Surasi Kusolwong - No Conclusion

Rooseum is delighted to have the opportunity to present Surasi Kusolwong's first one-person show in Europe, No Conclusion (Time Is The Answer). Born and living in Thailand, Kusolwong is one of the leading artists to emerge from the extension of the contemporary art field beyond its Western boundaries over the last 10 years. His work draws on Thai and Western art traditions as well as recent cultural and social changes in both situations.

For this first major solo-exhibition, Kusolwong will show new and existing works in a set up that partly suggests an indoor city. The exhibition includes a new version of his famous Emotional Machine, a VW Beetle turned upside down and converted into a swing that visitors can use. He will also stage a new 10 SEK market full of plastic Thai products that will be sold during the opening as 'a retail performance with music action'. New works will include a scaffold stage for photos and performances and an electric scooter tour of a re-made modern classic sculpture by Richard Serra. A number of smaller sculptures and photographs will also be shown.

Kusolwong's work bears a close relationship to western modernism. He draws on a stock of European and North American modernist aesthetics in ways that could be interpreted as homage to western success and appears to be done in a spirit of celebration. Yet by appro-priating and altering genres of modernist aesthetics he translates the legacy of the Western canon into his own language. Objects are given new functions (or their function is re-configured in the case of design products), thereby undermining the usually distinct categories of utility and fine art. The works seem to question the necessity and appropriate-ness of such meanings in a global economic and cultural context.

The artist is also deeply concerned with the experience of the visitor, seeking a different kind of engagement than the normally passive consumption of images in a museum. Many of the works require direct participation in order to fully grasp their intention, while others are activated by performers, including the artist himself. Another important element of his work is the act of hospitality, inspired by the mixing of European and Asian cultural expectation.

By presenting a substantial corpus of works by Kusolwong, No Conclusion (Time Is The Answer) offers testimony to the many-layered approaches in the artist's work. His works move freely between analysis and experience, theory and physical presence, and bring about a sense of open-endedness and indeterminacy. The exhibition is an invitation to enjoy moments of entertainment and pleasurable situations that points beyond the here and now. Pressetext

Surasi Kusolwong - No Conclusion (Time Is The Answer)