I didn’t actually go there. Or rather, I went inside the foyer, but because of an impending airplane back to Thailand, didn’t actually visit the galleries.

But nonetheless, I was excited by this article on the National Gallery.

Notably, that the author said that museum ‘indicates a strong belief in culture holding its own rather than it serving as a sub-branch of tourism.’

This was something that I felt myself while over there – that the nation felt that the arts were a critical part of the small country’s identity going forward (possibly because, lacking a lengthy national history, the arts become a way to build a national culture and support a national identity).

  
We visited a couple of small galleries in Bangkok, but the H Gallery was the one that blew me away. They had works on display by Jakkai Siributr (a Thai artist) and Sopheap Pich (a Cambodian artist) downstairs and some large paintings by a third artist (whose name I forget upstairs).

Pich’s work (which is what you’re seeing in the picture). Her wall-hanging constructions of bamboo, rattan, burlap, natural and artificial pigments, damar resin, beeswax, and metal wire struck me very powerfully. Siributr’s tapestries, incorporating the small, stone Buddha amulets that you can find for sale next to any wat were very attractive, but only intermittently affecting.