Press Release
NACKTE WAHRHEIT (NAKED TRUTH)
Solo Exhibition by
Sophirat Muangkuam
28 January 2023 – 11 March 2023
Opening: Saturday, 28 January 2023, 18:00 onwards.
NACKTE WAHRHEIT (NAKED TRUTH) – a solo exhibition by Sophirat Muangkum will open on 28 January 2023 at Chiang Mai’s Head High Second Floor (a non-profit Art Space)
Please note the new Address
28/1 Singharat Rd. T.Si Phum A.Muang, Old Town, Mueang Chiang Mai District Thailand 50200
NACKTE WAHRHEIT (NAKED TRUTH)
A solo exhibition by Sophirat Muangkum
Sophirat Muangkum is now considered one of the most important female nude photographers in Thailand. In her photos you can feel the close emotional connection to the models, often friends of the artist, and their environment. In this exhibition, the naked body is the focus. Sophirat’s photos are an appreciation of the human being, its uniqueness, beauty, vulnerability and sexuality. A playful but also serious approach to the human body. She is concerned with an understanding of the equal treatment of bodies. Sometimes she also succeeds (consciously or unconsciously) in breaking down the boundary between the binary gender model male and female. Her treatment of bodies is always very distanced and respectful, often erotically charged but far from pornographic. Influences from the history of art and photography are palpable, and if one wishes, one can even discover a connection to Bauhaus photography of the 1920s, in which the human body was depicted for the first time in photography as a landscape, part of the landscape, or still life. Role models such as Ren Hang or Nobuyushi Araki, but also Nan Golden and Larry Clark are easy to guess. Sophirat’s pictures tell us about feelings, longings, fears and loneliness, but also the blunt joy of one’s own body. In a society where nudity and sexual freedom are still under state censorship and are not accepted by broad sections of the population, and where body shaming is a social problem, her works cannot be valued highly enough. Sophirat’s photos speak a clear language. We are there. We are many. We are not ashamed.
Thank you for that.
“We’re born naked, and the rest is drag.” RuPaul
Biography
Sophirat Muangkum (1983) Thai artist lives and works based in Bangkok. Sophirat is a self-taught artist and currently one of Thailand’s leading nude photographers. She had spent 3 years working as a photographer in Germany prior to moving back home in 2013 where she started to exhibit her works and established herself in the Thailand art scene.
Sophirat is interested in human thought. She is often inspired by stories of people, nature, animals, subculture and the situation of Thai society. She answers her questions thru her works about what she was interested in at that time. Since 2019, she starts join ‘artist-in-residence’ program because she would like to has an opportunity to research and collaborate with local people about what do they think about their own body and ask them to use their own body to talk about situation at that time such as politics, nature, pollution, subculture, beauty standard etc. ฺBesides, she tries to empower people to start loving their body and respect diversity.
Her works have been exhibited, among the others, at Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Photo Fair Thailand at BITEC (Bangkok), Midnice Gallery (Bangkok), Radisson Blu (Bangkok), Objectifs-Centre for Photography and Film (Singapore), Rebel Art Space (Bangkok), Innerspace (LA,USA). Her solo exhibition has been exhibited at most gallery, also a part of ‘Galleries night Bangkok’. Beside being an artist, she is a freelance curator who is interested in emerging artists. Sophirat was a curator for ‘Phayao Photography Biennale 2021-2022’.
Sophirat also works for commercial projects and publications. Her images have been featured in VOGUE Italia, ThaiPBS, Play Magazine Thailand, Zoomaa (Norway), KALTBLUT Magazine (Germany),BOOMER Magazine (England) and Blast Magazine Thailand. She is also a guest artist at many photography workshops and talks.
For more information, please contact:
Head High Second Floor (New Address)
28/1 Singharat Rd. T.Si Phum A.Muang, Old Town, Mueang, Chiang Mai 50200
+66 61 686 0660 hello@head-high-second-floor.com www.head-high-second-floor.com
Open by appointment
Or
TQPR Thailand, Nuie Titichayapon, nuie@tqpr.com +662 260 5820