“Some dreams tremble, feel unstable. Turning over to turn over. And waking up to real uncertainties.” – Pinaree Sanpitak
100 Tonson Foundation presents House Calls, an exhibition by Pinaree Sanpitak, whose paintings, sculptures, large-scale installations and other projects have enriched and inspired Thailand’s art sphere for more than three decades. The exhibition runs from now until April 4.
Almost a decade has passed since her last solo show in Bangkok. Her new exhibition consists of hundreds of small sculptures that have never been shown before in Thailand. House Calls evolved from Sanpitak’s installation that was presented on a remote island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea during the 2019 Setouchi Triennale.
The work grew from eight small sculptures placed in the tatami room’s tokonoma—an alcove in a traditional Japanese house’s tatami room to place items for artistic appreciation, such as calligraphy scrolls and flower arrangements. This work may be viewed as an homage to the masters of lost crafts. Each piece is fabricated using hand-torn stacks of natural paper placed on top of various vessels, containers and utensils that were once part of Sanpitak’s home and collection. The form of “Breast Stupa,” combined with the backstories of each vessel and utensil, intersect with viewers’ backgrounds and experiences in creating new narratives of the sacred and the sensual.
Almost 400 individual sculptures transform the modern art space into a domestic living area. The sculptures are placed on motion-responsive shelves specially designed and fabricated by Bangkok-based Studiomake. The shelves subtly vibrate in reaction to viewers’ movements, animating the sculptures and resembling the uncertainty of life under a home’s roof.
The introspective work also portrays our collective experiences admist the global pandemic, during which we have forged onward through lockdowns and self-quarantines—alone or with others, some of us far away from home. House Calls pays homage to home, in both tangible and intangible ways, underlying the essence of domestic living as a core of human experience. It explores home as a quiet poetry, which may be disrupted suddenly as calm comes and goes, capturing the uncertainty of everyday existence.
For more information visit www.100tonsonfoundation.org/exhibition/house-calls/
