Thailand’s highly-anticipated Dib Bangkok museum and based mostly on the gathering of late businessman Petch Osathanugrah, has introduced a December 2025 opening date.
The museum, the primary within the nation devoted to international up to date artwork, shall be housed in a 71,000-square-foot reused warehouse from the Nineteen Eighties in downtown Bangkok. The renovated house could have 11 gallery areas, an inside courtyard, an out of doors sculpture backyard. Its title, Dib, interprets to “uncooked” or “pure, genuine state” to replicate its mission, in keeping with Purat (Chang) Osathanugrah, the custodian of his father’s assortment.
“At Dib Bangkok, we see artwork because the ripest fruit of human creativeness—one thing to be savored, questioned, and shared,” Osathanugrah stated in an announcement. “However greater than that, we’re constructing Dib Bangkok to be a real artistic oasis, a bridge between Thailand, Southeast Asia, and the worldwide artwork scene—the place deep artwork circles and the merely curious can come collectively. Bangkok, with all its vitality, creativity, and unstoppable spirit, has lengthy been overdue for an anchor to its up to date artwork scene that matches its vibrancy—someplace that celebrates artwork in a approach as dynamic and daring as the town itself.”
Petch Osathanugrah, who died in 2023, was the CEO of the family-owned beverage firm Osotspa till 2022. He was additionally a famend collector and persona in Thailand, heralded by an eye catching model and wild head of hair. His artwork gathering helped propel Thai up to date artwork to worldwide prominence. Up till his demise, he described Thai artwork as underserved by the nation’s authorities, and added to his prodigious holdings of native expertise and European and American titans of contemporary and up to date artwork. Now, this assortment will type the inspiration of his final ambition, the Dib Bangkok Museum of Modern Artwork.
Thailand’s artwork scene is at present increasing with collector-founded artwork areas. Earlier this yr, patron Marisa Chearavanont opened the Khao Yai Artwork Forest, about an hour outdoors of Bangkok. The 65-hectare parcel of land consists of commissions by artists like Elmgreen & Dragset, Martin Kippenberger, and Fujiko Nakaya. The Khao Yai Artwork Forest is a sister web site to Chearavanont’s Bangkok Kunsthalle, which hosts momentary exhibitions for an array of worldwide artists.
In response to an announcement from Dib Bangkok, its assortment will comprise over 1,000 works by greater than 200 artists from around the globe and span a variety of conventional and cutting-edge media, with most relationship from the Nineteen Nineties to right now. Works by Thai artists like Montien Boonma, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Kawita Vatanajyankur, are among the many holdings, as are these by blue-chip worldwide artists like Damien Hirst, Frank Stella, and Takashi Murakami.
At the moment underneath renovation by Kulapat Yantrasast of WHY Structure, the forthcoming museum’s design will marry the constructing’s unique industrial aesthetic with Buddhist notions of readability. An austere, concrete floor flooring will ascend right into a “contemplative inside dialogue” aided by conventional Thai-Chinese language window grille, and culminate in sky-lit, white-cube gallery areas, in keeping with a launch. Amongst these is a deliberate conical, mosaic-tiled gallery dubbed the “Chapel.”
As a tribute to its founder, Dib’s first exhibition will showcase works united by the theme of “invisible presence.” The artist record, up to now, consists of installations by Montien Boonma, large-scale sculptures by Lee Bul, Anselm Kiefer, and Alicja Kwade, along with a breadth of Thai illustration.
Miwako Tezuka, Dib’s inaugural director, stated in an announcement, “As a brand new museum, we have now the liberty to discover initiatives past conventional frameworks. I sit up for absolutely activating our assortment, creating transcultural and transgenerational dialogue in artwork, and alluring numerous artists to interact and collaborate by varied applications.”
