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Mediatheque
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook 阿拉亞．拉斯德乍爾姆倫索
Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’ Untitled, and Thai Villagers 村落與他處：阿爾泰米西婭·真蒂萊斯基的《猶滴斬殺荷羅浮尼》，傑夫 · 昆斯的《無題》，以及泰國村民
2011
In her series Village and Elsewhere, the video artist and writer Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook places framed reproductions of Western art in public spaces and natural landscapes in Thailand. She then records local residents as they interpret the pieces.
Set in a Buddhist temple, Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’ Untitled, and Thai Villagers pairs seventeenth-century Baroque drama with the excess of the 1980s. A monk lectures on the art to women and children, who sit on the floor and face away from the camera. For the monk, the works can be read as cause and effect—a demonstration of the moral precepts of dharma. On the left, the Koons image, a self-portrait between two bikini-clad women, shows a promiscuous man ‘with too much love’; as punishment, the monk states, the man will have his head cut off, like Holofernes. He delivers his warnings with a sense of humour that encourages playful engagement from his audience.
The temple’s walls are adorned with Buddhist iconography, matching the visual intensity of the works and their thick, gilded frames. In creating space for the monk’s interpretation, Rasdjarmrearnsook explores an ambiguous zone where cultures intersect with gentle curiosity.
Set in a Buddhist temple, Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’ Untitled, and Thai Villagers pairs seventeenth-century Baroque drama with the excess of the 1980s. A monk lectures on the art to women and children, who sit on the floor and face away from the camera. For the monk, the works can be read as cause and effect—a demonstration of the moral precepts of dharma. On the left, the Koons image, a self-portrait between two bikini-clad women, shows a promiscuous man ‘with too much love’; as punishment, the monk states, the man will have his head cut off, like Holofernes. He delivers his warnings with a sense of humour that encourages playful engagement from his audience.
The temple’s walls are adorned with Buddhist iconography, matching the visual intensity of the works and their thick, gilded frames. In creating space for the monk’s interpretation, Rasdjarmrearnsook explores an ambiguous zone where cultures intersect with gentle curiosity.
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