Bangkok, Thailand. 11 April 2025 (2568!)
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
April – is it the cruelest month, this year?
Here’s hoping it’s not, despite all the weirdness in the air. And the weedness: it looks like I’m in a pop-up group show at a weed joint. We Shall See, and watch this space for a report if it really happens.
Bangkok had an earthquake, and I wasn’t even there to watch the towers sway. Fair bit of cleanup work after the fact, though. Note to self: be less accommodating of people like landlords, they always take advantage.
One of the great things about being tuned in to the Global Art World – in whatever capacity – is that you get to see how madly, unstoppably the art continues to flow, no matter how doomsy the news cycle wants to be. Of course that’s intimidating too, in its way: you struggle to bring your vision to life, but if you step back and just watch the stream flow by you realize that your art only really matters in the collective, as one little drop. The stream matters, and it needs the yous, but it doesn’t need you.
“HUMAN MADE FUTURE IS THE PAST,” said the T-Shirt of a very tall Korean man who just walked past.
A couple days ago, I rewatched Basquiat. What a lovely movie. I will fault Mr Schnabel for making himself (by Gary Oldman) the single unreservedly good Good Guy in the whole movie, but hey, he was new to the game. Worth noting how rich and established he was by the time he made it: I always have this vague sense that he was doing smashed plates, and then did the films, then the giant paintings, but it seems giant paintings were all there at the time of filming. Were they there when he was hanging out with Basquiat IRL?
Anyway, poor Jean-Michel. Imagine if he were still out there, just like Schnabel, quietly doing major work and being collected and having the freedom to change his style. Half of the pictures in any of the big shows of his work from the last decade would stay on the walls of hedgefunders and their ilk, while newer work would share the museum walls with the best of his street-inspired stuff.
SAMO, SAMO.
While the towers swayed, and one (under construction, and under Korruptionsverdacht as well) tragically collapsed, and Mandalay was probably torn apart: while all this happened, I was “upcountry” as they say.
And what lovely country, but man-o, even as an American I find it intimidatingly vehicle-dependent up there in Isaan. Gonna need some extra vehicles at the farm, long-term. And a kiln. And a barn for painting. Note to self: don’t put the kiln inside the barn.
Upcountry: Rákospalota?!