Aesthetics Creation in “Beauty and Ugliness : Aesthetic of Marsi” Art Exhibition

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the history of contemporary art in Thailand introduced one noble female artist— Princess Marsi Paribatra. With support from the Princess Marsi Paribatra Foundation, art exhibitions in Thailand were organised in 2010 and 2013, until the Princess’s passing in 2013. In 2018, the author was chosen curator for the 3rd exhibition to showcase the Princess’s art works once again for the Thai people to experience the late Princess’s works at the National Gallery in Bangkok. The author has studied almost all of the artist’s paintings, sketches, drawings, belongings, books, and discovered the Princess’s works are all expressed in the aspect of beauty and ugliness in aesthetic. Anyway, Thai’s perception about aesthetics is only in the aspect of beauty. Entitled the topic of the exhibition as Beauty and Ugliness : Aesthetic of Marsi, the author aimed to challenge the perceptions about art exhibitions. Aesthetic of Marsi is interpreted in four key words as displayed in four exhibition rooms as the following aspects: Beauty, Ugliness, Chronology of Marsi and Art History, and Truth. In addition to the exhibits of oil paintings, pencil sketches on wax paper, books and belongings of the Princess her family brought back from France, were also exhibited to let the audience appreciate the Princess’s artistic creativity as much as possible. The author also designed the art history timeline of Thailand, Asia and the world, so the visitors can understand the development of Thai contemporary art along with the artist’s works. In this exhibition, there is an integrated work on classical music, and fashion design of FLYNOW, using the princess exhibited works as inspiration for costume design for the fashion exhibition in the art gallery. The audience’s feedback shows a high level of appreciation.  When summarizing the assessment from the visitor questionnaire, the results for each aspect are as follows:  knowledge gained from exhibition 76%, exhibition venue 74%, exhibition concept 69%, duration of exhibition 56%, knowledge publications 54%  and publicity of activities 41%.  It can be concluded that the exhibition was successful in introducing Thai audiences to works by female artists that are important in contemporary Thai art history