The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Montien Boonma was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1953. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts from Silpakorn University, Bangkok, the artist furthered his studies in France at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris and the Universite de Paris VIII, Faculte des Arts Plastiques, Saint-Denis. Montien Boonma has held solo exhibitions annually since 1989, beginning with 'Story from the Farm', The National Gallery, Bangkok. Following a Residency in Brazil the artist mounted the show 'Arte Amazonas' at the Goethe lnstitut, Bangkok in 1992. His most recent exhibition has been 'Works : 1990-1993', The National Gallery, Bangkok, 1993. Montien Boonma has participated in many group shows including 'Les Peintres Thailandais Traditionnels et Contemporains', L'Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, 1989; 'The Readymade Boomerang', 8th Biennale of Sydney, 1990; 'The New Art from Southeast Asia', touring Japan in 1992; and 'Prospect 93: The International Exhibition of Actual Art', Frankfurt Kunstverein and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 1993. In 1984 he received the Honour Award for art against pollution, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Aside from public and corporate collections in Thailand, the artist is represented in the Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Montien Boonma is currently employed as an art instructor, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University. One of the most gifted scu lptors in Thailand, Montien Boonma has consistently searched for alternatives to break out of the strict confines of traditional art. Inspired by Arte Povera artists as well as British sculptors like Tony Cragg and Bill Woodrow, he successfully combines the use of junk and perishable materials in his assemblages. He has become known for his hybrids of mixed media including ash, soil, buffalo hide, gold, terracotta, and cement. However, his oeuvre stands apart from Western artists as his thematic subjects directly concern tensions and transformation of rural and urban, primitive and modern, irrational and reasoned, Third World and First World. For the past five years Montien Boonma has exhibited at prestigious international shows in Europe, Asia and Australia. Locally, he has given a new breath of life to Thai sculpture which has stagnated owing to the impact of formalism and abstraction widely practised in art institutions. While his work is THAILAND MONTIENBOONMA Lotussound 1992 Installation comprising terracotta bells, gilded wood 300x350x300cm Collection: The artist based on a search for alternative means of expression in sculpture, it still maintains inspiration from indigenous roots and traditional values. Religious faith has always been a major concern among Thai people, especially now in a rapidly changing society. It was once taken for granted that Buddhism was widely accepted in Thai families; now, owing to modernisation, its potency is rapidly fading. Moved by the experience of wandering in temples and hearing the resonating sound of bells clanging in the wind, Montien Boonma attempts to recapture the feeling of inspiring awe overwhelmed with reverence. In Lotus sound, hundreds of terracotta bells are stacked in a shape of a curved wall. These bells become metaphors for a barrier and a filter, partially blocking the vision of the viewer. The imaginary sound of the bells serves to invoke inner peace within oneself. This invocation practised by believers is compared to a golden lotus with petals burst- 49 . • • ing forth in space. The lotus is a common symbol in Mahayana literature. The symbolic flowering of the lotus as the birthplace of Buddha and the attainment of Enlighten– ment are given explicit plastic expression in Burmese, Thai and Indian religious art. Instead of the petals opening to disclose the Buddha seated on the lotus pericarp, or the terracotta bells making sound, there is blankness and silence. These objects signify certain symbolic formulas for viewers to imagine the omn ipresence of the Buddha. Apinan Poshyananda