Untitled, Cities on the Move

For the travelling group exhibition Cities on the Move, which toured in the late 1990s from Vienna to Bordeaux, New York, Copenhagen, London, and Bangkok, Thai artists Navin Rawanchaikul and Rirkrit Tiravanija collaborated with cinema painters and "tuk-tuk" producers. Appropriating imagery from popular culture and urban life, Untitled, Cities on the Move (1997) is conceived as an offer to the visitor to participate. The Thai three-wheel vehicles called "tuk-tuks" are the most ubiquitous presence on the streets of Bangkok, famous for fluidly navigating the city’s walls of traffic. The vehicle became a symbol of the creative potential within Asian urban culture, which is suffering rapid growth and westernization, moving forward with high speed towards uncertainty and collapse. In this work it takes on a similar metaphoric function.