.png)
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook is a Thai artist who was born in 1957. Rasdjarmrearnsook dives into different forms of media such as photography, sculpture, performance art, and film. Earlier in her career, she experimented with intaglio printmaking, a printmaking technique where you incise an image onto a surface, and sculptural installation. In the late 1990s, she began focusing on video and film. Rasdjarmrearnsook reaches a wide range of topics such as death, insanity, women’s rights, animal rights, and cultural differences. She currently lives in Chiang Mai with her many dogs and teaches at Chiang Mai University. The New York times spoke on how one time when she was teaching at Chiang Mai University while pregnant. However, “she announced that she wasn’t with child at all, and that her fake pregnancy was a work of performance art called ‘The Nine-Day Pregnancy of a Single Middle-Aged Associate Professor.’”(Johnson) She documented this in a video where the audience hears the opinions of the situation from her colleagues. She speaks on East-West cultural differences in some of her videos where she presents “small groups of rural people in Thailand who evidently know little about Western art [who] are invited to discuss reproductions of famous European and American works.”(Johnson) I ate at a restaurant and got dishes that were inspired by one of her pieces. This is my first restaurant post which is exciting! Some of her pieces are happier, while her other pieces are more hardhitting and disturbing. This piece hits both sense of happiness as well as a hardhitting topic.
I chose The Treachery of the Moon which is a film that depicts Rasdjarmrearnsook and two dogs sitting on a mattress while watching a show. At the beginning of the film, there are texts and a portion of them state: “The word ‘decline’ indicates that things used to be better in the past. We will discuss Thailand whose royal family has been considered to be leaders since ancient times. ‘Breeding’ in terms of humanity refers to the continuing of the family line to ensure security and the long-lasting family heritage” (Guggenheim) Rasdjarmrearnsook expressed how these texts at the beginning are from a princess who lived during the time of King Ramesuan. He left the country and this caused the princess to look back at and criticize Thai people and Thailand. Rasdjarmrearnsook loved that because it was super direct. The song she used is about love and is from her father's generation. She felt as if using an older song was the best fit. Rasdjarmrearnsook explained in this video specifics of this piece. This piece dives into two different worlds: “the fictional realm of television drama and the reality of political clashes in 21st-century Thailand.” (Guggenheim) By comparing these two, she accentuates the blurriness between imaginary and real-life along with showing similar conflicts and desires between the two. The aspects in this piece explore different themes. For instance, the dog accentuates and her central figures in this piece represent songs from a peaceful past and evoke nostalgia of a more ethical and simple time. The Guggenheim describes this piece as a way that “articulates Rasdjarmrearnsook’s interest in the possibility of exposing consciousness and memory as dreamlike illusions.” (Guggenheim) In a video for the Guggenheim Museum (linked below), Rasdjarmrearnsook speaks on how this piece depicts what she does every night with her dogs along with explaining the importance of the soap opera’s.
She describes how invested she gets to the point where it brings her joy, tears, and even anger. I relate to it because I get the same way I watch Love Island or any freeform show. Similar to me, she gets really involved in the storyline and the characters. Throughout this video, she also says the name of the dogs that show up in the film: Prince Jood (Prince Diarrhea) and Natal (Sugar). She continues by explaining the emotional ties with Thai soap opera where it is in between a political situation and a private life. I linked the video of Rasdjarmrearnsook speaking about this piece! It is quite interesting and is only around 4 minutes long. This piece inspired me to go to a Thai restaurant and since it is a restaurant, I do not have exact recipes. I will tell you what was in the two dishes, however, the second dish is very vague on ingredients. My friends (Maseo and Damian) and I went to 26 Thai Kitchen & Bar and it is in Midtown, Atlanta.
It is in a house and the setup is so lovely! Maseo ordered an entree and a drink. Damian and I ordered four appetizers where I had two and he had two. It was called a Thai platter and Damian got the calamari and shrimp in a blanket. Maseo ordered the Drunken Noodle and Pina Colada. On the menu, the calamari has sweet Thai chili sauce and the shrimp in a blanket had shrimp, taro, with a sweet chili sauce. The Drunken Noodle has flat rice noodles, Thai basil, carrot, bell pepper, onion, Thai chili, crispy basil, spicy basil sauce, peppercorn, and oyster sauce. I put voice recordings of them giving their review since I believe they can say it better than I can. It is a very raw review in the middle of a Barnes & Noble. However, It truly shows our goofy personalities but it also gives an authentic review of their dishes! Here are the reviews: Maseo's & Damian's. I got the basil rolls and vegetable potstickers. My basil rolls had fried tofu, pickled purple cabbage, vermicelli rice noodle, basil, romaine, turnip, cucumber, carrot, and crushed peanut with a sweet plum soy sauce. The server said that my potstickers were just mixed vegetables and I am not quite sure which vegetables in particular they were. I genuinely thought it was meat at first and had to ask the server. She said she gets that question all the time on whether or not there is meat in the dumplings. That is how mixed the inside of the dumpling looked. It was to the point where I could not tell you what kind of vegetables there were. The food was amazing. The basil rolls were exquisite and the fried tofu was some of the best that I have ever had. Their dipping sauce had the right amount of peanut so that it was not overbearing since peanut tends to do that in dishes at times. The dumplings were so good and the spicy chili dipping sauce it came with, set it over the top. The service was so nice and the people were truly a blessing. They were very kind and they adored how I was taking pictures of the art they had up along with their setup. The layout was very nice and welcoming. It had a sense of a homey environment with a classy touch. The music was r&b and I was saving songs to my playlist as they place. I would 100% recommend this place. It has amazing food, service, music, and energy all around. If you’re in Atlanta, I would suggest visiting this top-tier spot!
Sources:
“Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook on The Treachery of the Moon.” The Guggenheim museums and foundation. Accessed July 27, 2021. https://www.guggenheim.org/video/araya-rasdjarmrearnsook-on-the-treachery-of-the-moon.
“Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook.” The Guggenheim museums and foundation. Accessed July 27, 2021. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/araya-rasdjarmrearnsook.
“Artists - Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook.” Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 7, 2020. http://www.trfineart.com/artist/araya-rasdjarmrearnsook/#artist-works.
Johnson, Ken. “East and West Meet, Checking Norms at the Door.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 5, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/arts/design/araya-rasdjarmrearnsook-a-sculpturecenter-exhibition.html?.?mc=aud_dev&ad-keywords=auddevgate&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6NmHBhD2ARIsAI3hrM1TzQZ9qpbFSFuOmYNEj3bpMXN9gsyjyCCpG0DKZb2WPDYEf79YxWsaAm2REALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds.
Yap, June. “The Treachery of the Moon.” The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Accessed July 27, 2021. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/31273.
Comments