L-R: Untitled, 1938, Lionel Wendt (1900 - 1944) vintage silver print, One Sweet Day, 2016 Khairullah Rahim, acrylic on canvas, Tonk & Aom, 2012, Piyarat Piyapongwiwat, photograph.

by John L. Silva

In the seventies, I attended my first Gay and (some) Lesbian themed exhibit at the Leslie Lohman Gallery in New York City. It was a gallery the size of a one bedroom and the works, in oil, pastel, mixed media and photographs were of the period: audacious, rebellious, lots of muscled bodies, elongated penises and in your face vaginas. Years of repression, stigma and being cast as criminals led to the creation of art that declared, baldly, forbidden erotic fantasies.

It’s about a half-century later and there is currently a massive Bangkok exhibit entitled Spectrosynthesis II. After its first show in Taipei in 2017, this exhibit continues to explore past the notions of rebellion, with artists from Southeast Asia as well as China and India.

Here, on canvas, photo paper, videos and installations are gay-themed concepts and, in an Asian context, issues of love and sustaining it, in wry and witty representations, and works well-crafted and aesthetically pleasing enough to hang in the living room — as opposed to the subversive and erotic images of the past which were designated to shock and were consigned to the bedroom.

We’ve arrived

On the wide rampway of the top floors of the ultra-modern Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center (BACC) ascending to the two sumptuous halls of the exhibition, the iconic rainbow colors on oil, entitled “Celebrated Phenomenal Of Colors,” by Angkrit Ajchariyasophon rises along on the wall in this Guggenheim-esque ramp. My chest heaves; “We’ve arrived,” I thought.