SINGAPORE — Since the early 2000s, Pratchaya Phinthong has cast doubt on the moral hierarchy of our political and economic value systems. Across his oeuvre, neatly arrayed Swedish Kroner literalize the wages (or worth?) of Thai migrant berry pickers; photographs of empty, pinpricked lottery boards recall a starry night sky; spoons made by burnishing the metal of untriggered explosives embody the wartime trauma of United States military inventions in Laos. No Patents on Ideas at the Singapore Art Museum is billed as a survey, though such a format is perhaps incongruous with Phinthong’s work. The artist’s sculptures and videos rarely feel labored or overprescribed, and his ideas often resurface; during the runtime of this survey, he opened a related exhibition in Tokyo, and will follow with two more this year in Bangkok and Hong Kong. Such a practice can be continuous and expansive, but also piecemeal and wanting. No Patents on Ideas, in which his works coalesce into an environment of sorts, is mostly the former, but a bit of the latter.
One enters the exhibition in darkness, drawn to a rhythmic dance of light in the back corner, emanating from a screen that drops from the ceiling. As one walks closer, the carpet floor gradually slopes upward, and shards of color crystallize into money, in varying currencies and denominations. Cross-hatched portraits of George Washington, Ho Chi Minh, Queen Elizabeth II, and Mao Zedong crowd the screen, swarming past and phasing through each other. “Undrift” (2024) takes turns on the screen with “Untitled (Singapore)” (2014), in which a single Singaporean fighter jet appears parked in the blue skies above Udon Thani, Thailand. This work alludes to Singapore’s 2005 exchange of seven fighter jets for rights to Thai airspace. Together, “Undrift” and “Untitled (Singapore)” intertwine money and politics as a rumination on power.
Though Phinthong refrains from direct critique, the juxtaposition of these two works throws our agency into question. Politicians bring countries to war or independence, toward modernization or famine. Phinthong emphasizes their presence on our currency, reminding us how we transact under their visions of nationhood. What room is there for contention? Residents of Udon Thani experience constant noise pollution, a sacrifice they were not consulted about, for the sake of“national security.” Indeed, there is a strange peace in sweltering Singapore, perhaps afforded by its advanced economy and formidable military. Does relative peace simply complement the threat of destruction? What happens when everyone wants to carry a big stick? Walking through the exhibition, I wondered if Phinthong’s observations could help us understand our worldwide far-right upheaval. Are his small transformations hopeful?
In the aforementioned “Spoon” (2024–ongoing), Phinthong collaborates with the villagers of Ban Napia in Laos to create the titular objects out of metal from unexploded ordnances (UXOs), numbering around 200 to date, and scatter them randomly throughout Singapore. The idea stems from a 2022 video work titled “Today will take care of tomorrow” (not included in the exhibition), in which the artist films UXOs embedded in the forest around a bombed Buddhist temple with an infrared camera. The trees have grown around the detritus, which perversely makes it harder for illegal loggers to cut them down. I’m an optimistic person, but the video’s idea that time heals all wounds, that these shining silver spoons could alleviate the violence of UXOs, verges on fantasy.
The same could be said of “Nam Prik Zauquna” (2024) and “Suasana” (2015), works made with a community of widows in Pattani, Thailand who lost their spouses to ongoing insurgent violence. The former consists of slightly misaligned strips of film adhered to a sheet of plexiglass, casting shadows onto the wall; while an elegant work of Minimalism, the rationale is trite. Phinthong intended to document the widows, but, realizing their ineffable suffering, invited them to expose and destroy the film instead. He then laid down the strips with roughly the width of a burkha’s opening in between. While Phinthong’s anguish and demotivation in the face of such tragedy is understandable, as an artwork, “Suasana” risks an overdramatic literalism.
“Sacrifice depth for breadth” (2023) is perhaps the most open-ended, and thus generative, of the works in the exhibition. Leaned against and curling out from the wall, it looks like a carpet of earth, embedded with woodchips, insect wings, and other detritus. It suggests a topography, with darker paths suggesting desire lines. Next to the work is a small QR code that links to a YouTube playlist of recordings of the inside of a hornet’s nest. In Thailand, it is good luck when hornets nest in your home. “Usually, people will slice a nest open to explore its insides,” Phinthong said in an interview, “but that voyeuristic impulse feels destructive to me. Oftentimes, our desire to consume things leads to their demise.” The work accordingly takes the form of a piece of handmade paper made partly from an abandoned hornet’s nest. Phinthong’s admiring exploration of the nest’s textures and inner structure is gentle and odd at the same time.
Sometimes, however, Phinthong can expect too much of his material’s histories. Leaving the exhibition, one passes an inset vitrine housing a frayed shred of parachute cloth, glimmering in the dark. It once belonged to a British prisoner of war and is on loan from the Changi Chapel and Museum; perhaps Phinthong is commenting on the fall of Singapore in World War II and its subsequent building of military might, but the connection is unclear. Lingering with the fragment’s beauty, I also oddly found myself wanting a “Spoon” for myself. I even asked the museum guard where I could find one, to no avail. But why did I want a piece of unexploded ordnance, anyway? Because it was now art (and not inexpensive art)? I felt guilty in thinking about its value, both artistic and monetary — an effect of Phinthong’s practice that’ll stay with you.
Pratchaya Phinthong: No Patents on Ideas continues at the Singapore Art Museum (39 Keppel Road, #01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore) through March 23.
