ERRATA, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai
This exhibition encompasses works from 38 artists and 4 archives, derived from a dialogue between the four collections of all partners – Galeri Nasional Indonesia, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Nationalgalerie–Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and Singapore Art Museum. In development since 2017, the exhibition "Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories" aims to trace stories, counter-histories and absent histories whose spirits populate the present while seeking new narratives. The project explores the question of how these interwoven histories within nation-building processes, individual identity formation and their embodiment are reflected in artistic works and their exhibition history.
“ERRATA”, in general, can be found as inserted sheets or papers within books or printed media, indicating the correction of errors of written texts. ERRATA in this exhibition context serves as a metaphor for MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum's collection as a manifestation of errata to Thai modern and contemporary art history. It’s not only about correction to and critique of the grand narrative of national centric art history, but offers alternative perspectives of small narratives to counter and contest constructed historiography in the regional and global social and geopolitical context. It also traces the history of exhibitions, art movements and collectives in the region and beyond. This show investigates contested narratives, counter and alternate histories from the remnants of the crypto-colonial period to Cold War politics. Located at the intersection of regional and global perspectives on art and history, the exhibition unpacks the complexity of small narrative artistic practices from performance art, media-based works and multidisciplinary works especially from artists, particularly women, who use their bodies and cameras to encapsulate and embody the entangled histories. How do contemporary artists work as archeologists to excavate untold history? How are they revisiting the collective memory and proposing the rewritten versions? And how is performance art hijacked by younger generation activists to perform their political resistance and social disobedience on the street today?
The nature of this collaboration is to use each museum collection as a departure point to engage and dialogue with our partner museums. One of the highlights is to celebrate the centenary of Joseph Beuys, as his social sculpture inspired many artists in the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum’s and resonated with Chiang Mai Social Installation, a series of artist-led festivals that connected the local art scene with Southeast Asian performance arts and beyond in the early 1990s. The reenactment of a Week of Sufferings will be led by Mit Jai-Inn, a co-founder of Chiang Mai Social Installation.
ERRATA is curated by Gridthiya Gaweewong, with Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Grace Samboh, and June Yap.
Note: In the dictionary, Errata is defined as errors in printing or writing. It’s a list of corrected errors appended to a book or published in a subsequent issue of a journal. The exhibition Errata resonates with Koh Nguang How’s Errata, the contemporary art exhibition in Singapore in 2004, which aimed to fix the errors in the first exhibition catalog of the Singapore Art Museum in 1995.
The nature of this collaboration is to use each museum collection as a departure point to engage and dialogue with our partner museums. One of the highlights is to celebrate the centenary of Joseph Beuys, as his social sculpture inspired many artists in the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum’s and resonated with Chiang Mai Social Installation, a series of artist-led festivals that connected the local art scene with Southeast Asian performance arts and beyond in the early 1990s. The reenactment of a Week of Sufferings will be led by Mit Jai-Inn, a co-founder of Chiang Mai Social Installation.
ERRATA is curated by Gridthiya Gaweewong, with Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Grace Samboh, and June Yap.
Note: In the dictionary, Errata is defined as errors in printing or writing. It’s a list of corrected errors appended to a book or published in a subsequent issue of a journal. The exhibition Errata resonates with Koh Nguang How’s Errata, the contemporary art exhibition in Singapore in 2004, which aimed to fix the errors in the first exhibition catalog of the Singapore Art Museum in 1995.
