The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

130 In 2006, the 60th anniversary of Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s accession to the throne was marked by celebrations across the country. Also known as Rama IX, Bhumibol is the world’s longest serving head of state and Thailand’s longest reigning monarch. Yet, this figure of remarkable consistency and respect sits above a deeply divided and volatile nation: Bhumibol’s reign has seen 17 military coups and 29 prime ministers. Although a constitutional monarch, the king has played a crucial, if ambiguous, role in Thai politics, notably supporting the 1992 transition from military rule to an elected government. For a country experiencing endemic political corruption, and facing widening gaps between the urban middle classes and the rural poor, the king offers a model of detached integrity and a symbol of social cohesion and moral authority. On the surface, Manit Sriwanichpoom’s 2006 series of photographs ‘Waiting for the King’ is a straightforward record of crowds gathered for the king’s birthday at the Royal Ground in Bangkok on 5 December. The photographs are black and white, but it is clear that most of the subjects are wearing the canary yellow shirts — the colour representing Monday and the king’s day of birth — produced for the 60th jubilee, which many Thais continue to wear today. 1 However, the people do not look particularly jubilant, appearing alternatively bored, stern, tired, wary or even slightly hostile. Many have waited for hours in Bangkok’s humid heat, some sleeping overnight to gain a position for only a few seconds’ glimpse of the king as his motorcade passes on its journey from his residence to the ceremonial Grand Palace. In a culture where confrontation is traditionally frowned upon, Sriwanichpoom has made political commentary and social activism the driving force for his work. He is perhaps best known for staged photographic tableaux exploring the effects of Thailand’s economic booms and busts, fuelled by the forces of global capitalism and Western influence. In This bloodless war 1997, he reworked famous war photography to portray a society in meltdown during that year’s Asian financial crisis, brought about by the devaluation of the inflated Thai baht. His ongoing series featuring the Pink Man (performance artist Sompong Thawee) considers the globalised world through the eyes of a contemporary Thai consumer, embodied by Thawee with his lurid pink suit, mobile phone and empty pink shopping cart. He appears against postcard-perfect landscapes and religious sites — internationally renowned images and lucrative resources of Thailand — or inserted into media images of violent uprisings and crackdowns that have occurred all too frequently in Thai history. ‘Fat and happy’, the Pink Man epitomises what Sriwanichpoom views as an apathetic, consumerist populace, continually failing to learn from its mistakes. 2 Alongside these acerbic constructions, Sriwanichpoom, who has worked as a press and advertising photographer, also makes images in a photojournalistic mode. His photographs of Bangkok’s changing Manit Sriwanichpoom The agony of waiting urban environment are featured in the book Bangkok in Black and White (1999) 3 , and the series ‘Dream interruptus’ 2000 records the abandoned and unfinished buildings left behind in the wake of the financial crisis, like the ruins of a war zone. Protest 2002–03 was produced from a year of weekly visits to the gates of Bangkok’s Government House, where protestors from all over Thailand, from laid- off city workers to displaced farmers, come to make their cases heard. With poignant directness, these works convey the effects of rapid economic transformation on individual lives, and the failure of public institutions to assist and support them. ‘Waiting for the King’ continues this documentary approach in a less overt but equally powerful manner. Sriwanichpoom brings to the dynamic action and immediacy of street photography the deep focus of portraiture, its pared-back style strengthened by his use of black- and-white film. The frieze of 14 photographs in this series extends over seven metres, yet we are drawn instantly to individuals. The stationary nature of waiting, and the stillness of the work, makes it appear as if these people are posing for the artist. We see the apprehensive, yet direct, stares of a couple with their arms folded, her spotted hat, his tattooed forearms; a young man in his camouflage pants, seemingly faraway; and a mother and her young son, in his unwittingly graceful pose. With elegant simplicity and clarity, Sriwanichpoom captures the anxiety of a nation looking toward an uncertain future — its beloved king cannot always be counted on to arrive. Russell Storer Endnotes 1 Yellow shirts are still worn by many Thais on Mondays, and have also been taken up by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, a movement constituted largely by royalist members of Bangkok’s middle classes. This movement was behind the street protests which led to the overthrow of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006, and of the Thaksin-aligned Somchai Wongsawat government in 2008. Thaksin supporters, mostly from rural Thailand, are known as ‘red shirts’. 2 Chawadee Nualkhair, ‘The politics of art and the art of politics’, Bangkok Post , 28 September 2008. 3 Manit Sriwanichpoom, Bangkok in Black and White , Chang Phuak Ngadam, Bangkok, 1999.