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4 Dec 2024 - 23 Mar 2025
10am – 7pm
Level 1, Gallery 1, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
General Admission (Free for Singaporeans and PRs)
Pratchaya Phinthong: No Patents on Ideas
Witness how ideas can transcend boundaries and redefine art in Thai artist Pratchaya Phinthong’s first solo exhibition in Singapore.
No Patents on Ideas is the first solo exhibition of Bangkok-based artist Pratchaya Phinthong in Singapore that presents major explorations underpinning two decades of the artist’s practice. Through video, installation and objects, the exhibition examines the cultural and economic systems that structure modern life. Phinthong’s art carry layers of significance drawn from their journey through production, use, and exchange. These items are shaped by their cultural roots, shifting ownership, and connections to historical events. The exhibition also features a new commission, Undrift, a video installation that reflects on the implications between cultural circuits of vernacular knowledge and everyday material cultures.
about the artist
Born in 1974 in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, Pratchaya Phinthong pursued fine arts at the Silpakorn University, Bangkok before studying at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule in Frankfurt. His artistic practice began more than two decades ago, marking a critical strand of conceptual practices in Thai contemporary art.
Phinthong's art is a quiet intervention into the everyday, offering a subtle yet incisive engagement with global systems of value, labour, and exchange. Central to his practice is the examination of systems that underlie everyday interactions, underscoring the complex and dialogic relationships between materiality, culture, and economics. Phinthong's works often uses research, scientific findings, economic theories, and rumours to suggest cracks in these systems, while remaining centred on the interconnectedness of global and personal histories. This is particularly evident in his projects that tap on existing circuits of vernacular knowledge and informal economies such as his ongoing engagement with the villagers of Ban Napia in Xieng Khouang, northeastern Laos, to melt and recast scrap metal from unexploded ordnances. This endeavour juxtaposes the local and the global, making visible the often hidden flows of goods, labour, and value that structure modern life.
Openness of form is important in Phinthong's approach. Rather than being fixed in meaning, the objects in his art carry layers of significance drawn from their journey through production, use, and exchange. These items are shaped by their cultural roots, shifting ownership, and connections to historical events. This approach informs the significance of Phinthong's involvement in the Thai contemporary art scene, beginning with his role as gallery director of Gallery VER in the early 2000s. Phinthong went on to start ‘Messy Sky’, a project platform that took on different forms from 2011-2016, and in 2020, co-founded 'expensive to be poor', an e-commerce site that has been expanded, reshaped, and reformatted into a physical and conceptual dilation.
Phinthong held his first solo exhibition at The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University in 2008, and has since exhibited widely. He has participated in numerous international biennale presentations, including Sharjah Biennial 16 (2025); Busan Biennale (2024); Singapore Biennale (2022); 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022); Dhaka Art Summit (2020); Art Encounters Biennale, Timisoara (2017); 14th Biennale de Lyon (2017); Taipei Biennial (2012); and Documenta 13 (2012).
His works have been collected by major institutions and collections around the world, including Musée National d'Art Moderne; Centre Pompidou; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kadist Art Foundation; Collection FRAC Lorraine; and Singapore Art Museum (SAM), which currently holds the largest collection of his works.
audio tour
Explore Pratchaya Phinthong: No Patents on Ideas with SAM curator Selene Yap in this audio tour.
