‘My interest is always to break down the distance between what we think [of] as art or high art and what we do in our daily life,’ Tiravanija once told The Korea Herald. During his close-to-40-year engagement with what has been characterised as relational aesthetics, the Thai artist has become known for his participatory events, from cooking pad thai for gallery goers to providing them with ping-pong tables. You’d think it might be tricky to encapsulate such a career in a retrospective, but his MoMA PS1 survey, which closed in March, before moving to LUMA Arles in June, had a go, as did a second retrospective at Gropius Bau, Berlin, which opened in September, serving curry and Turkish coffees, and providing hangout spaces where the interactions are the work.
Given the social aspect of his practice, it is unsurprising that Tiravanija hasn’t hidden himself away in his studio: he has also established himself as a consummate curator. Building on his curating of the triennial Okayama Art Summit in 2022 and cocurating of the Thailand Biennale in 2023, he oversaw this year’s edition of Art Spectrum, a biennial exhibition featuring the next generation of Asian artists, including Heecheon Kim, Riar Rizaldi and Vivien Zhang, which was held at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul. You might see the last, which was as diverse as it was intriguing, as an extension of the artist’s ongoing teaching activities (at Columbia University, New York) and his support of Gallery Ver, a commercial gallery space in his native Thailand. One thing’s for sure though, Tiravanija is as open and generous to other artists as he is to those who attend and at times become a part of his exhibitions; even if repetitive, it is effective, offering a form of openness that feels increasingly relevant to artists, given the fractious nature of our current times. Amidst everything else, Tiravanija also found time to contribute two new works to this year’s Forest Festival in Okayama (which included a series of textile works and ceramic bowls, offering visitors a lunchbox filled with locally sourced ingredients), an exhibition in Montreal, where he hosted a rehearsal space for local bands, as well as a roomsize installation at Pilar Corrias in London, just in time for Frieze Week.
