Michael Shaowanasai ( th, ไมเคิล เชาวนาศัย) (born 1964) is a Thai-American artist and actor who lives in Bangkok, Thailand. His works includes performance art, photography, video,

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

and installations. Openly gay, his works are often provocative, such as photographic portrait of himself as a Buddhist monk made up to look like a woman. Active as an artist since 1997, his works have featured in international exhibitions since 1999, and his work is held in major collections.

Early life and education

Shaowanasai was born in 1964 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He graduated from School of Law at Chulalongkorn University in 1985, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

(which included filmmaking) in 1994 and a Master of Fine Arts from the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

in 1996.

Career

Shaowanasai is a founding member of

Project 304 A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular goal. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of even ...

, a contemporary art group based in Bangkok. Their work included the installation and performance ''Welcome to My Land... Come and Taste the Paradise'', and the performance ''Fresh Young Boys' Semen for Sale''. His solo shows include ''MS@OAS'', a photography installation at Open Art Space in Bangkok, as well as shows at the Fujikawa Gallery in Osaka, Japan,

Gallery 4A 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, formerly known as Gallery 4A, 4A Galleries, Asia-Australia Arts Centre and also known simply as 4A, is an Australian independent not-for-profit organisation based in the Haymarket area of Sydney, New South W ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Australia, and Ottawa Art Gallery, Canada. Shaowanasai, who is openly gay, ran the inaugural Gay and Lesbian Video Festival in Thailand in 2002. His 2003 photographic artwork, ''Portrait of a Man in Habits'', comprised a photograph of himself dressed as a Buddhist monk with

make-up Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...

on to look like a woman. This caused an angry response from Buddhists, who tried to stop the photographs from being exhibited, to which he responded by showing the rolled-up photograph. Among his film and video works is the

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

feature film, '' The Adventure of Iron Pussy'', which he co-directed with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a spoof of Thai movie musicals and melodramas of the 1960s and '70s. Shaowanasai portrayed the transvestite character of the title. The film was screened at several festivals, including the Tokyo International Film Festival, the

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

, the

Melbourne International Film Festival The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venice Film Fest ...

. In 2008 he curated the exhibition ''Lifeboat #2551'' as part of the Sydney Biennale projects in

(now 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art). The exhibition also included video and film works by artists Wit Pimkanchanapong, Sakarin Krue-on,

Tin Tin Cooper Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

, Momokomotion,

Manit Sriwanichpoom Manit Sriwanichpoom ( th, มานิต ศรีวานิชภูมิ, born 27 September 1961) is a Thai photographer, writer, contemporary artist and social activist. His notable work is a photo set called ''Pink Man''. The set consists of ...

and others. Shaowanasai was awarded many residencies between 1997 and 2005, including at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada; New Delhi, India; Paris, France;

Columbo ''Columbo'' () is an American crime drama television series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. After two pilot episodes in 1968 and 1971, the show originally aired on NBC f ...

, Sri Lanka; and Hokkaido, Japan and at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has given guest lectures at a number of other institutions on topics such as fine and applied arts, gender studies, philosophy, religion and anthropology, at his alma maters Chulalongkorn University and the school of The Arts institute of Chicago; Emory University, Atlanta;

Rijksakademie The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school support ...

, Amsterdam; Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; the Elam School in Auckland; and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Acting

As an actor, he has a featured role in the 2006 romantic-comedy ''

Metrosexual ''Metrosexual'' is a portmanteau of '' metropolitan'' and ''sexual'' coined in 1994, describing a man of ambiguous sexuality, (especially one living in an urban, post-industrial, capitalist culture) who is especially meticulous about his groomin ...

'' and portrays a soccer referee in '' Lucky Loser''. In 2012 he starred in a Philippine-Thai Film entitled ''

Suddenly It's Magic ''Suddenly It's Magic'' is a 2012 Filipino-Thai romantic film directed by Filipino film director Rory Quintos, starring Thai actor Mario Maurer and Filipina actress Erich Gonzales. The film is produced by Star Cinema and was released on October 31 ...

'' produced by

Star Cinema ABS-CBN Film Productions, Inc. (doing business as Star Cinema or ABS-CBN Films) is a Philippines, Filipino film studio and film and television production company and film distributor headquartered in Quezon City. It is one of the major film ...

Collections

Shaowanasai's work is represented in several institutions, including the Singapore Art Museum.

Selected exhibitions

In 2012, ''Radu Die: New works by Michael Shaowanasai'', was mounted at the H Gallery in Bangkok. His work has also been exhibited in Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America, including the following group exhibitions: * Venice Biennale (2003 and 2009) *''Asian Traffic,''

, Sydney (2006) *''Art Connexions'', Goethe Institut, Berlin (2007) * ''Act of Faith - On faith and conflict, ecstasy and excess'', Noorderlicht, a photographic festival in

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

, Netherlands (2007 and 2008) * ''Lifeboat #2551'', Sydney Biennale (2008) * "The Promenade des Homos" (2020), a photograph featured in the

Bangkok Art Biennale The Bangkok Art Biennale is a biennial contemporary art exhibition held in Bangkok, Thailand, following the ''biennale'' format. The event was first held in 2018, and features exhibits by local and international artists spread across multiple venu ...

2020

Film festivals

* Frameline Film Festival (2004) * Berlin International Film Festival (2004) * Singapore International Film Festival (2005) *

(2005) * Busan International Film Festival, Busan, South Korea (2010)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaowanasai, Michael Michael Shaowanasai Michael Shaowanasai American gay actors American gay artists School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Michael Shaowanasai Michael Shaowanasai American people of Thai descent 1964 births Living people Artists from Philadelphia Michael Shaowanasai American LGBT people of Asian descent LGBT people from Pennsylvania