Thai artist Natee Utarit’s 2 Singapore exhibitions imagine a world where Buddha went West

Thai artist Natee Utarit has two connected exhibitions in Singapore asking what could have been if Buddha’s teachings took root in the West

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Déjà vu (2019) by Natee Utarit, a bronze work that shows the standing Buddha (left) and the classical Greek statue “The Doryphoros”, part of the Thai contemporary artist’s solo exhibition at The Private Museum in Singapore. Photo: The Private Museum

Published: 7:15am, 12 Nov 2024Updated: 11:20am, 12 Nov 2024

Thai artist Natee Utarit’s monumental embroidered work of a classical European building facade is the first thing that confronts viewers upon entering The Private Museum, a non-profit private museum in Singapore situated in Osborne House, a colonial mansion on Upper Wilkie Road.

Graffitied onto the surface with spray paint is a fragment in English taken from the Dhammapada, a collection of the Buddha’s sayings, that states: “The flickering, fickle mind, difficult to guard, difficult to control – the wise man straightens it as a fletcher straightens an arrow.”

This is the opening salvo for Utarit’s exhibition “Déjà vu: When the Sun Rises in the West” at the museum.

Spread across the 19th-century mansion are paintings, sculptures, embroideries, stained glass and prints that portray the reversal of historic power dynamics between East and West.

The State of Mind (2019), by Natee Utarit, at The Private Museum. Photo: The Private Museum

Through these works, Utarit asks us to imagine what would have happened if the Buddha had travelled to Naples before the global spread of Western civilisation.

“The entry point of a leading Eastern figure influencing the West opens up so many possibilities of what the world could have been if the [peaceful] teachings of Buddha were widespread in the West,” says Aaron Teo, associate director of The Private Museum.