Boonchai Bencharongkul gives us the lowdown on the artists he loves, and he loves so many of them. The usual suspects, to start with, and then something else. On the Surrealists, Magritte and Dali in particular, he likes the "fevered dream, the sense of distortion". On Modigliani, it's the "colour and the eye" that grab him. On Picasso: "a bitter gourd, it takes time to digest". On the Thai titan Thawan Duchanee: "a great fruit salad of spiritual deities". On Pratuang Emjaroen: "Pure". On Prateep Kochabua and his riotous vision of the netherworld: "His hell is big, much bigger than Bosch's. You have to see a Bosch up close. To see Prateep's, you step back, look up, and take it all in."
PHOTOS: ANUSORN SAKSEREE
He wanted to be a painter, but he became something better. Boonchai, the telecommunications tycoon who founded and sold Dtac and who, as a young man in the 1970s, studied painting as well as management in Illinois, aspires to follow the historic step of Lorenzo de Medici: as a great art patron. In the art scene here, he's been known as a bounteous collector for three decades.
And when Boonchai's two-billion-baht Museum of Contemporary Art Bangkok, or Moca, opens to the public on April 18, he will contribute a stepping stone to the environment of art appreciation in the country, for this will immediately become one of the premier venues in the art desert of Bangkok.
His Moca is no Uffizi _ the Medici's vast and celebrated gallery in Florence built during the Renaissance _ or in his view, not yet. Life, as they say, is short, and art, you see, is very long.
A jasmine-inspired scultpture by Nonthivathn Chandhanaphailin greets visitors.
''I want this place to be an introduction to Thai contemporary art,'' says Boonchai. ''I regard the artists curated here as the foundation, and out of them other branches can shoot off.
''This is how we start, and how I want to support the learning and the creation of knowledge. It's a gift back to the land. And we will keep working on it, expanding it or rotating the pieces. It's Contemporary Art 101, but it will be more.''
Moca offers an overwhelming Art 101, a brief history of Thai art of the past 60 years. Boonchai curates the entire 20,000-square-metre building by himself; almost everything in the permanent collection has come from his private collection, and this is perhaps the most valuable, most comprehensive collection owned by one man. Around 400 pieces by over 100 artists, mostly paintings, are featured in Moca's five-storey modernist cube on Vibhavadi Road, and visitors will find themselves ticking off the near-complete roster of National Artists and eminent Thai names of the past half-century. To cite a few, and to commit the crime of leaving out so many, you have the indisputable masters such as Thawee Nandakwang, Angkarn Kalayanapongsa, Fua Haripitak and Chalood Nimsamer; the lionised figures of phantasmagoric Buddhist paintings, Thawan Duchanee (more than 100 pieces) and Chalermchai Kositpipat; then you have a portion of rising and mid-career stars such as Wuttikorn Kongka, Veerasak Sassadee and Lumpoo Kansanau. Ninety percent of the exhibits are Thai, with only one floor allocated to international collections and a special room for Victorian paintings.
A collector who buys and never sells, Boonchai estimates the combined value of all the artworks in the building at more than one billion baht. He talks about this in a descriptive manner, without the slightest trace of immodesty. Likewise when he says he has more treasure inventoried; they'll take turns to show up in Moca later.
At this point, Boonchai doesn't aim for adventurousness _ he admits that ''strong'' and provoking pieces by, say, Chatchai Puipia and Vasan Sitthiket will have to wait a little. Largely a one man's vision, Moca reflects the owner's inclination towards the tradition of Surrealism, and especially how it has been adapted and interpreted to express the philosophy of Buddhism. While the museum has a sizeable display of realistic and impressionistic pieces, it's the mysterious turmoil of Siamese religio-surrealists that grabs the attention of visitors. Thawan Duchanee alone has four rooms to himself, while the carnival of angels, demons, and screaming beasts from hell are prominent in pieces by Panya Vijitthanasarn, Prateep Kochabua, Sompong Adulyasarapan, Sompop Buddharat, Anupong Chantorn and many more.
''I think surrealism somehow reflects the rhythm of Thai life. To enjoy the complexity of dream is to enjoy the way Thai people live,'' says Boonchai. ''We accept our fate, we believe in the law of karma, and we rely on divine beings to guide us. It's all in the subconscious, and many paintings capture that.
''Take a look at Prateep's painting of a young woman being entwined by a snake. At the first glance, you'd think it was the depiction of Eve in Eden and the snake that tempted her. But the painting is called Good Dream, and it plays with the Thai belief that a snake is a favourable sign in your dream. This kind of thinking, from Buddhist philosophy to surreal themes, is what forms part of our consciousness and our Thai identity.''
The first painting Boonchai bought from an artist _ in 1980, when he was a young man who began to follow his father's steps in the finance and insurance businesses _ was an abstract painting by Panya Vijitthanasarn, a red triangle of Buddhist allegory which is on show at Moca. The desire to build a contemporary art museum has been with Boonchai for many years. The plot of land where Moca sits had been prepared for this purpose since the early 2000s. He planned the flow of the five-floor exhibition himself, and he commissioned many new paintings in order to complement what he already had and to complete the themes he had in mind.
Boonchai Bencharongkul.
A journey through the real and the subconscious, the walk through the museum concludes when visitors enter a dark wormhole baptised ''Passage Across the Universe'', part sci-fi, part high-kitsch, and emerge in an impressively high-ceilinged gallery that houses three seven-metre-by-three-metre centrepieces: a newly commissioned triptych depicting Heaven, Earth and Hell, painted by Sompop Buddharat, Panya Vijitthanasarn and Prateep Kochabua.
''It is our final destination,'' Boonchai says with a smile. ''Like I said, you'll see here that our hell is much bigger [than in Western paintings].''
Of course, Boonchai is aiming for heaven _ real, surreal or metaphorical. His artistic/philanthropic activities have contributed to the prevalent discourse of ''good people'' and ''volunteer's spirit', notably in his funding of the television movie Khun Rong Palad Choo, based on the story of a common man who sacrifices himself for his nation during the Ayutthaya period. The billionaire who still owns shares in Dtac has lately focused on his long-established enterprises that help market agricultural products from farmers through the website rakbankerd.com. Moca, meanwhile, is not a public service _ admission costs 180 baht, though it offers concession plans and free admissions to students and groups _ but it is clearly an extension of other social contributions he has put his effort in and rallied others to join.
Moca, he says, won't try to compete with the National Gallery or the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, both confined by their bureaucratic nature and limited budgets. This gleaming new museum is an example of how the private benefactor, mostly seen in the West, steps in to complement the role usually assumed by the state or the royal family in glorifying the art, the artist, and the artistic heritage of the land.
''I'm not taking the responsibility of promoting art from the government,'' Boonchai says. ''But I want to challenge them. The government has many things to focus on, that's only natural. I wish to make this place another classroom for people. From here, other things can happen. Other private collectors may want to create something based on what they like. Look at Japan, for instance. What I admire in them is their ideology of passing on knowledge and heritage from one generation to the next. That's what we should try to learn from them.
''Moca is not Uffizi, but the Medici took almost 500 years to make Uffizi into the great museum that it is,'' says Boonchai.
''So watch this place in 500 years,'' he concludes with a smile that, once again, reminds us of that axiom about the brevity of all lives and the immortality of, yes, good art.
Heaven, Earth and Hell , a triptych of paintings commissioned by Boonchai to Sompop Buddharat, Panya Vijitthanasarn and Prateep Kochabua.
Chalood Nimsamer Room.
One of the rooms dedicated to Thawan Duchanee’s work.
