Navin Rawanchaikul is his own muse.
Over the past two decades as an artist under his studio Navin Production, he had looked outward towards his community, his city, only to turn inward towards his family, towards his personal history.
"Dearest Mom," he wrote in September 2014. "I have been thinking of an exhibition at the O.K. Store since we did a public art project at Varorot market a few years ago. It was planned for this year to commemorate the 20th anniversary of my artistic career under the Navin Production brand but I've pushed it to next May to coincide with Dad's 80th birthday. Called 'A Tale Of Two Homes', it covers two venues; the O.K. Store and my studio-cum-home for Navin Production. For me the homes may also stand for Chiang Mai and Fukuoka, or Chiang Mai and several cities for Rena's family, or Chiang Mai and Gujranwala for you and our ancestors. There are some other cities, as well as imagined communities of Navinland that will also be included. My goal through these works is to create a dialogue around the notions of home and sense of belonging."
The letter to his late mother describing his extensive retrospective, which opened in Chiang Mai on May 1st, is framed in his parents' old bedroom in his childhood home above the O.K. Store whose history goes back more than 70 years. Their marital bed has been reconstructed, with rose petals and jasmine flowers arranged into a heart over the sheets. Navin recreated his father's console cabinet for his record player by drawing a record player with dust collected from the room over the years.
Navin Rawanchaikul.
In later years, Navin's work revolved around his nostalgia and preoccupation with banal domesticity. A worn red sofa holds emotional value, opening the window into an internal world. In 2008, he created a video and painting installation "Hong Rub Khaek (Living Room)", now transported to the actual living room, with old dolls and books and a calendar of yesteryear. In his old playroom, he shows us his old colouring book in which he learned colour theory — an evidence of a past that led up to the present.
Navin's work hadn't always been this personal, though this retrospective reveals his continuous interest in the notion of personal identity in a wider social context. Under the guidance of his beloved mentor Montien Boonma, Navin always created with the conviction that art should engage with society, should reach out to the community. In 1993, he created "There is No Voice", an exquisite installation of tiered glass medicine bottles with each filled with a photograph of marginalised villagers, now on display at the "Tales of Navin" exhibition at DC Collection as part of the retrospective.
In 1995, Navin's participation in the citywide movement "Chiang Mai Social Installation", creating Navin Driving School, cemented his notion that art has a place in a public sphere, visceral not intellectual, democratic rather than elitist. That same year, he launched the mobile taxi gallery project, Navin Gallery Bangkok, which led to his collaboration with Rirkrit Tiravanija in "Cities On The Move", curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru. In 2011, he represented Thailand at the Venice Biennale with "Navinland", playing on the notion of nations and his name's universality.
OKland (In collaboration with Mari and Rena Rawanchaikul, his daughter and niece).
"A Tale Of Two Homes" illuminates the accessibility of Navin's works throughout his career, both emotionally and in terms of physicality. His personal history has global significance. His mother migrated from Gujranwala — now part of Pakistan — during the war between India and Pakistan in 1965. His wife is Japanese, living in Fukuoka with his daughter. He splits time between Japan and Chiang Mai.
Navin's works in the retrospective reflect the various specific details in his life fitting together like a puzzle. In the playroom of the home above O.K. Store, Navin hangs a painting of his daughter Mari sitting on a see-saw (drawn from a photograph that he took while sitting on the other end of the plank), set against the background of a train station in Gujranwala during the time of his mother's migration. In this room, a recording of his wife reading a story to Mari, Tales Of Rawal Family (2011), plays on repeat.
At the recently completed StudiOK, Navin unveils a new four-piece series of paintings of his own funeral, "Takes Of Navin". The paintings fit as the cornerstone of the retrospective that spans three venues and over two decades of works. In the first painting, an assemblage of his selves, in various stages of his life and career. In the last, through a series of dissolution, he vaporises into red funereal spider lilies floating on the Ping River.
"A Tale Of Two Homes" is available on view until July 30 (closed Sunday) at StudiOK (by appointment) and O.K. Store at Varorot market in Chiang Mai. "Tales Of Navin" is by appointment only at DC Collection until October 31. Email studio@navinproduction.com or call 081-111-9621.
Mahakad (2010).
Tales Of Navin 4 (2014-2015).
