april-2012
april-2012
april-2012
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THE WORLD || Dispatches<br />
MONTREAL<br />
SHIP SHAPE<br />
Art fans get their sea legs at a<br />
nautically inspired installation<br />
Dean Baldwin steps aboard his 1952<br />
Nordic Folkboat and pulls on a yellow<br />
raincoat. Unshaven and sporting blackframed<br />
glasses, he surveys his rations:<br />
preserves, peanuts, half-empty liquor<br />
bo les and other miscellany. He wonders<br />
if he has enough to make it through<br />
the night. Art lovers, a er all, can be a<br />
demanding bunch.<br />
Baldwin is the creator of Ship in a<br />
Bo le, Barbados Rhum, the latest and<br />
sole installation inhabiting the atrium of<br />
Montreal’s Musée d’Art Contemporain.<br />
The work is a two-story-tall sailboat<br />
tipped at a 45-degree angle, with an<br />
interior that’s been re-leveled to create<br />
usable horizontal surfaces. By day, it<br />
serves as a stand-alone sculpture that<br />
museumgoers survey from a distance.<br />
But on Wednesday nights and the fi rst<br />
Friday of each month, Baldwin jumps in,<br />
cranks the tunes and begins whipping up<br />
cocktails in Mason jars.<br />
During a recent open night, three<br />
women peek into the hatch to check<br />
out Baldwin’s bartending skills. A<br />
couple briefl y slow-dances in the atrium’s<br />
shadowy corners, sweaty White Russians<br />
in hand. Unlike the crowd that was here<br />
just hours ago, nobody is worried about<br />
touching the art. “You can stick your<br />
head inside the boat, you can smell the<br />
mustiness of it, you can drink a martini,<br />
eat a fi sh out of a can in the cockpit,” says<br />
Baldwin, whose previous works include<br />
Bunk Bed City, a summer camp–themed<br />
installation that gallery visitors could<br />
sleep in. “When you can consume a<br />
portion of the work, that sort of takes<br />
the pretension down.”<br />
Not surprisingly, when asked about<br />
the inspiration for the project, Baldwin<br />
is unpretentious. “I don’t know … but I<br />
was watching ‘Lost’ at the time,” he says.<br />
—CHRISTINA COUCH<br />
22 APRIL <strong>2012</strong> • HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM<br />
CHIANG RAI, THAILAND<br />
Beyond Belief<br />
A PSYCHEDELIC TEMPLE BLURS THE LINE BETWEEN<br />
POP CULTURE AND ANCIENT RELIGION<br />
Pointing at the fearsome alien that appears to be climbing out of<br />
the lawn nearby, Panya “Tom” Lekwilai turns to a group of tourists<br />
and states the obvious: “The Predator doesn’t look like it belongs<br />
in a Buddhist temple.” Yet it fi ts right in at this particular temple,<br />
an altogether bizarre spectacle tucked among the rice fi elds of<br />
Chiang Rai near the Myanmar border, where the star of the classic<br />
’80s action movie is joined by, among other things, riotous murals<br />
of Keanu Reeves, Batman and Michael Jackson.<br />
Before being graced with such pop iconography—as well as<br />
an all-white exterior clad in shards of mirrored glass—the White<br />
Temple, offi cially called Wat Rong Khun, had been a traditional<br />
house of worship for more than a century. But famed Thai artist<br />
Chalermchai Kositpipat, who caused a fl ap with the contemporary<br />
stylings of his Buddhist murals at London’s Wat Buddhapadipa,<br />
changed all that when he returned here to his home village and<br />
began revamping the temple on his own dime in 1998. (It remains<br />
a work in progress: The artist’s plan for the site is for nine buildings<br />
in total, with construction continuing for the next several decades.)<br />
For the most part, the controversy over Kositpipat’s previous<br />
work seems absent here. “Though I can’t totally speak for most<br />
older visitors, I don’t think they are off ended,” says Lekwilai, as he<br />
ascends an ornate white bridge leading to an assembly hall. “They<br />
probably fi nd it modern and creative.”<br />
Youngsters are enjoying themselves as well. Lekwilai has crossed<br />
into the hall, but a few stragglers remain outside. That is, until one<br />
glances at the Predator and squeals, and the whole lot scurries to<br />
join the rest of the pack. It seems that if a shimmering vision of<br />
nirvana doesn’t keep you moving along the path to enlightenment,<br />
a snarling space creature certainly will. —CHRISTINE O’TOOLE