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APRIL 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
THEWORLD
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Dispatches
Beyond Belief
A PSYCHEDELIC TEMPLE BLURS THE LINE BETWEEN
POP CULTURE AND ANCIENT RELIGION
MONTREAL
SHIP SHAPE
Art fans get their sea legs at a
nautically inspired installation
Dean Baldwin steps aboard his 1952
Nordic Folkboat and pulls on a yellow
raincoat. Unshaven and sporting black-
framed glasses, he surveys his rations:
preserves, peanuts, half-empty liquor
bo les and other miscellany. He wonders
if he has enough to make it through
the night. Art lovers, a er all, can be a
demanding bunch.
Baldwin is the creator of
Ship in a
Bo le, Barbados Rhum,
the latest and
sole installation inhabiting the atrium of
Montreal’s Musée d’Art Contemporain.
The work is a two-story-tall sailboat
tipped at a 45-degree angle, with an
interior that’s been re-leveled to create
usable horizontal surfaces. By day, it
serves as a stand-alone sculpture that
museumgoers survey from a distance.
But onWednesday nights and the first
Friday of each month, Baldwin jumps in,
cranks the tunes and begins whipping up
cocktails in Mason jars.
During a recent open night, three
women peek into the hatch to check
out Baldwin’s bartending skills. A
couple briefly slow-dances in the atrium’s
shadowy corners, sweaty White Russians
in hand. Unlike the crowd that was here
just hours ago, nobody is worried about
touching the art. “You can stick your
head inside the boat, you can smell the
mustiness of it, you can drink a martini,
eat a fish out of a can in the cockpit,” says
Baldwin, whose previous works include
Bunk Bed City
, a summer camp–themed
installation that gallery visitors could
sleep in. “When you can consume a
portion of the work, that sort of takes
the pretension down.”
Not surprisingly, when asked about
the inspiration for the project, Baldwin
is unpretentious. “I don’t know … but I
was
watching ‘Lost’ at the time,” he says.
—CHRISTINA COUCH
CHIANG RAI, THAILAND
Pointing at the fearsome alien that appears to be climbing out of
the lawn nearby, Panya “Tom” Lekwilai turns to a group of tourists
and states the obvious: “The Predator doesn’t look like it belongs
in a Buddhist temple.” Yet it fits right in at this particular temple,
an altogether bizarre spectacle tucked among the rice fields of
Chiang Rai near theMyanmar border, where the star of the classic
’80s actionmovie is joined by, among other things, riotousmurals
of Keanu Reeves, Batman and Michael Jackson.
Before being graced with such pop iconography—as well as
an all-white exterior clad in shards of mirrored glass—the White
Temple, officially called Wat Rong Khun, had been a traditional
house of worship for more than a century. But famed Thai artist
Chalermchai Kositpipat, who caused a flapwith the contemporary
stylings of his Buddhist murals at London’s Wat Buddhapadipa,
changed all that when he returned here to his home village and
began revamping the temple on his own dime in 1998. (It remains
awork in progress: The artist’s plan for the site is for nine buildings
in total, with construction continuing for the next several decades.)
For the most part, the controversy over Kositpipat’s previous
work seems absent here. “Though I can’t totally speak for most
older visitors, I don’t think they are offended,” says Lekwilai, as he
ascends an ornatewhite bridge leading to an assembly hall. “They
probably find it modern and creative.”
Youngsters are enjoying themselves aswell. Lekwilai has crossed
into the hall, but a few stragglers remain outside. That is, until one
glances at the Predator and squeals, and the whole lot scurries to
join the rest of the pack. It seems that if a shimmering vision of
nirvana doesn’t keep youmoving along the path to enlightenment,
a snarling space creature certainly will.
—CHRISTINE O’TOOLE