is Jessica Segall’s (un)common intimacy, a two-channel video installation in a temple hall at Wat Prayoon, where the artist is shown interacting with tigers and alligators in swimming pools — addressing the loss of wild commons and offering a contrast to the ideas of control and entertainment that these creatures usually face.

Jessica Segall’s (un)common intimacy
| Photo Credit:
Chris van Klinken

Lao artist Bounpaul Phothyzan’s sculptures, carved out of bomb casings, are evocative of entire generations destroyed. And let’s not forget Amanda Coogan’s performance of Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s ‘Ninth Symphony’ with Thai adults and youths who have hearing disabilities. The silent choir, which bypasses language and racial barriers, is a powerful collaboration.

Bounpaul Phothyzan’s sculptures that are carved out of bomb casings
| Photo Credit:
Arina Matvee

“The artists in this edition offer a gentle engagement with the Earth — nature itself and the populations that occupy it. Their works provoke our curiosity about overlooked rhythms, sounds, views, and relationships in order to encourage a humbled sense of who we are and how we relatively exist. But BAB 2024 is not without its sharper moments, occasionally offering visceral wake-up calls to the increasing intensity of the world’s problems.”Brian CurtinIrish art critic and co-curator of BAB

Lessons to learn

As more visitors arrive, one has to ask what Bangkok is getting right. “The Bangkok Art Biennale has a wide cross-section of artists on display, often two-three from a country. But what I find most interesting is that they had a pavilion at the Venice Biennale earlier this year. They showcased their work and built up momentum,” says George. “You attract a much wider audience in this way. I still don’t understand why we are not doing this in India.”

Priyageetha Dia’s Spectre System
| Photo Credit:

Back home, budget has always been a sore point. The Kochi Biennale recently cited ‘organisational challenges’ when they announced postponing the event by a year, to December 2025. Bangkok doesn’t seem to have the same challenges. “From what I could see, the government funds it, as do several business houses,” the artist adds.

The Bangkok Art Biennale is on till February 25, 2025.

The writer is a Chennai-based art aficionado.