20 May 2015

copied

Reclusive artist on why he didn't attend the opening of his latest exhibition. By Kaona Pongpipat

The opening of 100 Tonson Gallery's "Chatchai Puipia: Sites Of Solitude. Still-Life, Self-Portraiture, And The Living Archive" last month seemed to have been an unmissable event for every prominent figure in the Bangkok art scene, except for Chatchai himself. It's not that there was something urgent he had to attend to; he had no intention of going, not when the show was being set up, nor when it was running.

In 2011, Chatchai, one of Thailand's most prominent contemporary artists, released a hefty mock-up funeral tribute book Chatchai Is Dead. If Not, He Should Be in which there were his collection of works and eulogies from his family and friends. Four years later, Chatchai remains relatively true to that statement, confining himself to just an intimate circle of family and friends and his studios in Bangkok and Nakhon Pathom's Nakhon Chai Si district.

In a telephone interview, when I asked him if I could go to interview him in person, although he didn't say no, that was definitely the answer.

Read more: https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/arts-and-entertainment/567195/butterflies-and-solitude

SOURCE: Bangkok Post