A white shophouse on Soi Nana, just off Maitri Chit Road near Hua Lamphong, looks from the street like somebody's home. That is entirely the point. Misiem's/Bangkok, a new museum devoted to pioneering Thai artist Misiem Yipintsoi, is furnished as a lived-in family house: a dining set, a vintage cabinet of tableware, sculptures sitting casually among the sofas. Visitors are even invited to touch the art.
Klaomard Yipintsoi, the artist's granddaughter and museum co-founder, wanted the space to mirror how her grandmother actually lived — surrounded by paintings and sculpture, cooking for guests, and treating art as an ordinary part of daily life. Many pieces of furniture belonged to the family: the dining table came from Misiem's sister Marian, the cabinet from an aunt, and the upstairs pieces from Misiem's own home. In the early days, guests even got Indonesian-style prawn crackers, a nod to the family's Peranakan Chinese-Indonesian roots.
The story behind the collection is worth knowing before you go. Misiem, married with five children, only discovered art in her 40s after taking her daughter to Europe for polio treatment and visiting museums there. She took up oil painting in 1948 under Monet Satomi, a Japanese cultural attaché, and within a year won the gold medal at Thailand's first National Art Exhibition in 1949 with Dreamers' Avenue. She took the same award three years running — with Honolulu and Hua Hin following — becoming the first artist in Thailand honoured as an Artist of Very High Distinction. Later, trained by Prof Silpa Bhirasri, she turned to sculpture, celebrated for expressive movement: Skipping Rope was inspired by Klaomard's sister jumping rope, while Continuity, a human tower of children, came from watching lion dancers. Klaomard's favourite detail: her grandmother woke before dawn to work in her studio, every day, well into old age.
On the museum's second floor, look out for Dreamers' Avenue plus sculptures including Fisher Woman, Mother And Child and Time's Ravage. Klaomard plans to keep adding work until the museum holds all of her grandmother's paintings and sculptures, and Continuity will eventually stand outside so the building announces itself as what it is. This is also not Klaomard's first experiment — back in 1996 she ran About Studio/About Cafe at the same address, mixing a coffee shop, bar and gallery with theatre, fashion and film.
Practical details: Misiem's/Bangkok is free to enter and open Saturdays and Sundays, 12pm to 8pm, at 402-408 Maitri Chit Road, two minutes from MRT Hua Lamphong Exit 2. Klaomard personally leads guided tours every weekend. Nothing is for sale — which, judging by recent visitors asking, still surprises people.
If the museum hooks you, there's more to build a trip around: Misiem's Sculpture Garden in Sam Phran, Nakhon Pathom, offers her sculptures in a quiet garden setting; 14 works sit in Mae Fah Luang Garden in Chiang Rai; and Misiem's Songkhla shows her abstract pieces only during August, her birth month. For anyone who likes art without the white-cube formality, this is an easy, rewarding weekend stop in Bangkok.
