The Beach
2000
Philippe Parreno
Navin Gallery Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand

French conceptual artist Philippe Parreno likes to challenge viewer perceptions and perspectives as to what reality is. Responding to the movie The Beach, which was filmed in Thailand around the time of the exhibition, Parreno looked at how this group of travellers were chasing an imaginary utopia. Keeping the work hidden from both the gallery staff and guests at the opening, Parreno requested the gallery’s driver to only reveal his work for passengers according to predetermined rules of engagement. In collaboration with the artist’s collective M/M Paris, the artist invented unreadable language putting the pseudo text on the Taxi Gallery windows, blurring lines between real and imagined. Organised in collaboration with About Art Related Activities (AARA), similar text was also presented at five-large display windows of Yipintsoi Company building in Bangkok’s Chinatown. After this exhibition the Taxi Gallery suspended its exhibition schedule indefinitely as they sought out more public approaches to artistic intervention.