For Art Jakarta 2019, TKG+ is pleased to present works by Mit Jai Inn and Sawangwongse Yawnghwe. The artists project their senses and memories toward sutures in the social systems in which they are located, exposing critical coordinates sought from the poetics bonds of contemporary art. The two artists dismantle and reconstruct cultural symbols that flow between aesthetics, politics and history, allowing the act of art making to chisel one metaphorical edifice after another within the contemporary context, while intermixing history, memory, and location with dialectic, beckoning the viewer to contemplate the time and space within which they are located.
Making a splash at Biennale of Sydney, and also active in the contemporary art sphere and political communities of Thailand, artist Mit Jai Inn (b. 1960) is best known for his vibrant abstract painting installations. Actively using art to explore socio-political influences, he transforms the relationship between the reading of art and spatial interventions through a dialogue between installation-style paintings and the spaces they occupy, a practice based on large-scale works that correspond to culture, society, and politics. Having made significant contributions to the development of contemporary art in Thailand, Mit’s work has been exhibited in Palais de Tokyo in Paris, National Gallery Singapore, and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. He continues to make an impact on the Thailand’s arts ecology.
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (b. 1971) was born in Shan State, Burma. His grandfather, Sao Shwe Thaik, was Burma’s first president after the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Shwe Thaik died in prison following the 1962 military coup, and his family was driven into exile. His painting and installation practice engages in politics with reference to his family history as well as current and historical events in his country. Family photographs also provide the basis for a pictorial language through which he explores events in the country, suggesting that existing and available archives cannot reveal a nation’s entire truth. In addition, Yawnghwe’s work of maps charts the conflicts between drugs such as heroin and amphetamines, revolutionary armies, minority ethnicities, mining and gas pipelines, the armament of generals, as well as state genocide against its minorities. He intends to bring discernible order to a complex political situation. Yawnghwe’s work is housed in the collection of MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Thailand.
Founded in Taipei in 2009, TKG+ is committed to supporting experimental, innovative, and critical contemporary art in Taiwan and across Asia, while privileging artistic forms in diverse mediums, as well as open dialogues between different cultural groups. TKG+ hopes to add an eclectic mix to contemporary art in Asia with the artists we represent and their unrelenting pursuit of aesthetics, form, and sensory experience through their ever-evolving practices.