Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art

Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art, published this week, documents the history of tattooing in Europe and America over the last 300 years. Uniquely, it covers tattooing as a professional art form, as distinct from its indigenous origins and its amateur practice by sailors, bikers, and prisoners.

As author Matt Lodder writes, his book is also a revisionist history: “I want, here, to reset the scaffolding for a history of Western tattooing as a professional and commercial practice.” Martin Hildebrandt, who opened a tattoo parlour in New York in 1858, is “widely considered to be the first professional tattooer in the Western world”, though Lodder demonstrates that tattooing was a commercial occupation in England as far back as 1719. He also challenges the concept of the ‘tattoo renaissance’, a term coined by the media in 1970.

Tattoo (Tatoueurs, Tatoues) is another key work of tattoo history. Body Decoration (Geschmückte Haut, by Karl Gröning) and The World of Tattoo (De wereld van tatoeage) illustrate tribal tattooing from around the world. The History of Tattooing, published ninety-nine years ago, was the first book on the subject. Andrea Juno and V. Vale’s Modern Primitives, discussed at length in Lodder’s book, is an influential guide to contemporary body modification.

Skyline FilmPulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction will be screened on the rooftop of River City Bangkok on 27th December, as part of a regular programme of monthly outdoor screenings organised by Skyline Film. Quentin Tarantino’s classic was previously shown at House Samyan this year, at Neighbourhood last year, at House and Bangkok Screening Room in 2019, and at Cinema Winehouse in 2018 and 2015.

Hits Me Movies... One More Time (vol. 2)

As the end of the year approaches, there’s an opportunity to catch up on the films you may have missed at House Samyan in Bangkok. The cinema is bringing back its most popular films of the year in December, in a programme called Hits Me Movies... One More Time. (Yes, the name is a pun on the Britney Spears single.) This year is vol. 2, as the format began last year, with encore screenings of Oppenheimer, Past Lives, and other hits from 2023.

This year’s programme runs from 12th December to New Year’s Day, and highlights include the Thai documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) showing from 12th to 16th December; and the Greek ‘Weird Wave’ drama Dogtooth (Κυνόδοντας) on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. (Breaking the Cycle went on general release in May. Dogtooth was shown at House Samyan in August, at the Chulalongkorn International Film Festival in 2011, and at the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2009.)

Arcadia Rooftop Cinema Enter the Dragon

Bangkok’s Arcadia bar continues its Sunday night cult film screenings on 1st December with Enter the Dragon, featuring Bruce Lee in his most famous role. Previous titles in the open-air Arcadia Rooftop Cinema programme have included 2001, Die Hard, Un chien andalou (‘an Andalusian dog’), Videodrome, Alien, Akira (アキラ), and the venue’s signature film, Blade Runner.

Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell

Kongkiat Khomsiri’s Netflix series Bangkok Breaking (มหานครเมืองลวง) — a drama about rivalries among the EMS ‘body snatchers’ who transport accident victims to hospital — was released in 2021. Earlier this year, he adapted the series into a film, Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell (ฝ่านรกเมืองเทวดา), which is also streaming on Netflix.

The film’s prologue is probably its most effective sequence. A slum neighbourhood has been purchased by the corrupt head of an EMS foundation, who has plans to redevelop it into luxury accommodation. The residents protest against their eviction, and are brutally beaten by riot police with batons. A TV reporter at the scene tells her audience: “The city is in chaos. It’s like a battlefield here.”

The scene — filmed on an impressive outdoor set without GCI — escalates as protesters, and even monks who have joined the demonstration, are shot dead by police snipers. A news bulletin reports that “the police fired real bullets at the protesters.” The violence is bloody, and a reminder that Kongkiat also directed the intense thriller Slice (เฉือน).

The protest that opens Heaven and Hell echoes the real-life demonstrations against the military government that took place in Bangkok a few years ago, particularly the violent clashes at Viphavadi Rangsit Road throughout August 2021. In fact, the film even features a protest sign reading “เผด็จการ” (‘dictator’), and one character has “Fuck Government” written on his chest.

If Kongkiat’s film had received a theatrical release, it would potentially have been censored for its depiction of police killing protesters with live bullets. Film censorship was controlled by the police department from 1972 — following a decree by Thanom Kittikachorn’s junta — until the Film and Video Act of 2008. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the severe restrictions imposed on films portraying the police.)

Paetongtarn Shinawatra:“I feel relieved and happy...”

The Constitutional Court today declined to investigate former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who had been accused of influencing the governing Pheu Thai Party. A petition to the court made several allegations, including that Thaksin had used his access to Pheu Thai to gain special privileges during his detention in a police hospital, that he ordered Pheu Thai to expel Palang Pracharath from the coalition government, and that he had an undue influence on the selection of the current PM following the removal of Srettha Thavisin.

The court unanimously dismissed these claims, which seems remarkable given that the Prime Minister is Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn. (In an interview with Time magazine on 17th April last year, she said: “I’ve always been daddy’s little girl. So I consult with him about almost everything”.) Yet Pheu Thai has somehow avoided the fate of its predecessors Thai Rak Thai, the People Power Party, and Thai Raksa Chart, all of which have been dissolved by the court in previous years.

The court also ruled today that it would not investigate Pheu Thai on sedition charges, although it dissolved the Move Forward Party for sedition earlier this year. Thaksin and Pheu Thai clearly gained brownie points from the military establishment by excluding Move Forward from the ruling coalition last year, and it seems that Thaksin’s political roles — his behind-the-scenes influence and public campaigning — are still being tolerated. This afternoon, after the court’s announcement, a visibly moved Paetongtarn told reporters: “I feel relieved and happy”.

November Action Flicks

Neighbourhood, the Bangkok community mall, is resuming its outdoor film screenings this month, after taking a break during the rainy season. The current programme is billed as November Action Flicks, though it also includes Taxi Driver, which is more of a drama than an action film.

Martin Scorsese’s classic, one of the greatest films of the last fifty years, will be shown on 24th November. It has been screened a few times before in Bangkok: at House Samyan this year and last year, at Bangkok Screening Room in 2019, and at Scala in 2018.

Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage

The standard histories of collage as an artistic practice, such as Collage by Brandon Taylor, trace its origins to 1912, and the newspaper cuttings appliquéd to Cubist paintings by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Herta Wescher’s Collage (Die Collage), the definitive work on the subject, discussed nineteenth century examples in addition to the Cubists and their successors. The recent exhibition Cut and Paste antedated the technique by 400 years, though Freya Gowrley’s groundbreaking book Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage, published this week, traces the history of collage over thousands of years.

As she writes in her introduction, Gowrley (who contributed to the Cut and Paste exhibition catalogue) “aims to provide a more expansive history of collage than has previously been produced.” The book’s publisher calls it a “global history of collage from the origins of paper to today”, and at 400 pages it lives up to that description. All previous histories of collage have focused entirely on European and American artists, though the scope of Gowrley’s book is truly international, with coverage of collage in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Again, unlike previous histories of the topic, Fragmentary Forms considers collage not only as fine art, but also examines its role in devotional objects, taxonomic collections, and domestic craftmaking.

The book describes a highly diverse variety of artistic forms, from ancient Chinese jianzhi papercuts and African bochio sculptures to decorated prayer cards (known in France as canivet and in Germany as spitzenbild). Gowrley discusses a series of unique artefacts, produced by amateur artists, which are surprisingly elaborate and creative. One of the most fascinating examples is the medieval practice of constructing ‘enclosed gardens’, known as besloten hofje, relief panels displaying religious statuettes surrounded by silk flowers and other trinkets.

Priyanandana Rangsit v. Nattapoll Chaiching

The Civil Court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed in 2021 by the aristocrat Priyanandana Rangsit against the historian Nattapoll Chaiching and his publisher, Same Sky Books. Nattapoll is the author of the bestselling ขุนศึก ศักดินา และพญาอินทรี (‘feudal warlords and the eagle’). His earlier book ขอฝันใฝ่ในฝันอันเหลือเชื่อ (‘I dream an incredible dream’) also saw a revival in sales after it was among five titles seized by police from the offices of Same Sky.

On 5th March 2021, aristocrat Priyanandana Rangsit sued Nattapoll and Same Sky for defamation, seeking ฿50 million in damages. According to the lawsuit, Nattapoll’s books incorrectly assert that her grandfather, Prince Rangsit Prayurasakdi, sought an improper political influence over Phibun Songkhram’s government in the 1940s. She argued that this allegation about her long-dead ancestor tarnished her family name, and was thus defamatory to her personally.

Yesterday, the court came to the obvious conclusion that Prince Rangsit, having died in 1951, was not affected by the content of Nattapoll’s books. In the court’s judgement, Priyanandana’s legal case was therefore invalid from the beginning. This ruling is hardly surprising, though more questionable is the fact that it took almost four years for such a spurious case to be dismissed.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

Taschen published The Stanley Kubrick Archives as a limited coffee-table book in 2005. Then, in 2009, came their collector’s edition of Kubrick’s Napoleon, limited to 1,000 copies: ten volumes inside one enormous book. Another collector’s edition followed in 2014: the making of Kubrick’s 2001, limited to 1,500 copies in a metal slipcase. Of course, these books were far from cheap, though last year’s collector’s edition on the making of Kubrick’s The Shining (limited to 1,000 copies) cost a prohibitive $1,500 (almost as much as the other three titles combined).

Fortunately, a year after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is now available in a more modest edition, costing around a tenth of the original price. (How times have changed: this version is the same price as the limited edition of The Stanley Kubrick Archives was in 2005.) The new edition consists of two heavy volumes in a slipcase: a book of rare photographs (including a few taken by Kubrick, and numerous shots from deleted scenes) styled to look like a scrapbook; and The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a definitive 900-page day-by-day account of the film’s production (with an extensive bibliography though no footnotes).

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a collaboration between writer J.W. Rinzler and Pixar director Lee Unkrich, and benefits both from Rinzler’s expertise as a writer of making-of books (such as The Making of Alien), and Unkrich’s passionate interest in The Shining. (He wrote the introduction to Danel Olson’s book, also titled Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.) The original collector’s edition also included a reproduction of the film’s continuity script and other supplemental material.