Massage from the founder
I have been observing and studying the development of art in our country which has a very unique identity for more than three decades. I found that Thaiarts have a strong commitment to Buddhism in both ideally and practically, we can say that those commitments are in our vain runningthrough our bodies. We've absorbed the beauty of arts through the Buddhism works since we were young. Beginning with the image of Buddha that we pay the respect every day to the artistic beauty of the architecture at the temples which are the Cho Pha (gable apex), Raga Leaves (toothlike ridges on the sloping edges of a gable), also the mural in the small temples around the country.
In fact, every civilized society in this world starts to work in arts with the same principle but the Thai artists have an ability to combine the moral principal and extend the meaning of arts, especially in traditional moral. Moreover, they can give clearly reflection of the beliefs that exist in Thai culture. MOCA intentionally preserved in collecting many contemporary painting and sculptures of the past seven decades to present-day with highly hope that we can share wisdom and entertainment to the audiences. Also, we hope that we can give a good impression to people in the other countries who decide to visit Thailand with the murals in our museum that combine all the Thai-ness that they've ever experienced.
Many of these fine works of art from many great artists that exhibited in this museum was motivated by Professor Silpa Bhirasri, the sculptor from Florence, Italy who polished and pulled out the best potential of his disciples. He passed on his personal experiences and developed his disciples' ideas whose thoughts were based on Thai culture and extended the thoughts to the contemporary arts that had been accepted by many civilized countries.
Through his teaching, he dedicated the effort and tenacity to his students as the art instructor and father, while he struggled with his own health and many obstacles that prevent him from working with some Thai people in government because he was an Italian working in Thailand during World War II. With all those reasons, we joined together to praise Professor Silpa Bhirasri and considered him as the Father of Contemporary Art. We hope that the first step of this museum will be the courage to the museums in other fields to unite and build the center of art in Thailand and be accepted internationally.
Since we are the new comer in the world art circle, we are trying to project the situations that happened in Thailand in different time. Start with the absolute monarchy period turned into democracy period until present. Now can be the worst period that lack of support from the Thai government because of the high unstable political reason. However, this period is also the time for all the artists have to survive in this hectic world and find their own standpoints to do what they love. Our museum will hold on to the determination of Thai artists to keep the identity of Thai art in past 80 years.
