Rirkrit Tiravanija | ArtReview
Photo: Daniel Dorsa. Courtesy Rirkrit Tiravanija and David Zwirner
‘My interest is always to break down the distance between what we think [of] as art or high art and what we do in our daily life,’ Tiravanija once told The Korea Herald. During his close-to-40-year engagement with what has been characterised as relational aesthetics, the Thai artist has become known for his participatory events, from cooking pad thai for gallery goers to providing them with ping-pong tables. You’d think it might be tricky to encapsulate such a career in a retrospective, but his MoMA PS1 survey, which closed in March, before moving to LUMA Arles in June, had a go, as did a second retrospective at Gropius Bau, Berlin, which opened in September, serving curry and Turkish coffees, and providing hangout spaces where the interactions are the work.