The confusion of cables disfiguring Bangkok turns into a work of art

The tangled wires that distort many of Bangkok’s streets have been turned into a work of art by Japanese artist Eiji Sumi. The Densen / Plus exhibition, which combines painting, graphics, sculpture and visual effects, is open in the Thai capital until the end of the month at Koi Art Gallery. According to the Japanese artist, he intends to “wrap” the feelings of the viewer with wires.

“My goal is to show the public the problem of power lines. We must make efforts to bury them and end with them in our cities, ”the artist told reporters. Eiji Sumi confessed his love for Bangkok and Tokyo, but at the same time could not hide his concern about the visual impact of airspace in these two largest cities in Asia.

In the images of Sumi, Bangkok takes on the aesthetic appearance of exorcism, in which, without giving up the idea that the wires should be underground, they managed to find beauty in the tangled space of the Thai capital.

In the Koi Gallery, several tangles of cables hanging from the ceiling cover the city’s drawings so that the viewer must interact with copper and plastic bundles to watch them. A set of sound and lighting simulates the flow of electricity, and a mechanism that allows the viewer to touch the wires helps to move and “view them at angles that are not possible in real life,” the artist explains.

Using various aesthetic and emotional languages, the Japanese artist wants the public to feel this street cable as a more personal sensation than reality itself.

Sami, who is a multi-disciplinary artist, combines in his work the conceptual art of lighting effects, video art, oil painting and drawing. He is exhibited in various galleries in New York and this exhibition in Bangkok was organized by Eric Scheiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum.

“More and more often in contemporary art, an artist should be able to express himself in various disciplines by creating complex works,” he said. Despite the aesthetic challenge that cables make, the Japanese creator has a practical goal for the Thai authorities to do something to clean the streets of wires, as happened in cities such as New York, Paris or London.

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