「不尋常的是…」－ 一種當代東南亞的觀點 －
"Curiously enough..." - A Contemporary Insight into Southeast Asia -
展覽日期 ｜2019. 05. 18 - 2019. 07. 07
開幕時間 ｜2019. 05. 18 (Sat.) 16:00
展覽地點 ｜台北日動畫廊 galerie nichido Taipei

都薩迪．韓達古 Dusadee Huntrakul
薩瑪．柯塞姆 Samak Kosem
阮譚美 Tammy Nguyen

台北日動畫廊榮幸呈現聯展《「不尋常的是…」－ 一種當代東南亞的觀點 －》，介紹泰國藝術家都薩迪．韓達古、薩瑪．柯塞姆，以及越裔美國藝術家阮譚美的作品。呼應高雄市立美術館與東京森美術館攜手策畫之展覽《太陽雨：1980年代至今的東南亞當代藝術》，台北日動畫廊期待透過此次主題性的策展計畫，開啟更多亞洲區域間的對話與探索，延續開館以來作為文化交流平台的使命。

展覽標題「不尋常的是」源自英文慣用語Curiously enough，旨在表達某些事物因與先前認知或想像不一樣而感到不尋常或意外的態度。在此概念底下，本次邀請的創作者亦在運用不同媒介與視角切入討論人類及其周遭環境與我們原先以為的有所差異的觀念或現象，進以共同思考人與非人的關係。

都薩迪．韓達古擅於利用現成物、繪畫及裝置展現想法，近期創作受人類學與民族學啟發，透過借用、裂解、重塑原始部落與當代藝術的概念元素，為作品創造新的意義。《小便斗裡的蛇》是藝術家搜集網路現成影像，再以色鉛筆臨摹繪製的作品。這些近似攝影的高度寫實畫面，是對技藝、勞動和物質性的演繹，也是後網路時代將訊息上傳、接收、更改和再傳播的具體實踐。《小便斗裡的蛇》探問過去在原始叢林排泄時可能與蛇相逢的人，是如何在發展都市規劃、美學、消費、科技及衛生的過程與非人生物漸行區隔，藉此作為想像當代泰國與相關區域發展的人類學紀錄，以及杜象便斗之後思考全球化下地方藝術史發展的線索。

從事人類學研究的薩瑪．柯塞姆，長期蹲點充滿複雜政治歷史的泰國深南地區，創作聚焦穆斯林文化以及人與非人的關係。此次展出《Pondan》、《夢幻島》及《非人民族誌》三組作品：《Pondan》與《夢幻島》分別藉由攝影及錄像呈現穆斯林社群的酷兒文化，而《非人民族誌》則進一步結合動態影像、攝影書寫與物件等複合媒材，嘗試以非人視角的視覺民族誌，反映他在地方觀察到的現象。相較於媒體對於泰國深南人群衝突的刻畫，薩瑪反而透過羊隻、海浪等非人生命及地景考察，表述階級、宗教和性別等人類文化概念下的暴力與迫害。《非人民族誌》當中人與非人的主客倒置，不但更加凸顯兩者的互為主體，也暗示另一種酷兒式的創作研究路徑，或許能幫助我們對人類世界習以為常的「不尋常」有所意識。

多媒體藝術家阮譚美在求學時期選修生物與人類學課程，並在北美洲典藏鳥類標本最豐富的皮博迪自然史博物館擔任志工期間學習如何製作鳥類標本，對鳥類研究產生興趣。紙上作品是藝術家回朔個人成長記憶，透過轉化童年見證雞隻被母親宰殺的死亡過程，思考戰爭與其衍伸的恐懼與流亡。越戰被犧牲的生命，就像每日母親燉煮的雞隻，它們是伴隨自己安然成長的「養分」，卻也讓她逐漸體認並省思作為倖免者與受益者等詭譎多重的人類身份。阮譚美的融合著天馬行空的想像和對地緣政治的研讀，透過飽滿的色彩與富有層次的視覺敘事，探索創作者及其環境的歷史。

正如同人們將「不尋常的是」當作自我覺察的表達方式，此展並不嘗試為那些認知落差找到解套，而是回到 Curious 的字源 curiosus （careful，細心慎重）、 cura（care，關照），亦即當我們對周遭事物感到不尋常之時，如何更加謹慎小心而不輕易區分對象的優越卑微？如何能一直抱持開闊積極的心態去關照理解，同時有勇氣去拒絕看來理所當然的見識與論斷？「不尋常的是，」試圖不去完成一個句子，而是開啟不同對話的可能。


關於藝術家
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都薩迪．韓達古 Dusadee Huntrakul
1978 年出生於泰國曼谷，現生活工作於曼谷。

都薩迪．韓達古 2007 年取得美國加州柏克萊藝術學士，2013 年於同校取得藝術碩士學位。曾參與過的展覽包含由巴黎東京宮藝術家項目副總監荷利(Khairuddin Hori)策劃的「月亮下」，2013 新加坡雙年展「如果世界已改變」，以及美國舊金山現代美術館與加州奧克蘭美術館共同策劃的「肥沃之地：加州藝術與社群」。都薩迪近期參與的展覽包含日動畫廊東京當代館「追尋過去：一種泰國當代藝術的觀點」，東京森美術館「太陽雨：1980 年代至今的東南亞當代藝術」及曼谷 100 湯森畫廊(100 Tonson Gallery)的個展。除了個人創作，都薩迪同時也身兼藝術教育工作者，過去分別在加州柏克萊大學，曼谷國際大學，蒙庫國王科技大學及瑪希隆大學教授素描課程。


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薩瑪．柯塞姆 Samak Kosem
1984 年生於泰國曼谷，現生活工作於曼谷及清邁。

薩瑪．柯塞姆從事人類學研究，長期蹲點泰國深南（Deep South，指泰國南部北大年、惹拉府、陶公府），聚焦穆斯林文化以及非人與人的關係。他以視覺民族誌與攝影方法作為個人研究過程中嘗試反映部分真實／事實的媒介。薩瑪同時亦對酷兒研究深感興趣，他特別關注伊斯蘭社會中的同志群體與當地社群對性別觀點的理解與限制，並將其階段性的研究成果以個展《Otherwise Inside》發表於曼谷 WTF 畫廊，此展覽也是他首次個人展覽。同年，他受邀參與藝術史學者帕特里克．D．弗洛雷斯（Patrick D. Flores）策畫的第一屆曼谷雙年展，展出《非人民族誌(Nonhuman Ethnography)》創作計畫。薩瑪．柯塞姆先後於清邁大學取得社會科學學士與藝術及文化人類學碩士，近期將繼續攻讀博士學位，透過藝術與視覺人類學的實踐方法，深入探究他下一個主題《Bordering on Desire》。此計畫初步成果於今年三月發表於香港奧沙畫廊展覽「當下飄逝：東南偏南」。


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阮譚美 Tammy Nguyen
1984 年生於美國舊金山，生活工作於美國紐約。

多媒體藝術家阮譚美的創作橫跨繪畫、寫生、版畫和書籍製作。創作多以虛構結合地緣政治議題，並融合神話和視覺敘事探討鮮為人知的歷史。阮譚美是獨立出版社 Passenger Pigeon Press 創辦人，出版物致力於聚集科學家、記者、作家和藝術家等專業人士共同創造具政治意識的跨領域計畫。阮譚美出生於舊金山，2007 年取得紐約古柏聯盟學院(Cooper Union) 學士學位，隔年獲傅爾布萊特獎學金前往越南學習漆畫，並持續在當地瓷器公司工作生活三年。阮譚美於 2013 年取得耶魯大學藝術創作碩士，2014 年獲得波浪山莊公園和文化中心的范．萊爾獎學金。過去曾受邀於美國魯賓美術館，胡志明市立美術館及布朗克斯美術館等展出，作品為耶魯大學，美國費城藝術博物館，麻省理工學院圖書館，沃克藝術中心圖書館及紐約 MoMA 圖書館典藏。


特別感謝：高雄市立美術館，打開ー當代藝術工作站，吳達坤

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"Curiously enough..." - A Contemporary Insight into Southeast Asia -
Dates｜2019. 05. 18 - 2019. 07. 07
Reception｜2019. 05. 18 （Sat.） 16:00
Venue｜galerie nichido Taipei

Dusadee Huntrakul
Samak Kosem
Tammy Nguyen

galerie nichido Taipei is pleased to present “Curiously enough… - A Contemporary Insight into Southeast Asia -” with works by Thai artist Dusadee Huntrakul, Samak Kosem, and Vietnamese American artist Tammy Nguyen. In tandem with the exhibition "SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now", collaboratively presented by The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and Mori Art Museum, Galerie Nichido Taipei seeks to carry on our mission as a platform for cultural exchange by creating exhibition programs through curatorial themes that resonate and open up new dialogues and explorations of the regions of Asia.

The exhibition title “Curiously enough…” draws inspiration from the English idiom, which expresses an attitude of curiosity or surprise to facts or things that differs with one’s preconception. Using different mediums and tackling from different angles, the artists simultaneously explore curious concepts and circumstances found in human world for the endeavor to contemplate on the relationship between human and nonhuman.

Dusadee Huntrakul is skillful in using ready-made objects, painting, and installation to express his idea. Inspired by anthropology and ethnography, his works gain new meanings by borrowing, disintegrating, and recreating from sources as diverse as tribal as well as from contemporary art. "Snake from Toilet" is a series of color pencil drawing from original images found on the internet. The Hyperrealism not only points to the craft, labor, and materiality of the work, but also exemplifies the post-internet ways of transferring, receiving, revising, and re-sending information in our contemporary lives. "Snake from Toilet" asks how we have turned from relieving ourselves in the jungle like no other species with the possibility of encountering snakes, to something unlike them through the development of urban planning, aesthetic, consumption, technology and hygiene. "Snake from Toilet" can be seen both as an anthropological record to imagine certain aspects of current lives in Thailand and beyond, and an index to think about the development of local art history under globalization after Duchamp’s urine.

Samak Kosem works in the field of anthropology, and his ongoing research at the Deep South of Thailand focuses on Muslim culture and non-human relation. "Pondan" and "Neverland" uses photography and video respectively to show portraits of isolation of the Muslim LGBTI+ community, whereas "Nonhuman Ethnography" presents itself as a multimedia installation project consisting of videos, photographs, writing, drawing, and objects that further reflects on discoveries of the Deep South through a nonhuman lens. Instead of revealing images of conflict and turmoil often portrait as such by the mass media, Samak depicts his studies on nonhuman species(sheep) and landscapes(waves) that coexist with human to express the violence and oppression perpetrated in the social hierachy, religion, and sex of mankind. The subversive position between human and nonhuman in "Nonhuman Ethnography" not only highlights the inter-subjectivity of human and nonhuman, but also seems to suggest a queer method as an alternative approach to understand the world more holistically.

Multimedia artist Tammy Nguyen took classes in biology and anthropology when she was an art student in Yale. She worked as a volunteer and learned taxidermy at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History that owns one of the most comprehensive bird collections in North America.The experience triggered her interest in researching on birds. The works exhibiting here is her reflection on her identity and memories of growing up as a daughter of Vietnamese refugees, and the terror and diaspora brought about by human war. The lives terminated during the Vietnam war are similar to the chickens killed and cooked by her mother in that it was precisely these sacrifice that gave specific urgency to the artist’s well-being. Through unrestrained imaginations and critical research on geopolitics, Tammy creates a multilayered visual narrative that traces the history of the local environment as well as the multiple idea of being one of the survivors and the beneficiary on earth.

Just as “Curiously enough” is a way to express self awareness, the exhibition does not aim to provide solutions to those cognitive gaps. Instead, it goes back to the Latin word curiosus "careful," and cura "care", and asks such questions when confronting something curious as how do we not succumb easily to the idea of categorizing the superiors and the inferiors? How do we continue to hold an open mind that cares and understands whilst having the courage to refuse seemingly obvious knowledge or judgements? “Curiously enough” tries not to complete a sentence, but to open up for different possibilities of conversation.


About the Artist
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Dusadee Huntrakul
b.1978, Bangkok, Thailand. Lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dusadee Huntrakul received his Bachelor of Arts from University of California, Los Angeles in 2007 and his Master of Fine Arts from University of California Berkeley in 2013. As an artist, Dusadee participated in various group exhibitions including “Sous La Lune/Beneath the Moon” curated by Deputy Programming Director, Khai Hori, for Palais De Tokyo, Singapore Biennale 2013 “If the World Changed” and “Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California” an exhibition organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Oakland Museum of California. Dusadee’s past exhibitions include “Tracing the past - An insight into Thai contemporary art scene -” at Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo; “Sunshower: Contemporary Art from South East Asia from 1980 to Now” at Mori Art Museum and National Art Center in Tokyo, and a solo exhibition at 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok. As an educator, Dusadee taught drawing at University of California Berkeley and is teaching the same subject at Bangkok University International College, King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi, and Mahidol University International College.


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Samak Kosem
b.1984, Bangkok, Thailand. Lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Samak Kosem works in the field of anthropology and his ongoing research at the Deep South of Thailand focuses on Muslim culture and non-human relation. His works portray through photography and visual ethnography, as one of his methodologies that can reflect the partial truth/fact from his studies. Samak is also interested in queer studies by focus on homosexuality in Islam to understand the limits of gender perspective in the local and the region which became his first solo show “Otherwise Inside” in 2018 at WTF Gallery in Bangkok. By the same year, he joined the first edition of Bangkok Art Biennale curated by Patrick D. Flores on his “Nonhuman Ethnography” project. Samak holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Art in cultural anthropology from Chiang Mai University and will continue his PhD to combine art and visual anthropological practice for his project on “Bordering on Desire” (2019) that show at Osage Gallery in Hong Kong.


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Tammy Nguyen
b.1984, San Francisco, USA. Lives and works in New York, America.

Tammy Nguyen is a multimedia artist whose work spans painting, drawing, silkscreen and book making. Intersecting geopolitical realities with fiction, her practice addresses lesser-known histories through a blend of myth and visual narrative. She is the founder of Passenger Pigeon Press, an independent press that joins the work of scientists, journalists, creative writers, and artists to create politically nuanced and cross-disciplinary projects. Born in San Francisco, Nguyen received a BFA from Cooper Union in 2007. The year following, she received a Fulbright scholarship to study lacquer painting in Vietnam, where she remained and worked with a ceramics company for three years thereafter. Nguyen received an MFA from Yale in 2013 and was awarded the Van Lier Fellowship at Wave Hill in 2014. She has exhibited at the Rubin Museum, The Fine Arts Museum of Ho Chi Minh City and the Bronx Museum, among others. Her work is included in the collections of Yale University, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, MIT Library, the Walker Art Center Library, and the Museum of Modern Art Library.

Special Thanks: Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Open-Contemporary Art Center (OCAC), Wu Dar-Kuen.