Double the fun
Two expat Thai artists come together for a new art project at Siam Center
There’s nothing new about collaborations between artists and commercial brands but a Bangkok mall is taking the concept a step further by making it the norm rather than the exception.
Siam Center, which aims to become a hub of the Bangkok art scene by putting together temporary exhibitions all the year round, is inviting London-based Thai pop artist Pakpoom Silaphan and Chicago-based graphic designer Teeranop Wangsilapakun to hold their first exhibition in the kingdom. Dubbed “Siam Center Idea Avenue: Collaboration”, it runs from Friday through August 30.
Pakpoom’s work is all about borrowing bits and bobs of everyday life and is best known for merging vintage advertisements for carbonated drinks with the images of such iconic personalities as John Lennon, Che Guevara, Muhammad Ali and Andy Warhol.
Inspired by New York’s famous graffiti artist Jean Michel-Basquiat – himself the icon of the graffiti art world - Pakpoom’s collaborative art project titled “Memorising Jean Michel-Basquiat” will combine Basquiat’s spray can and crown logo trademark with Andy Warhol’s signature repetition technique.
Hundreds of resin spray cans and crowns will be installed on shelves inside a gigantic glass box. This installation piece aims to reflect the collaborative process that involves the ideas and signatures of two art movements and two artists from different eras.
Basquiat’s works, despite failing to wow the contemporary audience during his lifetime, are rich in confidence and honesty and these qualities directly influence Pakpoom.
“It’s a combination between street art and pop art but the result is urban art that is related to everyday life. I don’t expect people to understand the hidden messages, but hope to spark the new ideas and inspirations,” says Pakpoom who has lived in London for 17 years.
After graduating in decorative arts at Silpakorn University, Pakpoom furthered his printmaking skills at Camberwell College of Arts before earning an MFA from Chelsea College of Art and Design. His fascination with London – its art and environment where the creative scene is burgeoning through the success of various galleries – has led him to work in the city, with his work receiving critical reviews from the Financial Times and the Sunday Times.
Teeranop draws his inspiration from the harmonious mechanism of nature to create a motion graphic that will be projected on the LCD screens around the mall. He’s also coming up with a surrealist graphic work for a limited number of Samsung S3 and S4 smart phones cases under the name “Involved”. The production utilises the foil colour offset technique to create the print on the plastic smart phone case.
“Involved” comes with four distinctive visual designs, each concealing a set of different alphabetical letters which, when put together, will form the word “ Involved”.
“The work is directly inspired by natural mechanisms like pollination, which involves bugs and insects coming together to create new flower species. The design falls is both surrealist and abstract and brings in some fresh ideas and colours in order to create a totally new appearance. Each LCD screen will come with different narrative motion graphics in different moods and tones,” says Teeranop, founder of the Chicago-based design studio TNOP Design.
A communication design graduate from Rangsit University, Teeranop began his career as a graphic designer with advertising agency JWT after his graduation in 1993 then moved to TBWA. In 1996, he travelled to the US to continue his studies in graphic design at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia before moving to Chicago to work at Segura Inc. He set up his own graphic design company in 2005.
