Ars longa, vita brevis
– so it is written on the wall above us: art is long, life is short. Unfortunately my Thai is not good enough for the translation written above it.
Even though I have only been here for 24 hours, I already have a sense of how well this sentence suits Thailand. Not only because of the impressive culture that one encounters in so many places here – a culture that spans centuries. Following the modern works here today, tomorrow we will be looking at historic rock paintings in Pha Taem National Park. I am very much looking forward to that. Of course, this sentence also chimes wonderfully with the Thai way of life, of living in the moment. Here Confucian ideas meet with Buddhist wisdom: life is short; we are living in the here and now, so let’s make something of it! People here in Thailand exude a joy in life that is catching. "Sanuk" , they say, and it means to find joy in everything.
Life is short – which also means that change and transience are part of life, as we saw on our tour of the special exhibition on the ground floor. The artist Sakarin Krue-On, who created it and is with us here this evening, has, by the way, already attracted considerable attention in Germany. At Documenta 2007, he planted over 7000 square metres – the size of a football pitch – of terraced rice fields behind Wilhelmshöhe Palace. An impressive sight, which linked apparently contradictory things: traditional Asian agriculture in a Central European park. But whether cultured nature or naturalised culture – the climate here is certainly much better suited to rice field art.
Art is long, life is short. Bearing that in mind, it only remains for me to thank you all for coming and to thank you, the Bencharongkul family, for opening the museum up to us today. I wish you pleasant conversations and much "sanuk" here this evening.
