All in the Family

The New York Times has paid $114,000 in damages to three of Singapore's leading politicians: Lee Hsien Loong (the current Prime Minister), Goh Chok Tong (his predecessor), and Lee Kuan Yew (the founder of the country). The damages relate to an article published in the International Herald Tribune on 15th February, headlined "All in the family". The op-ed, written by Philip Bowring, violated an earlier legal settlement dating back to 1994, when Bowring gave an undertaking that he would not refer to Singapore's government as dynastic or nepotistic. Lee Hsien Loong previously won damages from The Economist in 2004 after it alleged "a whiff of nepotism" in his wife's appointment as head of Singapore's state investment agency Temasek.

Democracy Monument

UDD protesters in Bangkok have painted pro-democracy images and slogans in blood, and wrapped the paintings around the city's Democracy Monument. At a UDD rally last week, thousands of UDD supporters donated 10cc of blood each, which was then symbolically poured onto the ground outside Government House and other political sites in Bangkok. (Government House was illegally occupied by the PAD in 2008.)

The current UDD campaign was launched after last month's seizure of Thaksin Shinawatra's assets by the Supreme Court. The protesters are also opposed to the 2007 constitution (drafted by the military), the 2006 coup (allegedly organised by the Privy Council), and the governing coalition (formed by the military following the dissolution of TRT and the PPP). Unlike the riots last year, the current UDD demonstrations are peaceful, despite scaremongering by Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban.

[Thai artists Pornprasert Yamazaki (Suicide Mind), Kosit Juntaratip, and Manit Sriwanichpoom (Flashback '76) have also used blood in their work. Kristian von Hornsleth collected Thai blood donations for his Deep Storage Art Project.]

Cinema@MERZ

Thunska Pansittivorakul's documentary This Area Is Under Quarantine, which was banned from last year's World Film Festival, will open the Cinema@MERZ film season at MERZ Art Space, Bangkok, on 27th March. The season will run until 24th April.

Another Side

A group exhibition, Another Side: Contemporary Artists' Dreams, opened on 13th March. The show includes The Altar, a new video by Thunska Pansittivorakul (director of Reincarnate, This Area Is Under Quarantine, and many short films). (As of today, Thunska's video had not yet been installed.)

The show also features Chaisiri Jiwarangsan's video The Illuded Moon, a record of an eye operation which is not for the squeamish. The video was made in collaboration with Apichatpong Weerasethakul (director of Syndromes & A Century) and Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (whose video works have previously been shown in From Message To Media and The Suspended Moment).

Most impressive are the ceramic works by Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch and Flora Cruells Benzal. Wasinburee has created a guardian angel with the body of a Transformer, and Benzal's Chimerical Six is a disturbing series of Gothic babies' heads. Another Side, at La Lanta in Bangkok, will close on 30th April.

Chaotic Victory

Chaotic Victory, an exhibition of new works by Vasan Sitthiket and Iwan Wijono, will open at Whitespace Gallery, Bangkok, from 12th March to 11th April. Vasan has a simultaneous exhibition at Number One Gallery, Ten Evil Scenes Of Thai Politic [sic].

Vasan has produced a series of self-portraits, depicting himself as Buddha and a terrorist. Wijono's paintings comment on the hypocrisy of iconic figures such as Barack Obama and Andy Warhol. Like Santiago Sierra, he works with economically marginalised labourers, though his projects are genuinely collaborative and mutually advantageous in contrast to Sierra's exploitation.

Ten Evil Scenes Of Thai Politic

A new exhibition by Vasan Sitthiket, titled Ten Evil Scenes Of Thai Politic [sic], opens on 11th March at Number One Gallery, Bangkok. It will close on 3rd April.

Vasan is refreshingly direct in his treatment of politics, sex, and religion. His new paintings, for example, explicitly depict politicians such as Thaksin Shinawatra and Suthep Thaugsuban as thoroughly corrupt figures succumbing to the temptations of sex and money. Some of his video works, including the scatological There Must Be Something Happen, were shown at From Message To Media.

“To confiscate all of the wealth of Mr Thaksin would be unfair...”

The Supreme Court ruled today that more than half of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra’s assets, frozen in 2007, will now be confiscated. The Assets Examination Committee had frozen ฿76 billion pending the outcome of an anti-corruption investigation, and Thaksin was convicted in absentia in 2008.

Of the total assets in question, ฿46 billion will be seized, and the remaining ฿30 billion will be returned. The Supreme Court judge delivering the verdict said: “To confiscate all of the wealth of Mr Thaksin would be unfair”.

The court ruled that Thaksin had attempted to conceal his personal wealth while he served as prime minister, by transferring his 48% stake in Shin Corp. to his children. It was his sale of Shin Corp. to Temasek in 2006 that sparked the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s anti-Thaksin protests, which led to a coup against him and four subsequent years of political instability.

Circus Christi

An exhibition at Granada University in Spain has been closed following protests from Catholic groups. The show, Circus Christi by Fernando Bayona, features a series of photographs depicting Jesus as a gay man; he is also shown making love with Mary Magdalene. The exhibition opened on 11th February and closed after less than a week; it was originally scheduled to run until 5th March.

A fantasy scene featuring Jesus and Mary making love, from Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation Of Christ, caused controversy in 1989, and DH Lawrence's novella The Escaped Cock (1929) also depicts Jesus and Mary's sexual relationship. Jesus has previously been depicted as gay in two films (Matthias von Fistenberg's Passio, 2007; Ed D Louie's He, 1974), a poem (James Kirkup's The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name, 1976), a lithograph (Enrique Chagoya's The Misadventures Of The Romantic Cannibals, 2003), a play (Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi, 1998), and a magazine illustration (Johnny Correa's Resurrection, in The Insurgent, 2006).

Enjoying Cursive Writing

A series of exercise books for children, Enjoying Cursive Writing I-IV, has provoked violent demonstrations in Batala, India. The books contain a drawing of Jesus holding a can of beer and a cigarette, and their publisher, Ram Mohan Jha, has been arrested.

The image in question, used to illustrate the word 'idol', was sourced from the internet; three years ago, it appeared on the front page of a Malaysian newspaper, Makkal Osai, and it also provoked violent protests when it was published by the Hyderabad newspaper Sakshi on 13th July 2008.

Game Change

Game Change: Obama & The Clintons, McCain & Palin, & The Race Of A Lifetime (also published with the more manageable title Race Of A Lifetime: How Obama Won The White House), by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, is a journalistic account of the 2008 American presidential election campaign. Like Andrew Rawnsley's The End Of The Party (which covers contemporary UK politics), Game Change benefits from hundreds of senior yet unattributed sources.

The book's overall tone is rather gossipy, though it contains numerous revelations. While Barack Obama is certainly an infinitely better President than John McCain would have been, McCain was an amusing presidential candidate during the campaign (with hilarious appearances at the Al Smith Dinner and on Saturday Night Live). Game Change shows that McCain is privately much less entertaining, quoting angry outbursts directed at his wife. Hillary Clinton's aggressive plans to challenge Obama are also discussed, and Sarah Palin is revealed to be even more ignorant than we first thought.