Well, if that heading doesn’t give us a Google boost, nothing will! But the objective is art not advertisement. It is the title of the following painting by artist Chris Coles.
Chris tells us that he has “painted a lot of shabby, evil and badly intentioned people in a series of paintings called Bangkok Noir.”
I’m no artiste but this looks pretty good to me. Have a browse through Chris’ explorations of the Bangkok underbelly here. There is also a Bangkok Noir blog with some noir comments to go with the paintings and a short essay on the “Bangkok Noir Movement.”
3 responses so far ↓
1 Leif Jonsson // Jun 7, 2008 at 5:20 am
On your catchy title and the hope for some traffic via google, there is maybe an occasion for ancient commentary (meaning from the 1990s). I was in the north on and off, sometimes in Chiangmai where a bunch of tourists come through. They are very picky about who they are and are not. Tourists had a bad rep among the snobs who thought they themselves were different. Some were mere tourists, others were travelers. This can be traced back in British (and other) travel literature, and some of the luminaries are very good writers. But the nineties were a time of name-calling anxieties, too. Once I had an extended conversation with some western man who really wanted to make sure I did not for a second imagine that he was a sex tourist. “No, I’m a sex traveller.”
2 jonfernquest // Jun 8, 2008 at 6:57 pm
“Australian ladyboy sex tourist”
These would be high frequency search words at many an internet cafe, as I remember. You used to be able to see the search words that previous users had used.
Brilliant expressionist paintings and commentaries. Only one comment, Thailand’s bar scene is probably inhabited more by middle class insurance or shoe salesmen than Russian gangsters and LA real estate moguls, closer to the typical noir character found in James Cain novels, made into the first noir films, like Mildred Pierce, the Postman Only Rings Twice, etc.
Here’s recent real life noir over at the nation blog (Japanese in habit of beating his “open ended prostitution” live in “companion” when he discovered she was sleeping with other men, then finally beats her to death, and jumps off the balcony to his death). A Japanese guy told me about another Japanese guy who hired the police for 150,000 baht to demolish the building that he built for his wife. Or this terrifying item today:
Man with condom on found bitten to death by snake
Ayutthaya - A body of a 40-year-old man with a cobra carcass in his head was found on a roadside here Sunday morning.
An preliminary autopsy also found that Wiroj Banlen, 40, was wearing a condom although he was putting on his trousers. No semen was found inside the condom.
His body was found on the side of a dirt road in Tambon Lamsai of Ayutthaya’s Wangnoi district at 7 am.
He was bitten several times by the snake on his right leg and on his cheeks.
His hands were clenching the dead cobra, whose body was bitten several times especially on its stomach.
The preliminary autopsy found scales of the snake in his mouth.
His body was sent for a full autopsy at a hospital.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php?newsid=30075013
There’s plenty of noir in Thailand.
3 jonfernquest // Jun 8, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Brilliant expressionist paintings and the commentaries are great too.
I think your work is more profound than those books about the Bangkok bar scene that you refer to frequently. They’re cheap and pulpy, and don’t capture the tragedy of so-called “open-ended prostitution.”
Take for instance, this case last week of a Japanese guy with some live in sex trade worker who wouldn’t stop working, then he’d beat her, when she slept with other guys, but she’d come back, because that is her job, to sleep with people for money, then finally she gets her final beating, and she’s dead, out of shear horror at what he’s done, he decides on the spur of the moment to off himself too, and jumps off the balcony of his apartment (see photo in Nation blog link below). I’ve seen worse than this, including murder, sometimes after 20 years of living together. Easy come, easy go.
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/Real/2008/05/25/entry-1
Leave a Comment
Please note: New Mandala encourages vigorous debate. However, for the moment we will only be publishing high-quality comments that make original contributions to discussion. There will, of course, still be space for pithy, humorous, eccentric and cheeky input. Short and sweet will usually trump long and involved. Repetitive ranting, unimaginative point-scoring and idle abuse will not be entertained. Comments which carry a real name are also more likely to be approved. Thank you for your ongoing interest and contributions.