January & February 2013 - Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film ...

EXHIBITIONSApichatpong WeerasethakulMATRIX 247February 15–April 21New ExhibitionAs three ghostly voices share their stories, ApichatpongWeerasethakul’s 2007 video installation Morakot (Emerald)lingers on dust, light, and memory in the empty rooms andhallways of a defunct Bangkok hotel. The Morakot Hotel was ahaven for Cambodian refugees fleeing the Vietnamese invasionin the 1980s. By the late 1990s, however, the Thai economyhad collapsed and the Morakot was forced to close its doors.Weerasethakul, a Thai artist best known for his feature-lengthindependent movies, breathes life back into the abandonedhotel, using cinema as a vehicle for reincarnation and transformation.Morakot features the same fugitive memories thathave given shape to over a decade of the director’s films, buthere they are given space to roam. A green light hangingin the center of the installation casts an ethereal glow overthe gallery, but the moving images onscreen exist in a morefantastical, absent world, a dreamscape for wandering in andout of time and consciousness.Weerasethakul took inspiration for this installation from a 1906Buddhist novel, The Pilgrim Kamanita, by Danish author KarlGjellerup. The Kamanita’s protagonists, reborn as stars, tellone another tales over the course of centuries until they reachnirvana. Likewise, in Morakot, three actors (who frequentlyappear in Weerasethakul’s films) recount dreams, reminisceabout hometowns, articulate regrets, and recite love poems.Although we hear them talking and laughing, we almost neversee the actors on the screen, an absence that endows thework with a haunting sense of loss.MATRIX 247 is organized by AssistantCurator Dena Beard. The MATRIX Programis made possible by a generous endowmentgift from Phyllis C. Wattis and the continuedsupport of the BAM/PFA Trustees.Apichatpong Weerasethakul: stillfrom Morakot (Emerald), 2007; single-channelvideo projection; color,sound, 10:50 min., looped; museumpurchase: bequest of Phoebe AppersonHearst, by exchange.6 january & FEBRuary 2013