In Korakrit Arunanondchai’s world, almost everything carries meanings, emotions, and a sense of self. From mythical winged creatures and ghosts, from fire and ashes down to the recurring use of denim, the Thai-born artist weaves together diverse stories from personal memories to historical, popular culture and spiritual references to explore humanity’s most universal and complex themes—of identity, life and death to the many expressions of the human experience.
His debut solo presentation in Indonesia, which is showcased at Museum MACAN from 30 November 2024 to 6 April 2025, plunges further into Korakrit’s distinctive storytelling. Through mediums such as paintings, video, sounds and installations that he developed from 2018 to the present, the 38-year-old Bangkok and New York-based artist reimagines the exhibition as “a theatre to trigger these emotions and feelings that are difficult to express but still feel real.” Thus Sing, Dance, Cry, Breathe becomes the guiding prose of this exhibition.
Within this ‘theatre’, visitors first encounter the ‘backstage room’, where the work ‘BREATH’ (2024), a sonic sculpture composed of fragmented body parts, awaits. A particularly eerie yet sentimental reminder of loss is the installation featuring a silicone, almost lifelike cast of the artist’s late grandfather’s hands, performing his favourite piece on a keyboard—as if he was rehearsing them before an audience. This delicate yet haunting soundtrack continues to softly reverberate through the exhibition space as visitors move between rooms to explore the other works.
Then there’s the ‘STAGE’ (2024), the literal ground that visitors walk on. Made of ash, housepaint, and soil mixture that the MACAN team helped collect from an industrial area in Bekasi (an area known for its high pollution levels), the hard, tar-like surface evokes a symbolic connection between the ground and the sky. It represents the aftermath of burning, where particles from combustion settle and become part of the ground we walk on—a visceral reminder of the environment we inhabit.
Intentionally or not, blue is the colour one meets often in this exhibition. It appears in ‘The Voids (Sky Paintings)’ (2022), a series of blue metallic foil paintings on a denim canvas. It also manifests in ‘Sing’ (2024), a sprawling painting hung like a large flag, featuring a sculptural relief of a mockingjay bird—Korakrit’s symbol for higher power and resistance. Of course, it’s also present in the bleached denim that Korakrit frequently uses as the foundation for his paintings. This denim, a central feature in the exhibition, is also linked to his use of fire as a medium; in his practice, Korakrit would burn his paintings, incorporate the remnants and create a juxtaposition to the layers of paints and photographs that he built on the denim canvas.
“I began working with denim not just because it’s a signifier of Western globalisation, but also because it’s a material that feels devoid of spirituality. It’s very mechanised and normalised, yet it holds an intriguing potential as a medium,” shared Korakrit. “The same goes for [my use] of fire. Beyond its long history and cultural significance, I wanted to reintroduce my art into something more ritualistic. This is the kind of energy I want in my artistic practice.”
On collaborating with Korakrit again after nine years, Museum MACAN’s director, Venus Lau, shared, “I’m always in awe of how Korakrit’s works have retained the same focus [over the years] while evolving to be different at the same time. Here, Korakrit has shown a theatre of non-human actors to narrate ideas, from loss and renewal to various human events, while also demonstrating how a symbol can carry a multitude of meanings across different contexts.”
Korakrit Arunanondchai’s Sing, Dance, Cry, Breathe | as the worlds collide on to the screen at Museum MACAN is running from 30 November, 2024 to 6 April, 2025. Click here for more information on the exhibition and other programmes.
