editorial

In the Thai capital’s Yaowarat area, a bold new space aims to be the next big thing for the Southeast Asian art scene.
<figure id="attachment_139363" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-139363" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-139363 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bangkok-Kunsthalle-Facade.jpg" alt="Bangkok Kunsthalle occupies a set of brutalist buildings on the outskirts of Bangkok’s Chinatown." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bangkok-Kunsthalle-Facade.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bangkok-Kunsthalle-Facade-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bangkok-Kunsthalle-Facade-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bangkok-Kunsthalle-Facade-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-139363" class="wp-caption-text">Bangkok Kunsthalle occupies a set of brutalist buildings on the outskirts of Bangkok’s Chinatown. (Courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle)</figcaption></figure>
An eerie audio loop fills the bare concrete shell of what resembles a derelict cathedral as visitors are bathed in pulsing yellow light. The floor is pitch-black and fissured like dried sludge. Made of resin mixed with ash and paint, it’s part of a very site-specific installation at <a href="https://www.bangkok-kunsthalle.org/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bangkok Kunsthalle</a>, an ambitious contemporary art space that opened earlier this year in a trio of interconnecting brutalist buildings — once home to one of Thailand’s largest printing houses — that were gutted by fire and abandoned decades ago.
Kunsthalle’s sophomore exhibition is the creation of Korakrit Arunanondchai, a Thai video and multimedia artist who divides his time between Bangkok and Brooklyn. Titled “Nostalgia for Unity,” the immersive work, running until the end of October, explores themes like the concurrence of decay and rebirth. It also marks the debut of a new second-floor gallery in line with Bangkok Kunsthalle’s strategy to gradually renovate and open its 8,000 square meters of floor space, of which only a fraction has been finished.
“We want to challenge people,” says the institution’s director Stefano Rabolli Pansera, by which he means both visitors and artists. “This is a laboratory for ideas. We want artists to do something here they have never done before.” The first gallery — a cavernous space on the ground level where delivery trucks used to load books and newspapers — opened in January with a selection of videos by French filmmaker Michel Auder.
<figure id="attachment_139362" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-139362" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-139362 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Nostalgia-for-Unity-exhibition-at-Bangkok-Kunsthalle.jpg" alt="The “Nostalgia for Unity” exhibition at Bangkok Kunsthalle." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Nostalgia-for-Unity-exhibition-at-Bangkok-Kunsthalle.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Nostalgia-for-Unity-exhibition-at-Bangkok-Kunsthalle-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Nostalgia-for-Unity-exhibition-at-Bangkok-Kunsthalle-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Nostalgia-for-Unity-exhibition-at-Bangkok-Kunsthalle-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-139362" class="wp-caption-text">The “Nostalgia for Unity” exhibition at Bangkok Kunsthalle. (Courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle)</figcaption></figure>
Formerly with Hauser &amp; Wirth in London, Pansera says his team wants to position Bangkok Kunsthalle as the leading art institution in Southeast Asia. It’s an audacious goal backed by a serious endowment: the initiative’s founder is Marisa Chearavanont, a well-regarded philanthropist and wife of Soopakij Chearavanont, chairman of the CP Group, one of the region’s biggest companies.
Pansera’s team is also working on the Khao Yai Art Forest, a sculpture park situated in the countryside 90 minutes by car from Bangkok. Expected to open by year’s end, the site will see works by renowned artists such as Richard Long, Roni Horn, and Richard Nonas installed amid replanted vegetation.
“Our mission is to offer a new point of view,” Pansera says. “And we have the freedom to go wild.”
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August/September 2024</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Shadows and Lights”).

The “Nostalgia for Unity” exhibition at Bangkok Kunsthalle.

Bangkok Kunsthalle is a Cultural Venue to Watch