Bangkok-raised artist Korakrit Arunanondchai creates performative paintings, videos, and installations, often making connections between the history of Western painting and art’s current context in his home country. Untitled (History Painting) (2013), for example, consists of stretched denim, tie-dyed with bleach, burnt and patched up with photographs of the flames used to scorch them. The artist, best known for denim—both in his wardrobe and art practice—sees the fabric as universal, and relates the rise of denim culture with the importation and appropriation of western culture across the globe. This “painting” layers a visual language that resonates with his personal history as a cultural transplant with the painting’s own history—all the steps of its construction made visible. A former professional rapper and student of relational aesthetics pioneer Rirkrit Tiravanija, Arunanondchai often pairs his objects with performance—both his own mystical movements and utterances and his audience’s participation in the space. In this way, he extends the history of his works in a further synthesis of past and present.

Arunanondchai has had a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 and a solo performance at Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art. His work has also been included in group exhibitions at London’s ICA, SculptureCenter in New York, and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin. He is a recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant.