From artifacts of ancient pre-Thai civilizations to achievements of the Thai kingdom in the early twentieth century, the enduring vestiges and persistent vitality of Thai heritage continue to entice visitors, residents, and researchers. Photographer and author Jim Wageman traveled to both well-known and little-visited sites throughout Thailand to capture images that convey the breadth and intricacy of the country's heritage. Wageman presents his images in a gorgeous layout that is matched by solid, well-researched captions and explanations. Beautiful and incisive, The Timeless Heritage of Thailand is an outstanding compendium for anyone fascinated by the treasures of Thailand's cultural heritage.
This volume provides an overview of Thailand's rich artistic variety. Art found in Thailand (previously named Siam) stretches over more than two millennia. Of great importance and of special interest is a long and intimate relationship between Thailand and India of cultures and artistic traditions, Buddhist and Hindu. The book spans the fourth-nineteenth centuries, from the earliest Indian-related art up until the modern Bangkok period. Though widely studied, the art history of Thailand today is highly contentious and revisionist, and the articles here present recent research and opinions. The study of art from Thailand has progressed rapidly in the last decades. Scholars have new things to say, new theories, new dating, new ideas regarding artistic relationships and influences. This volume is timely as it presents writers who are involved in this rethinking. They include senior scholars and promising young academics.
The interplay of the local and the global in contemporary Thai art, as artists strive for international recognition and a new meaning of the national. Since the 1990s, Thai contemporary art has achieved international recognition, circulating globally by way of biennials, museums, and commercial galleries. Many Thai artists have shed identification with their nation; but “Thainess” remains an interpretive crutch for understanding their work. In this book, the curator and critic David Teh examines the tension between the global and the local in Thai contemporary art. Writing the first serious study of Thai art since 1992 (and noting that art history and criticism have lagged behind the market in recognizing it), he describes the competing claims to contemporaneity, as staked in Thailand and on behalf of Thai art elsewhere. He shows how the values of the global art world are exchanged with local ones, how they do and don't correspond, and how these discrepancies have been exploited. How can we make sense of globally circulating art without forgoing the interpretive resources of the local, national, or regional context? Teh examines the work of artists who straddle the local and the global, becoming willing agents of assimilation yet resisting homogenization. He describes the transition from an artistic subjectivity couched in terms of national community to a more qualified, postnational one, against the backdrop of the singular but waning sovereignty of the Thai monarchy and sustained political and economic turmoil. Among the national currencies of Thai art that Teh identifies are an agricultural symbology, a Siamese poetics of distance and itinerancy, and Hindu-Buddhist conceptions of charismatic power. Each of these currencies has been converted to a legal tender in global art—signifying sustainability, utopia, the conceptual, and the relational—but what is lost, and what may be gained, in such exchanges?
Special attention is given in the early chapters to King Chulalongkorn, whose patronage played a major role in disseminating Western art in Bangkok, and to the Italian art teacher, Silpa Bhirasri, a pivotal figure in the institutional development of modern art in Thailand in the 1930s and 1940s.
This guide covers the history and art of the early Kingdom of Sukhothai, which was situated in the fertile Yam River basin of north-central Thailand and comprises the cities of Sukhothai, Si Stachanalai and Kamphaeng Phet. Renowned for artistic achievement in the mid-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, influences from earlier inhabitants of the area and neighbouring kingdoms were overlaid with Theravada Buddhist ideas from Sinhalese culture to create a unique style that is recognized today as 'classic' Thai art. As well as providing an in-depth survey of over 80 temples in the three sites and highlighting the masterpieces from related museums, author Dawn Rooney discusses the art and architecture of the period, with a special section on ceramics. The author takes the reader on a journey to the early Kingdom of Sukhothai and explores the remains and cultural heritage of this sacred site. AUTHOR: Dawn Rooney has lived and worked in Thailand for 30 years and is an expert in Southeast Asian Art. She has a PhD in ceramics. 395 colour illustrations
While considerable research and on-ground project work focuses on the interface between Indigenous/local people and nature conservation in the Asia-Pacific region, the interface between these people and cultural heritage conservation has not received the same attention. This collection brings together papers on the current mechanisms in place in the region to conserve cultural heritage values. It will provide an overview of the extent to which local communities have been engaged in assessing the significance of this heritage and conserving it. It will address the extent to which management regimes have variously allowed, facilitated or obstructed continuing cultural engagement with heritage places and landscapes, and discuss the problems agencies experience with protection and management of cultural heritage places.
Thailand is rapidly industrializing, dramatically improving the living standards of its people, and gradually developing a more democratic society. Despite such profound changes, traditional Thai culture has not only survived, but has also, in many respects, prospered. Although famous for its food, and despite its increasing popularity as a tourist destination, Thailand remains relatively unknown to most Westerners. Culture and Customs of Thailand presents the traditional culture and customs against the backdrop of modern times. Thailand has always been an important Southeast Asian country. With a long-reigning monarchy, it is the only country in the region that has never been colonized by a Western power or suffered bloody revolutions and wars. It was the first Asian country to establish diplomatic relations with the United States, and has remained a constant ally. Thailand has emerged as a considerable economic force as the world's largest rice and rubber producer and remains a regional political power. Against this historical framework, Kislenko deftly introduces the traditional and modern strands of the dominant Buddhist faith and other religions, such as animism. Coverage includes literature, the arts, architecture-including the Thai Wat-food and dress, gender and marriage, festivals and fun, and social customs. Kislenko also balances the portrait with discussions of threats from globalization, AIDS and sex tourism, the drug trade, and corruption in business and government. Evocative photos, a country map, a timeline, and a chronology complete the coverage. This reference is the best source for students and general readers to gain substantial, sweeping insight into the Thais and their land of smiles.
This Handbook provides a cutting edge study of the fast developing field of international law on the protection of cultural heritage by taking stock of the recent developments and of the core concepts and current challenges. The legal protection of cultural heritage has come under renewed focus from the international community and states since the 1990s. This is evidenced by the adoption of a range of international instruments. Countries are also enacting cultural heritage legislation or overhauling existing laws within their own national territory. Contributions address the protection of immovable and movable, tangible and intangible cultural heritage in peacetime and in the event of armed conflict as well as the interaction between specific regimes of cultural heritage protection with other fields of international law, including international criminal law, human rights and humanitarian law, environmental law, international trade, investments, and intellectual property. The last part of the Handbook covers diverse regional systems of heritage protection.
