Disappearance: Three films by Pathompon ‘Mont’ Tesprateep

We are pleased to announce our new exhibition ‘Disappearance: three films by Pathompon ‘Mont’ Tesprateep’ by Thai artist Pathompon ‘Mont’ Tesprateep opening at de Art Center on Friday 12th October 17:00. This is also the first exhibition to be devoted to him in China. 

As one of the emerging Thai artist after Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mont’s body of works embrace the cinematic poetry to scrutinize the complex stratification of human mind and memory in relation to the crisis boundary of representative memory and politic of subjectivity. Constructed from layers of sound and filmic materials – from celluloid to digital – and photography, his works conjure trance-like and immersive experience while emerging the playground of conscious and the dream structure that associates singular memory to the fragments and uncertainty within the broader sense of public. For the artist himself, the process of producing video works is kind of like a psychotherapy session through practicing self-hypnosis.

The artist will redesign the display room especially for this exhibition. Audiences are invited to enter a unique screening room, a space with daily atmosphere but also something different, where one can expect something unexpected happens. Works exhibited include three important video works produced by the artist in recent years. 

Details:

ENDLESS, NAMELESS (2014)

22.39 min., S-8, 1.33:1, b&w

Endless, Nameless is a hand-processed Super 8 film, shot in the private garden of a Thai army officer. The film reconstructs the filmmaker’s memories about groups of conscripts who worked in his father's garden. The film was created as a self-hypnosis to reinvestigate his existence.

SONG X (2017)

20.19 min., 16mm & S-8, 1.33:1, b&w

A deserter awakes to discover that his body is laying lifelessly on the ground. He embarks on this new journey where he encounters a group of teenagers who intend to give him a cremation ceremony while, at the same time, his dead body is being searched by a military patrol.

(Note from the artist: Since a young age, my life has been surrounded by music with my childhood friends whom we shared intimate friendship, which resulted in us forming a band together. Sadly, one of them passed away a few years ago, and I’ve missed his cremation ceremony. The Last Village is one of the unreleased songs, which depicts a group of hidden villagers delightfully conducting a funeral. Song X is an attempt to compose an extended version of this posthumous song, as a form of a visual poem, shooting with deteriorated 16mm and super 8 film stock, portraying life after death. It is a means to deliver out a message to my deceased band member and friend, and a memorial ritual for the dead.）

CONFUSION IS NEXT (2018)

21.59 min., 16mm, 1.33:1, b&w

A portrait of a nomadic musician Thom Assajan-Jakgawan. In the film, he appears as a fictionalized version of himself living in a fragile state, a collapsed country. He solitarily confines himself in an unoccupied room, continuing the meditative rhythms of his tunes.

'mare lu ze=i' is not a real word. He accidentally heard it from the repetitive layers of the loop of his sounds. It slips out of nowhere. It makes its own sound, in his head, which he then utters, as a mantra for protection, which transports him into a meditative trance before the working of his sounds. This is all part of his project, Sap (bewitched).

(Note: this work was the project proposed by Mont and funded by the Rotterdam International Film Festival, recommended by Apichatpong.)