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Published on November 4, 2007

The Ardel Gallery of Modern Art has sent Watchara Prayoonkum's world-leader puppets back to the United Nations to try again for peace - now it's our turn. The gallery out on Boromrachachonnanee Road is currently furnished with coffee tables, around which we can get down to some real solutions.

Coffee is the first solution, served to gallery visitors at the 24 square tables atop which, beneath glass, rest different thought-provoking works by 12 Thai and 12 Japanese artists.

Your assignment is to see the planet's worries in a fresh perspective.

"I wonder why we can't solve even our most minor problems in a 15-minute meeting," says Ardel's owner and curator Thavorn Ko-udomvit, an art instructor at Silpakorn University.

"Is it because the meeting table is too big, or there are too many papers piled up in front of us? Or is it because everyone wants to hog the microphone?

"I think we can find the solutions to even big problems by just talking around a small coffee table, with the aroma of coffee and light music playing."

Art, he says, can be approached the same way. It doesn't have to be puzzling or daunting. "It doesn't always need to be massive and complicated - it can become part of people's everyday lives."

 "Art on the Coffee Table" is another event commemorating the 120th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Thailand. The participating Thais have lived, studied or exhibited in Japan. The Japanese have all visited the Kingdom before and made friends here.

Many of the works adorning the tables deal with the close bonds between our countries and among the artists themselves. Parinya Tantisuk offers an auspicious red image bearing the national flags.

Yanawit Kunchaethong has coated one table with a coffee pigment on which are imprinted Thai consonants, and added a small origami box. Hanging on a wall is his abstract monoprint in Japanese ink and a paint extracted from mangosteen.

"Yanawit is among Thailand's pioneers in building a bridge between the artists of the two countries," Thavorn says. "He received a Japanese government scholarship in 1984 and was kindly taken care of there by Ikko Sugiura, another participant in this show. Their friendship has lasted a long time."

Sugiura expresses his feelings about the state of the world through small mirrors placed in an acrylic painting.

"Lately I've been using mirrors on my two- and three-dimensional works," Sugiura explains, "and then I use brushstrokes to evoke feelings about life or the interrelationship of all things in the universe. I sometimes paint small dots all over the canvas to indicate the passage of time."

Thavorn's contribution is a "conversation" about global warming between artificial flowers arrayed on a wooden tray and real ones flourishing in glass vases.

"I've been reading articles about global warming for seven years now," he says. "At first my friends thought I was worrying too much, but people now realise the danger.

"These artificial flowers will last a long time, and the real plants are going to wilt. I'm afraid that one day our children will only be able to learn about the different species of flowers from studying artificial models of them."

Seiji Kunishima, who's been a friend of Thavorn's for 20 years, makes a statement in the show about the fast pace of our Information Age.

He's wrapped old bits of newspaper and other items in metal - time-capsule fashion - but the metal is lead, once revered for its weight and solidity, now shunned for its toxicity. The information on Kunishima's scraps becomes inaccessible.

Suwan Methapisit bemoans the fact that temperatures look likely to continue rising despite the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol two years ago. He offers a thermometer, a CD imprinted with a map of the world - and a beach ball for when it gets really hot.

The distance from Earth to its moon, an eternally evocative symbol in itself, is stencilled in wood on Nipan Oranniwesna's "Comfor_table". On the floor is a light box displaying a manipulated photograph of the moon. You consider the relationship between our heavenly bodies and write down your own perspective.

You can join in the creative process at Niramol Hoitakul's table. Fragments of completed paintings are stored in a container, ready to be pieced together like a jigsaw. The finished image is entirely up to you.

Also featured in the exhibition are works by Kurosaki Akira, Kansuke Morioka, Hirokazu Yamaguchi, Itami Yasuo, Tatsumasa Watanabe, Kazuhiro Abe, Toshiya Takahama, Hisashi Kurachi, Hidetoshi Shibata and Matsuoka Toru from Japan.

The other Thais involved are Kanya Charoensupkul, Sermsuk Thiensoonthorn, Vimonmarn Khanthachavana, Sittichai Pratchayaratikul, Tinnakorn Kasornsuwan and Nattaphol Suwankusolsong.

The show continues until December 2. The Ardel Gallery

is at 99/45 Belle Ville, Boromra-chachonnanee Road Km 10.5, Thawee Wattana, Bangkok.

It's open daily except

Monday from 10 to 6.30.

Call (02) 422 2092 or

visit ArdelGallery.com.

Khetsirin Pholdhampalit

The Nation