MORSi ROAStS IRAN - Kuwait Times

FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2012
Hundreds of people pushed, prodded and stretched
their way to a new world record for the biggest
simultaneous group massage, in the Thai capital
Bangkok yesterday, organizers said. A total of 1,282
entrants took part in the event at a convention centre,
smashing the previous Guinness World Record of 526
people set in Daylesford, Australia, in March 2010. “I feel
excited and thrilled. I want Thai massage to be famous all
around the world,” said 50-year-old masseuse Pinprapar
Meedej. The event was staged by the Thai government in
an effort to lure foreigners to a country whose touristfriendly
image has been tested in recent years by deadly
floods, political violence and concerns about crime and
safety. “We had expected about 800 pairs but on the day
of the rehearsal only this number showed up,” said event
spokeswoman Supaporn Rungcharoenkiat. “But we’re
sure that we broke the record.”
The kingdom wants to shed its reputation for sex
tourism-including brothels disguised as massage parlours-and
promote itself as a growing hub for medical
Lifestyle
Some 641 Thai masseurs and
masseuses perform massages as
they establish a new Guinness
World Record for Thai massage at
an indoor sport arena on the
outskirts of Bangkok
yesterday. — AFP photos
Thailand sets world record for mass massage
Venetian canals transformed through a
camera obscura, intimate snapshots of a
prisoner’s life and a hall of whispers are
among the installations on show at a new exhibition
at Venice’s Palazzo Grassi. Around 30
works by 27 international artists, borrowed
from French billionaire Francois Pinault’s private
collection, explore how the medium of
video has been used to capture and challenge
sensory expression and perception. The hypnotic
“For Beginners” videotape by contemporary
American artist Bruce Nauman is among
the highlights on show at the 18th-century
Palazzo Grassi museum, which the French collector
bought and revamped in 2006.
The 70-year-old artist’s hands are captured
on screen as they respond to verbal instructions
on what positions his fingers must adopt.
The video is just the latest in a series of his
works which incorporate human body parts.
“As soon as we saw this work, we were hooked.
The artist wanted to give it to a Californian
museum. We fought to have it,” Pinault told
French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti ahead
of the exhibition’s opening.
After months of wrangling, a deal was
struck: the businessman was allowed to buy
the work as long as a copy went to the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art. Alongside the
talking hands, American artist Zoe Leonard
captures the seductive beauty of the
Serenissima’s waterways through a camera
obscura. A light streaming in from outside
pierces a lens and flips the image of the grand
canal outside the Palazzo Grassi onto its head,
so that the waters cover the ceiling and boats
pass upside-down as enchanted viewers loll on
cushions.
The sense of peace contrasts sharply with
Algerian-born artist Mohammed Bourouissa’s
“Temps mort” installation, which collates
images and sketches filmed by an inmate of a
tourism. Supporters of traditional Thai massage say people
in pain need look no further than their local spa.
“Thailand is the number one medical hub. You can be
cured with Thai massage. There’s no need to use medicine
and it’s 100 percent safe,” said 39-year-old massage
instructor Duangvarat Insee. Most of the people who took
part were qualified massage therapists, but others were
just happy to enjoy a free session of “the lazy man’s yoga”.
“That was great. My legs feel good and I can walk better,”
said 72-year-old pensioner Mora Saelim. —AFP
Voices and images at Venice’s Palazzo Grassi exhibition
Palazzo Grassi’s director Martin Bethenod poses next to ‘For Beginners’ by Bruce
Nauman exhibited during the ‘Voice of Images’ exhibition at PalazzoGrassi on August
29, 2012 in Venice. — AFP
federal penitentiary in France on a mobile
phone. Bourouissa, who lives and works in
Paris, asked the prisoner to film snapshots of
inside-from chains to inmates gathered behind
bars-to create a poor-quality video which
evokes despair and violence in its banality.
In “The Passion of Joan of Arc”, Venezuelan
artist Javier Tellez reworks the 1928 movie of
the same name by getting mental health
patients to rewrite the script to introduce the
theme of madness and paranoid schizophrenia.
Tellez, who often works on questions of
psychiatric illnesses, then has the patients
become witnesses to the trials faced in mental
health institutions. In American artist Bill Viola’s
1995 project “Hall of Whispers”, the pallid faces
of ten people who have been gagged are displayed
on a dark screen, with their eyes closed,
while their protests and moans are clearly
heard. Exhibition’s curator Caroline Bourgeois
said video has stopped being a stand-alone
medium and has become integrated into other
art forms. While each of the works speak, they
do not have a common message. Each visitor
to the show takes away their own interpretation,
she said. “Video does not have a cinematic
type of narration. It’s victory that it is no longer
billeted in a category but has become sculptural
in a certain fashion,” Bourgeois said. “Voices
of images” runs until January 13. — AFP