Chris Coles

German Expressionism and the Bangkok Night Chris Coles

The German Expressionists often used Early 1900 Berlin's degenerate nightlife and multiplicity of noir characters as the setting for their gritty, colorful vision of a distorted humanity drowning in a universe of alientation, dysfunctionality, bad intention and misplaced desire. When I first came to experience the vast, colorful and almost infinite universe of the Bangkok Night......one of the largest ongoing nightlife spectacles ever staged by humans in the history of the world, with millions of participants from Thailand, Asia and every country on earth....... Sellers, Buyers, Consumers, Enablers, Protectors, Managers, Support Staff, Owners, Grifters, Gangsters, Conmen and Profiteers.....billions of investment and revenue..... I immediately saw a similarity with some of those powerful images of early 1900's Berlin Nightlife created by the German Expressionists. A visual setting with a similar multiplicity of characters, only updated to early 2000's with Mass Tourism, ATM machines, Erectile Dysfunction Drugs, hi-rise hotels, spicy food, amplified music, complex lighting and a powerful blend of Southeast Asian style, traditions, people and stuff. If Re-Incarnation is Real, as many Southeast Asians believe, the German Expresisonists would all be here, in the Bangkok Night, taking in this unique human spectacle and using it to make their paintings.