Tag: Installation Art

THE CONTEMPORARY ART COMPETITION 2025

March 18, 2025
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(For Thai, press here)

art4d, in collaboration with Supalai, invites artists to submit works in contemporary art competition (Sculpture and Painting) under the theme ‘Lifescape.’ The competition taps into the sentiment of happiness, love, prosperity, beauty, the serenity of nature, or other affirmative and inspiring perspectives. The following categories are open for submission:

  1. Sculpture & Installation Art: Eligible works must be three-dimensional and may be created through sculpting, carving, or other techniques, including installation art. Submissions must be crafted from durable materials suitable for installation in public gardens or indoor spaces within Supalai projects. Dimensional specifications are as follows: sculptures must not exceed 1.6 x 1.6 x 1.6 meters (excluding the base), while installation art must occupy a total space not exceeding 2 x 2 x 2.5 meters (height).
  2. Painting & Mixed Media: Submissions must be two-dimensional and effectively convey artistic concepts through color, composition, and texture, employing any technique (e.g., oil paint, acrylic, printmaking, collage, etc.). Works must not exceed 2 x 2 x 2 meters (including the frame).

Eligibility Criteria

  • Open to Thai nationals or individuals of Thai descent, of any age, who create original artworks conceptualized independently.
  • Open to foreign artists residing in Thailand, of any age, who create original artworks conceptualized independently.
  • Submitted artworks must not have previously received any awards or been featured in any exhibition catalogs.

Submission Guidelines

  • Each artist is permitted to submit a maximum of  one artwork per category.
  • Participants must complete registration via the online form https://forms.gle/DqtPMSJjBEBqYrzC7  between March 15 – May 15, 2025.
  • Physical artworks must be delivered to Supalai Icon Sathorn, 2617 Sathorn Tai Road, Thung Maha Mek Subdistrict, Sathorn District, Bangkok 10120.
  • The submission period for physical artworks is May 26 – May 31, 2025.

*Note* The company will take the utmost care in handling and safeguarding all submitted artworks. However, it shall not be held responsible for any damages resulting from natural disasters, accidents, or unforeseen circumstances.

Selection and Judging Panel

The panel of esteemed judges comprises distinguished figures in the field of art, including:

  • Peerapong Duangkaew – Senior Contemporary Sculpture artist
  • Suriya Umpansiriratana – Silpathorn Award-winning artist and founder of Walllasia
  • Professor Preecha Thaothong – National Artist in Visual Arts
  • Dr. Vichaya Mukdamanee – Dean, Faculty of Painting, Silpakorn University
  • Dr. Prateep Tangmatitham – Chairman of the Board, Supalai Public Company Limited

Judging Criteria

Concept & Creativity

  • Originality and contemporary relevance of the artistic concept.
  • Expression of the artist’s identity and unique perspective.
  • Effective use of symbolism or profound interpretation

Conceptual & Emotional Impact

  • Ability to convey the intended concept and emotions to the audience
  • Strength of the artwork’s influence on the viewer’s perception and sentiment
  • Potential to inspire or provoke critical reflection on societal themes

Artistic Composition & Technique

  • Coherence and balance in composition
  • Mastery of technique, including color application, sculpting, carving, etc.
  • Attention to detail and refinement of execution
  • Ability to evoke emotions through color, light, shadow, and texture

Material & Structural Feasibility

  • For sculptures:  Suitable use of material with durability, strength, and alignment with the artistic concept
  • For paintings:  Quality and longevity of materials to enhance artistic integrity
  • Consideration of additional factors such as sustainability or community engagement

Originality & Identity

  • Uniqueness and distinctive artistic expression
  • Assurance that the work is not a replication or imitation of existing pieces

Relevance to Theme

  • Alignment with the competition’s central theme
  • Depth of interpretation and presentation of the concept

Overall Presentation & Quality

*The decisions of the selection and judging panel are final and not subject to appeal.*

Awards Categories

The judging panel will evaluate and select winners based on the established criteria, with awards distributed as follows:

Sculpture Category – 12 Awards

  • Grand Prize (1 award):  400,000 THB
  • Second Prize (2 awards):  250,000 THB each (total 500,000 THB)
  • Third Prize (3 awards):  150,000 THB each (total 450,000 THB)
  • Honorable Mention (5 awards):  80,000 THB each (total 400,000 THB)
  • Popular Vote (1 award):  20,000 THB

Painting Category – 12 Awards

  • Grand Prize (1 award):  400,000 THB
  • Second Prize (2 awards):  250,000 THB each (total 500,000 THB)
  • Third Prize (3 awards):  150,000 THB each (total 450,000 THB)
  • Honorable Mention (5 awards):  80,000 THB each (total 400,000 THB)
  • Popular Vote (1 award):  20,000 THB

Total Prize Value: 3,540,000 THB

The judging panel reserves the right to modify the number of awards if deemed necessary, should the submissions not meet the required standard. Additionally, Supalai Public Company Limited may select outstanding non-awarded works for exhibition.

Furthermore, the company may engage in discussions with artists to explore the possibility of enlarging selected artworks at a later stage, with additional compensation provided based on mutual agreement.

Ownership Rights

  • Award-winning artworks will become the property of  Supalai Public Company Limited, and the company may consider installing them in real-life settings as deemed appropriate.
  • All artworks submitted for exhibition, as well as competition sponsors, have the right to reproduce and publish the works in exhibition catalogs, printed materials, and all digital media platforms.

Exhibition of Artworks

Following the conclusion of the judging process, Supalai Public Company Limited  and art4d CO Limited will host an award ceremony and exhibition at Supalai Icon Sathorn, where selected works will be displayed accordingly.

Sale of Exhibited Artworks

For artworks selected for exhibition from  June 10 – August 10, 2025, at Supalai Icon Sathorn, artists may set a selling price for their pieces if they wish to make them available for purchase. Supalai Public Company Limited will deduct a 15% consignment and handling fee from the final sale price.

Important Dates

  • Registration:  Submit entries via https://forms.gle/DqtPMSJjBEBqYrzC7 from March 15 – May 15, 2025.
  • Artwork Submission:  May 26 – May 31, 2025, at Supalai Icon Sathorn, 2617 Sathorn Tai Road, Thung Maha Mek Subdistrict, Sathorn District, Bangkok 10120.
    Map:  https://maps.app.goo.gl/rDHAX4CRcKi8GAuR6
  • Judging Date:  June 7, 2025
  • Announcement of Winners:  June 8, 2025, via Supalai and art4d’s online platforms
  • Award Ceremony & Exhibition Opening:  June 10, 2025, at Supalai Icon Sathorn
  • Exhibition Period:  June 10 – August 10, 2025, at Supalai Icon Sathorn
  • Collection of Non-Exhibited Artworks:  Artists whose works are not selected for the exhibition may retrieve their pieces between June 11 – June 30, 2025, at Supalai Icon Sathorn. The company will notify artists of the specific date and time for collection.

*Note* Submission and collection of artworks must be completed within the specified timeframe. If sculpture artworks are not collected by the deadline outlined in Section 10, it will be assumed that the artist consents to  Supalai Public Company Limited taking further action as deemed appropriate.

For further inquiries, please contact:
Kasimol Teeravoravong (POLO), Project Coordinator, art4d CO Limited
Tel: +66 80 836 5996  E-mail:  kasimol.art4d@gmail.com

FIELD COLLAPSE

April 12, 2023
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AFTER BECOMING FAMILIAR WITH WORKING IN ARCHITECTURE WELL, THE STUDIO ‘thingsmatter’ TAKES ON THE ROLE OF AN ARTIST, AND UTILIZES REBAR IN THEIR EXHIBITION TO COMMUNICATE ISSUES IN THE ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

TEXT: NAPAT CHARITBUTRA
PHOTO: KETSIREE WONGWAN EXCEPT AS NOTED

(For Thai, press here)

Rebar, plywood, rubber, fasteners, and light are the elements which form a large installation currently occupying almost the entirety of 100 Tonson Foundation’s gallery. The piece exudes a different affect from what one might expect from a typical art exhibition. Savinee Buranasilapin and Tom Dannecker of thingsmatter spoke with art4d about their approach to materiality, and some of the other topics and ideas behind their work, Field Collapse.

“I’ve always felt that these fragments found on construction sites, like formwork, scaffolding, raw materials, and even the way that workers move through the project are incredibly beautiful and conceptual, in the sense that they can be considered both artifacts and happenings,” Savinee said about her view of the process of creating a work of architecture as a form of performance that occurs only temporarily before disappearing.

Tom responded, “In college, I was self-conscious that our design exercises weren’t going to be built. It felt like I was playing with dollhouses, compared to what my friends in other departments did. So I started putting most of my energy into the aesthetics of the process,  rather than a make-believe finished product.”

The two biographical narratives share a common theme: a focus on the work-in-progress, the period when the designer’s engagement is at its highest intensity, compared to the completed work. This interest has evolved over time, culminating in the work at 100 Tonson Foundation.

thingsmatter’s commitment to process-as-product results in the improbable use of five tons of rebar to support only itself. “In conventional construction, materials like this would need to be economically optimized. Here, we have the luxury of using them in a very inefficient way, to evoke a feeling. We want visitors to slow down, and move mindfully through the slightly disorienting spaces we’ve created.”

The structure begins immediately at the gallery’s entrance. Narrow passages through the rebar give the feeling of walking through a forest. Visitors are led up into a skylight—the exhibition’s only light source—before descending toward the empty space at the back of the gallery. This space hosts a series of workshops and talks over the show’s six-month duration, but most of the time, it simply allows enough viewing distance to read the installation as an object, rather than an interior. From this vantage point,  visitors can watch others moving through the forest of rebar. “We want to engage the movements of people moving through the structure as an element of the installation,” thingsmatter explained.

Why rebar? It’s a material that typically does its work from behind the curtain (because it’s meant to be covered by concrete). This time around, the rebar takes the lead in communicating about issues in the architecture and construction industry, including issues of economic and cultural hierarchy, both real and perceived.

“Within a design collaborative, who has the more important job, the one who chooses shapes, or the one who draws construction details? The one who calculates costs, or the one who talks to clients? Then there’s a big group of people doing different aspects of the actual building work.  In order to happen, any project needs all of these roles”, Tom explained.

The stakeholders all rely on one another, and each component has its own set of roles and responsibilities that are critical to the conception, existence, and overall operation of architecture. thingsmatter hopes that by displaying the work in progress as a finished installation, viewers will contemplate issues of authorship.

art4d and thingsmatter also discussed the issue of creating a work in a new context.

Field Collapse is not thingsmatter’s first installation. The duo has consistently created ambiguous works that can be interpreted as a wide range of things (sculpture, for example) other than architecture. Ligature, a bamboo and steel construction from 2018, is one such project. Currently located at Jim Thompson Farm in Nakhon Ratchasima province, it was previously displayed in front of the Bangkok Art Culture Center, and initially built as a stage pavilion for ASA Expo 2018. One can see the skeleton of Field Collapse in Caged Flower, another work exhibited for ASA Expo, which experimented with the unusual structural and atmospheric qualities of rebar.  But Field Collapse stands out among thingsmatter’s works, in that it was created for a bona fide art institution: 100 Tonson Foundation.

Caged Flower, 2017 | Photo courtesy of thingsmatter

“We’ve always created works with elements of ambiguity. Our image in the architectural community is quite artsy, but once we set foot inside the gallery space, we’re considered outsiders,” Savinee explains. thingsmatter developed the project for 100 Tonson Foundation in response to an open call for art projects last year.

“As much as we’ve enjoyed the ambiguity of our position, we’re happy to have our work validated as art,” Savinee said, referring to the authority that art institutions have in establishing cultural value. The installation is partly a response to the connotations of the art gallery context.  The challenges of executing the project weren’t just the typical architectural and logistical issues of dealing with the space, but finding a way to address the cultural connotations of the “white cube.”

Another aspect of the exhibition that distinguishes it from previous works by thingsmatter is the way it directs viewers’ interactions with the working drawings.

“We were thinking about how to use the small room next to the main gallery, to display secondary artifacts related to the main work,” Savinee recalled. “If we spread 100 pages of construction drawings on the table, viewers would read them as banal instructions” Tom added. “We wanted to transform them into something that captures the feeling of the design and construction process, rather than details” Layering many pages of working drawings into palimpsests, enlarged and mounted on the wall, is a method of capturing architectural process as art.  A structural analysis diagram is likewise elevated by being printed and framed as fine art, with other versions printed onto scarfs, sold as gift-shop merchandise.

Field Collapse can be interpreted as a work of either architecture or art. The viewer’s authority to perceive and classify the status of this particular creation may be superior to that of art institutions. Field Collapse is an unusual art exhibition, particularly in how it works with the volume of the gallery space and the way it closely interacts with viewers more than most art pieces would allow; in its unapologetic display of material truth, and the diversity of the activities that have occurred over the past several months. Field Collapse is a clear example of a rather novel scenario in which two architects are given full control of a gallery space.

Field Collapse by thingsmatter is now showing at the 100 Tonson Foundation until May 28, 2023. Thu-Fri 10am-6pm and Sat-Sun 11am-7pm

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