David Teh
I really like the way he deals with the critique of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work in terms of being “Thai,” when in his case that category is barely meaningful. Teh is dealing very handily with the pressures of the contemporary art market and museum structure for artists to be easily identifiable by nationality, especially when they come from South or Southeast Asia.
“Can this artist—born in Buenos Aires, trained in Toronto and Chicago, transposing his New York apartment into a Gennan institution—really be communicating there only as a Thai? Does an artist’s every move carry an overriding ethical obligation to speak from or to their national polity of origin?” 8
“But as we will see Thainess—as much as any national identifier, and probably more than most—is less a biological fact than a performance, a slow and convoluted becoming.” 9