I AM AN ARTIST (HE SAID)

“To be an artist is … just like shit in a clogged toilet, stubborn shit that can’t decide whether it wants to be flushed or to stick around” writes acclaimed artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook. Composed as an irreverent dialogue between masculine and feminine narrators, this book of essays is an uncategorisable fusion of art criticism, feminist theory, art pedagogy, gossip and autofiction. It is also an invaluable insider account of Southeast Asia’s contemporary artists being catapulted into international circuits since the 1990s. Araya’s provocative prose is lyrically translated from Thai for the first time by Kong Rithdee, one of Thailand’s most influential cultural critics.

by Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Translated by Kong Rithdee
Edited by Chanon Kenji Praepipatmongkol and Roger Nelson
135 x 205mm
496pp, paperback
ISBN: 978-981-18-2396-1
Published by National Gallery Singapore
Publication date: October 2022