“Rang Ruam Samai” exhibition

Rang Ruam Samai

West Eden is pleased to announce “Rang Ruam Samai” , an exhibition featuring works by Julien Spiewak. The exhibition will be available to view from January 9th to 26th, 2025 at So Heng Tai Mansion, and at West Eden Gallery from February 6th to March 9th, 2025, with photographs on display taken in Paris and Bangkok in traditionally Thai spaces filled with history and age.

“Rang Ruam Samai” is the next edition of West Eden’s collaboration series which aims to bring new ideas, curatorial direction and artists from overseas to Thailand and to push Thai artists overseas. Following on from a successful collaboration with Thai – Singaporean gallery 1Projects, West Eden is presenting Rang Ruam Samai in partnership with Geneva based Espace_L, led by gallerist Leticia Maciel.

“Rang Ruam Samai” is a photo exhibition that continues the concept of “Corps de Style”, which refers to the type of furniture copied and stylized from the 19th and 20th centuries. Spiewak’s interpretation of Corps de Style refers to story-filled private collections, homes, and museums. These photographic essays draw inspiration from these spaces that are both inhabited and unseen—places that have seen history yet have hardly seen modernity. In Spiewak’s work, the pieces evoke the human body: the curve of an armrest, the bust of a face, an open doorway, or the pattern of a wallpaper, which Spiewak sees as a subtle calling toward the human body.

Spiewak looks to explore the dialogue between antique and historic-styled furniture, architecture and sculptures, in relation to the modern human body. He invites the audience to dive into his research on this relationship and to disrupt these once more inhabited spaces.

The human body and its parts, however, are a perceived implication. Figuring out the desire of the photograph and the cultural impact of the body and its place in the space is a new experience for Spiewak. Although he worked in Thailand as an English teacher in his twenties, he is aware of the European context where body parts have little interpretation, which sits in opposition to Thai culture. Thai culture is deeply historical and religious, with beliefs in the sacredness of the head and the dirtiness of the feet. The importance is not only in respect of the culture but also of the rapid expansion of the cityscape of Bangkok.

Julien Spiewak

Rang Ruam Samai

Opening Reception: January 9th 2025, 6 p.m at So Heng Tai Mansion, Talad Noi

So Heng Tai off-site exhibition dates: January 9th to 26th, 2025

West Eden main exhibition space: February 6th to March 9th, 2025

West Eden Gallery, 45/2 Sukhumvit 31