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Lot Essay
"The paintings in Tales of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow are about fairy tales, fables, and folktales. I am particularly interested in the elements that constitute these tales, and more importantly, in the way they affect our collective memory and color our understanding of society."
Natee Utarit
Acknowledged as the leading painter within contemporary Thai society, Natee Utarit's pictorial language navigates the tensions arising between objective representation, cultural significance, and the loci of memory. Utarit's work often appears aphasic; the lack of coherent dialogic form means that interpretation often has to be sought within the most basic constructs of his pared-down visual metaphors. Working within the constructs of established Western painting traditions, Utarit's work generates dialogue and debate about social-political situations, personal and national identity, and how this can translate into a macro-level perspective about Southeast and Greater Asia.
Featured within Natee Utarit: After Painting, a mid-career survey of the artist held by the Singapore Art Museum in 2011, The Prince (Lot 524) is emblematic of Utarit's main concerns. Within the curatorial for After Painting, three main themes within Utarit's work were identified: the association of fairytales and fiction with the grand narrative of national ideology; the deployment of toy objects in the creation of metaphorical images; and the evoking of classical Thai icons, such as the state flag, rendered by Utarit as devoid of colour.
The Prince utilizes children's toys as allegorical symbols. Utarit explores his fascination with fairytale characters and tropes, commenting that: "Fairy tales and fables are about the meeting of polar opposites - like black and white, good and evil, courage and cowardice. [They are] filled with stock characters, each representing a particular trait or quality. Another consistent feature of fairy tales is their depiction of the inequality between people. There are distinct social classes. At the top of the hierarchy is the king, and below him are the nobles, followed by the rich men, the farmers, and the homeless wanderers."
The prince is actually a plastic figurine made of modular parts, which can be easily manipulated to turn in any direction. Although he looks towards the monochromatic flag with apparent allegiance, yet his feet point towards the viewer in the opposite direction, indicating a schism between his outward guise and inner inclinations. The only splash of color within the artwork, the yellow rubber ducks, represent the Thai king, as well as the royalist yellow-shirts political coalition. Juxtaposed against the Thai flag drained of color and the fatuous prince, Utarit creates an introspective observation on the state of Thai society.
The Met Bag (Blue) (Lot 525) represents Natee Utarit's take on the commercialized nature of today's art experience. By making the museum gift store bag the focal image, Utarit inverts the idea of museum visits wherein a viewer traditionally attempted to engage with an institutionally approved art historical canon; which area is in itself is problematic by definition of what constitutes institutional approval for public consumption. By contrast, present-day museum goers are avid patrons of the gift store, obsessed with taking home cheap replicas of this same art canon. Utarit confronts the notion of the replicated object, and the idea of the readymade becoming high art, executed through a visual style derived from Warholian Pop Art. In a tongue-in-cheek statement, Utarit explains: "My Met Bag had to be big enough to speak about all these complex ideas and issues." Whether in terms of metaphorical or physical size, Utarit's Met Bag seeks to deliver a profound set of issues and questions regarding our encounters with art.
Natee Utarit
Acknowledged as the leading painter within contemporary Thai society, Natee Utarit's pictorial language navigates the tensions arising between objective representation, cultural significance, and the loci of memory. Utarit's work often appears aphasic; the lack of coherent dialogic form means that interpretation often has to be sought within the most basic constructs of his pared-down visual metaphors. Working within the constructs of established Western painting traditions, Utarit's work generates dialogue and debate about social-political situations, personal and national identity, and how this can translate into a macro-level perspective about Southeast and Greater Asia.
Featured within Natee Utarit: After Painting, a mid-career survey of the artist held by the Singapore Art Museum in 2011, The Prince (Lot 524) is emblematic of Utarit's main concerns. Within the curatorial for After Painting, three main themes within Utarit's work were identified: the association of fairytales and fiction with the grand narrative of national ideology; the deployment of toy objects in the creation of metaphorical images; and the evoking of classical Thai icons, such as the state flag, rendered by Utarit as devoid of colour.
The Prince utilizes children's toys as allegorical symbols. Utarit explores his fascination with fairytale characters and tropes, commenting that: "Fairy tales and fables are about the meeting of polar opposites - like black and white, good and evil, courage and cowardice. [They are] filled with stock characters, each representing a particular trait or quality. Another consistent feature of fairy tales is their depiction of the inequality between people. There are distinct social classes. At the top of the hierarchy is the king, and below him are the nobles, followed by the rich men, the farmers, and the homeless wanderers."
The prince is actually a plastic figurine made of modular parts, which can be easily manipulated to turn in any direction. Although he looks towards the monochromatic flag with apparent allegiance, yet his feet point towards the viewer in the opposite direction, indicating a schism between his outward guise and inner inclinations. The only splash of color within the artwork, the yellow rubber ducks, represent the Thai king, as well as the royalist yellow-shirts political coalition. Juxtaposed against the Thai flag drained of color and the fatuous prince, Utarit creates an introspective observation on the state of Thai society.
The Met Bag (Blue) (Lot 525) represents Natee Utarit's take on the commercialized nature of today's art experience. By making the museum gift store bag the focal image, Utarit inverts the idea of museum visits wherein a viewer traditionally attempted to engage with an institutionally approved art historical canon; which area is in itself is problematic by definition of what constitutes institutional approval for public consumption. By contrast, present-day museum goers are avid patrons of the gift store, obsessed with taking home cheap replicas of this same art canon. Utarit confronts the notion of the replicated object, and the idea of the readymade becoming high art, executed through a visual style derived from Warholian Pop Art. In a tongue-in-cheek statement, Utarit explains: "My Met Bag had to be big enough to speak about all these complex ideas and issues." Whether in terms of metaphorical or physical size, Utarit's Met Bag seeks to deliver a profound set of issues and questions regarding our encounters with art.