Korakrit Arunanondchai

Korakrit Arunanondchai (Thai: กรกฤต อรุณานนท์ชัย) is a video and multimedia artist originally from Bangkok who now splits his time between Brooklyn and Bangkok.[1][2] He is best known for his 2017 installation, With history in a room filled with people with funny names 4, which received widely positive reviews and was recognized with an award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.[3]

Korakrit Arunanondchai
Born (1986-11-24) November 24, 1986 (age 38)
Bangkok, Thailand
Alma mater
Known forFilm, painting, performance art, sculpture
MovementAvant-garde, modernism
AwardsAmmodo Tiger Short Award (2018)

Early life

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Arunanondchai was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1986. His father was a first-generation Thai whose family had immigrated from China, while his mother grew up in several countries due to her father's position as a diplomat.[4] He acquired an interest in the arts through music, which expanded to include visual art while studying at NIST International School in Bangkok.[5] Upon graduating from NIST, he attended Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009 before going on to earn a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in 2012.[6]

Career

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Shortly after the completion of his MFA, Arunanondchai was named as one of the 2013 recipients of the Emerging Artist Grant from the Hort Mann Foundation, an award intended to support promising New York-based artists.[7] His first professional work included participation in group showings at the SculptureCenter and Fisher Landau Center, as well as solo exhibitions in New York and Brussels. In 2014 Museum of Modern Art hosted his first solo museum exhibition, 2012-2055, which included both videos and paintings that explored the concept of transformation and his own evolution as an artist.[8]

In 2018 Arunanondchai received the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam for With history in a room filled with people with funny names 4, the fourth entry in his ongoing film series Together with history in a room filled with people with funny names.[9] That same year he released the fifth entry, No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5,[10] and also launched a Bangkok video-art festival with the inaugural event Ghost:2561, highlighting the connections between Thailand's strong tradition of animism and contemporary art.[11] In 2019, Arunanonschai was commissioned by the Performa 19 biennial for which he created the performance Together. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a planned exhibition in New York was postponed due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus throughout the city. However, Arunanondchai's newest video exploring the death of his grandfather, Songs for dying, was shown in 2021 at the Kunsthall Trondheim gallery in Norway and at the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.[12][13][14]

References

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  1. ^ Russeth, Andrew (10 September 2018). "Korakrit Arunanondchai Plans Ghost, Performance and Video Festival in Bangkok Set for October". ArtNews. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  2. ^ Loos, Ted (27 April 2017). "An Artist Who Talks Fast but Makes Meditative Films". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  3. ^ Blidaru, Adriana (1 May 2017). "How to find beauty in a sea of data". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  4. ^ "Korakrit Arunanondchai—Multidisciplinary Artist". The Genius List. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  5. ^ Thitipol Panyalimpanun (28 July 2014). "An interview with Korakrit Arunanondchai, Thai art's shirtless wonder". BK Magazine. Coconuts Media. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  6. ^ "BIO – KORAKRIT ARUNANONDCHAI". Asia Contemporary Art Week. Asia Contemporary Art Consortium. 12 October 2014. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  7. ^ Andrew Russeth (11 January 2013). "Hort Mann Foundation Names Latest New York Grantees, Readies L.A. Grants". Observer. Observer Holdings, LLC. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  8. ^ "Korakrit Arunanondchai". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  9. ^ "With History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 4". IFFR. International Film Festival Rotterdam. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  10. ^ "With History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 5". IFFR. International Film Festival Rotterdam. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  11. ^ Paige Katherine Bradley (4 October 2018). "We're Leaving America On Read and Heading to Thailand for "Ghost:2561"". Garage. Vice Media Group LLC. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  12. ^ Adeline Chia (2 June 2020). "Artists In Residence: Korakrit Arunanondchai". ArtReview. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  13. ^ "Opening: Korakrit Arunanondchai and Diana Policarpo". Kunsthall Trondheim. 11 February 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  14. ^ Kate Brown (23 February 2021). "Why the Artistic Directors of the Gwangju Biennial Are Quarantining for Weeks (and Working Overtime) to Mount a Show Very Few People Will See". Artnet. Artnet Worldwide Corporation. Retrieved 9 March 2021.