Korakrit Arunanondchai

This kind of world-spanning presence makes sense for Arunanondchai, as he splits his studio practice between New York and his native Bangkok. His work addresses the modern notions of transit and identity. Jane Panetta, one of the Whitney Biennial’s curators, put it this way: “For the purposes of the work we included in the Whitney Biennial, we were excited by the ways in which his video fuses the personal with the global—including fantastical, narrative elements that he deftly interweaves with questions around family, loss, the environment, and even the navigation of multiple cultures.” Arunanondchai was one of eight artists who planned to withdraw from the biennial, then ultimately stayed after Whitney vice chairman Warren Kanders resigned.

This year, Arunanondchai will also show work at the Singapore Biennial, the Istanbul Biennial, and New York’s Performa. Istanbul Biennial curator Nicolas Bourriaud remarked on the rare precision of Arunanondchai’s work: “The beholder can feel the weight of the time intervals during his videos,” he said.