Pratchaya Phinthong

Born in 1974 in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, Pratchaya Phinthong pursued fine arts at the Silpakorn University, Bangkok before studying at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule in Frankfurt. His artistic practice began more than two decades ago, marking a critical strand of conceptual practices in Thai contemporary art.

Phinthong was the gallery director of Gallery VER in the early 2000s. He went on to start Messy Sky, a project platform that took on different forms from 2011-2016, and in 2020, co-founded expensive to be poor, an e-commerce site that has been expanded, reshaped, and reformatted into physical and conceptual iterations.

Phinthong held his first solo exhibition at The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University in 2008, and has since exhibited widely. He has participated in numerous international biennale presentations, including Sharjah Biennial 16 (2025); Busan Biennale (2024); Singapore Biennale (2022); 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022); Dhaka Art Summit (2020); Art Encounters Biennale, Timisoara (2017); 14th Biennale de Lyon (2017); Taipei Biennial (2012); and Documenta 13 (2012).

His works have been collected by major institutions and collections around the world, including Musée National d’Art Moderne; Centre Pompidou; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kadist Art Foundation; Collection FRAC Lorraine; and Singapore Art Museum (SAM).

Contributions

Southeast Asia | A Global Museum

Somehow Materials Find Form: Pratchaya Phinthong and Carlos Quijon, Jr. in Conversation

Across Pratchaya Phinthong’s more than two-decade practice, an idiom of materiality and form has emerged that aligns his artistic trajectory along a conceptualist vein. Phinthong discusses his relationship toward this categorization and shares how he approaches his artistic practice against and alongside conceptualist gestures and methods. This edited transcript comes out of two interviews conducted with the artist over video call in June 2024.