Tang Chang and Art Field Before / After 14 October 1973

Abstract

This article aims to survey about the role and the important works of Tang Chang after 1957, related to the change in the field of art which affected by Art for Life’s sake idea and the political event in 14 October 1973. After 1957, The Art for Life’s sake movement occurred along with the political awareness of the people. Some of the progressive artist gather into the political groups. Tang Chang is the one artist who has an independent role in The Artists’ Front of Thailand, one of the artist groups during that time, albeit he didn’t act apparent to the public. In 1973, He painted the large-scale oil painting, the self-portrait without hands and eyes. It becomes an important work in the Thai modern art history, especially in the period of political movement in the 1970s. Since Tang Chang is the artist who related to The Art for Life’s sake movement and the political movement in the 1970s, the time that Thai modern arts become independence from the state, Tang Chang has become to the artist who have worked at the fringes of (national) modernism and sit uneasily within prevailing (national) historiographies of art.