Catch Against the Grain, the debut exhibition at Adult Material, Bangkok's new queer-focused gallery

Pride Month hands us the perfect excuse to clock a brand-new spot for anyone who loves boundary-pushing art and a bit of stylish gallery-hopping. Adult Material throws open its doors on Thursday June 18, tucked down the lantern-lit lanes of Yaowarat, and its debut show Against the Grain gathers seriously striking work from Thai and international names alike. Craft obsessives, diversity champions and the plain nosy all walk out inspired, buoyed by the warm, generous energy of the place.

Spanning sculpture, photography, installation and design, the artists here push against inherited ideas of identity, masculinity and cultural expectation. Through performative acts of discipline and submission, queer subjectivity turns transformative, forever renegotiated across space, memory, matter and the body. Domestic interiors, bodily adornment, architectural motifs and handed-down symbols become charged sites where intimacy, vulnerability, desire and power get contested and reimagined. The upshot frames queerness not merely as a subject but as a whole way of living in and remaking the world.

Look out for pieces by Shen Wei (New York), Oat Montien (Bangkok), Dylan Chan (Singapore), Gregor Jahner (Berlin) and Thyme Neelaphanakul (Bangkok).

The gallery is the brainchild of Olivier Chow, its founder and director – a Swiss-Chinese curator, collector and critic with a properly globetrotting CV. His back catalogue includes heavyweight humanitarian work: he was the first LGBTQ+ representative in the more than 150-year history of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

At heart, the venture champions fluidity, contradiction and openness, while keeping a firm eye on the links between art, craft and sustainability. It backs makers who care about their materials, lighter production methods and genuine cultural heft, sitting somewhere between playful experiment and the serious business of collecting. Go say hello.

The opening kicks off Wednesday June 18, 6pm at Adult Material, 16 Soi Yaowarat 1, Sampanthawong, Bangkok. 

Against the Grain runs June 18-August 15, with the gallery open Tuesday-Friday, 1pm-6pm and Saturday, 11am-6pm.