19 June 2020

copied

The Thai artist updates the pioneering 1930 German silent film for our hypercompetitive, productivity-fetishising times. By Max Crosbie-Jones

‘Leisure,’ wrote German philosopher Josef Pieper, is not the attitude of ‘someone who seizes but of one who lets go, who lets himself go, and “go under”, almost as someone who falls asleep must let himself go.’ In the serene opening section of Tulapop Saenjaroen’s trifurcated videowork, someone tries to ‘go under’ but fails. Birds chirp and cicadas drone as a young woman lies on a sun-dappled forest floor, one arm artfully arranged above her head. She is framed in meticulous repose, her body still, yet her eyes – refusing to sit still – tell us she is struggling to relax. The full minute that the camera lingers on this painterly scene is a chore, not a reverie.

Read more: https://artreview.com/the-death-of-leisure-tulapop-saenjaroen-people-on-sunday/ 

SOURCE: Art Review