Dates:
born   1953
Biography: 1953 Born in Bangkok.
Lives and works in Bangkok


SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1997 Montien Boonma MA, Art Front
Gallery, Tokyo
1993 Works 1991-1993, National
Gallery, Bangkok


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1997 Art in South-east Asia: Glimpses
into the Future 1997, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Hiroshima
City Museum of Contemporary Art,
Hiroshima


1996 Island: Contemporary Installation
Art from America, Asia, Europe and
Australia, National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra


Montien Boonma/Thaiwijit,
Puangkasemsomboon, Bangkok
University Gallery, Bangkok


Traditions/Tensions, Contemporary Art in
Asia, The Asia Society, New York


1995 The Vision of Art in a Paradoxical
World:4th International Istanbul Biennial,
Istanbul


1994 Thai-Australian Cultural Space, The
Artn Gallery of New South Wales,
Sydney


FURTHER READING
Poshyananda, A. Modern Art in Thailand:
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,
Oxford Art Press, Oxford 1992, 217-21


Poshyananda, A. "Montien Boonma,"
South-east Asian Art Today, ed. J. Van,
Roeder Publications 1996, 215-21


Wongchirachai, A. P. "Montien
Boonma," Art and Asia Pacific 2.3
(1993): 74-81
Source:"Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue
Date of source:1999

Description: Montien Boonma is one of the most
gifted contemporary sculptors working in
Southeast Asia. His subject matter is
profoundly grounded in the spiritual
traditions of Thailand, yet he has
consistently sought alternatives to the
strict confines of traditional art. Inspired
by arte povera and by British sculptors
like Tony Cragg and Bill Woodrow, he
successfully combines high tech media
with the use of junk and perishable
materials in his assemblages. Objects
and even entire walls have been coated
with aromatic herbs believed to possess
psychological and meditative properties.
Other materials like ash, soil, buffalo
hide, gold, terracotta and cement, carry
specific associations within the artist's
culture.


Boonma has used these new forms of
sculptural expression to address the
tensions and transformations that have
defined his country. Rural and urban,
primitive and modern, spirituality and
rationality, Third World and First World:
these are the recurring themes in his
work, and the concerns that set him
apart from most Western artists. An
installation he made (at a distance) in
Sydney is a striking example of this
fusion of technology and tradition. Four
monitors were arranged in a square
facing the centre of the gallery space.
Each monitor displayed an image of
Boonma's hand. As if conducting a
ritual, he pointed one by one to
characters on a page. The effect was of
a video mantra. Under each monitor a
fax machine endlessly churned out the
sacred words on paper sheets. The
sheets were then pasted to the wall from
the top edge only so that they fluttered
in the air conditioning, just as gold leaf
flutters in the draft from a temple candle.
The installation was at once genuine and
ironic: a spiritual event and a humorous
reflection on the cultural exchange
programme between Australia and
Thailand.


For TRACE Boonma has installed six
cylindrical canopies raised on tripods.
They stand like a group of monumental
figures under the skylight of the old
sculpture court at John Moores
University, and are designed so that the
viewer can duck under the canopy.
One's first impression of the dark interior
is likely to be the strong smell of spices
applied by the artist to induce a
meditative state. The bright autumn light
from the skylight penetrates small holes
drilled into the sculpture, creating the
appearance of constellations in the night
sky. The bodily state of meditation is
thus linked to the infinity of space.
Description Source: "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue
Type: person