Wantanee’s One Man Show, 2006
This work critiques the contemporary art world as a system built on visibility, self-promotion, and institutional recognition. Using irony, Wantanee reflects on how artistic value is often produced through publicity—catalogues, websites, press, and interviews—rather than sustained artistic inquiry. The project asks what happens when professional positioning begins to replace artistic thinking, and when opportunism becomes structurally rewarded by critical and institutional frameworks.
The work also engages the politics of naming. Wantanee changed the English spelling of her name from Wantanee Siripattananuntakoon to Wantanee Siripattananuntakul, pointing to how Thai names can be transliterated in multiple ways while retaining the same meaning. Treated as a gesture within an art context, the name becomes a sign—something adopted, performed, and circulated. The project highlights how an “artist name” can function as a mechanism for identity production, visibility, and value, revealing the tight link between authorship, reputation, and the market life of art objects.
