Das Malspiel (Play of Painting)

Das Malspiel (Play of Painting)

Solo exhibition by Sira Hormtientong

Exhibition period: 20th June 2026 - 21st June 2027
Exhibition Opening: 27th June, 2026 | 6 PM onwards
At MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand

MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to present Das Malspiel (Play of Painting), the debut solo exhibition by Sira Homtientong. The exhibition unveils a body of paintings that defies categorization within any singular art-theoretical framework, simultaneously departing from conventional modes of expression and the function of art as representational signifiers.

Instead, these paintings resonate with Arno Stern’s (1924–2024) concept of malspiel. In Stern’s formulation, painting is detached from interpretative regimes; the creation of a painting is understood as a process of formulation, where graphic traces arise according to an internal necessity that precedes any symbolic or expressive reading. Consequently, what becomes visible in these paintings simultaneously points toward an understanding beyond categorization, whether as an artistic classification or as a representation of something else. The figures, animals, and vegetal forms here are not motifs to be decoded, but formations resisting immediate translation into meaning. In this sense, the exhibition opens a space of perceptual suspension in which seeing and making briefly converge outside the demand for interpretation.

About the Artist

Sira Hormtientong (b.2003, Loei, Thailand) was born and raised in Chiang Khan District, Loei Province. He began out of personal passion and through his own unique understanding. He portrays everyday objects and his surroundings using free-flowing lines that are completely unconstrained by conventional frameworks of beauty.