Art historian Chanon Kenji Praepipatmongkol reflects on the relationship between Tang Chang’s formally daring artistic practice and the social history of the tumultuous 1960s in Thailand. 

Participants will be invited to look at artworks alongside the rich archival materials presented in the exhibition The Painting that is Painted with Poetry is Profoundly Beautiful. Among the subjects of discussion include Chang's engagement with currents of religious reform, the emergence of a translingual public culture, and the intersection of painterly and poetic aesthetics.

FREE, open to all.

About the speaker

Chanon Kenji Praepipatmongkol is the 2018–2019 Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. He holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College and is completing a PhD in History of Art at the University of Michigan. Through the figures of Tang Chang and Fernando Zóbel, his dissertation proposes a new model of the avant-garde in Southeast Asia, one in which engagements with transnational religious currents were central to the production of modern art. An alumnus of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, Kenji has worked on projects for the Tate, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Hood Museum of Art, National Gallery Singapore, Jim Thompson Art Center, and Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center.

Image: Tang Chang, Untitled (detail), 1965, Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Thip Sae-tang.