Bangkok Kunsthalle presents "Painting as Event: Materiality and Light in the Practice of Xie Fan", an exhibition that merges artist Xie Fan's painting practice with performative and communal elements. It will take place from Saturday until March 31.
Xie Fan is a Chinese artist deeply engaged with the temporal and material conditions of painting. Operating at the intersection of painting, ceramics and performance, his work resists conventional categorisation, instead positioning itself as an event -- something that unfolds in time, is shaped by environmental contingencies and is ultimately ephemeral.
Central to the exhibition are dozens of small-scale terracotta paintings and monumental sponge pigment paintings that span the stairwell to the third floor of the building.
For Xie Fan, the act of painting is a study of permeation -- how pigment enters, settles and interacts with its support. He challenges the notion of painting as a controlled, static composition. Instead, he approaches it as a negotiation between material properties, environmental forces, and the artist's interventions.
Terracotta paintings by Xie Fan. photos courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle
By framing the exhibition as a three-day event, the artist foregrounds the performative dimension of his practice. During the day, limited servings of his signature mapo tofu will be sold, while each evening, he will prepare and serve a full-course meal using ceramic vessels he has crafted -- situating his work within a broader discourse of materiality, ritual and impermanence.
The "Painting as Event: Dining Experience" will start at 8pm, inviting guests into an intimate, multi-sensory environment where every dish, vessel and interaction become a living artwork.
The menu highlights his distinctive culinary style, paying tribute to -- and subtly subverting -- traditional Chinese cuisine. The event is a reflection of his philosophy that art's true beauty often lies in its impermanence.
Bangkok Kunsthalle is on Maitri Chit Road. There is no admission fee to the exhibition which is open daily from 10am to 7pm. Only tickets for the six-course dinner on March 31 are still available at 6,000 baht and can be purchased from ticketmelon.com.
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Terracotta paintings by Xie Fan. Bangkok Kunsthalle
