A Brief History

VER began with the establishment of Namdee publishing station in Bangkok in 2000 by Rirkrit Tiravanija, an internationally renowned Thai artist based in Thailand, Berlin and New York. In 2004, the project was renamed PLAN.b publishing, production and design limited partnership. We aim to act as a platform for launching innovative ideas in forms such as artist's books, textbooks, magazines, music, film, video, posters, graphics and design. We are interested in ideas and objects which can be published and/or multiplied and disseminated into the cultural consciousness.

Moreover, we would like PLAN.b to function as an active agent, bringing together people from various places and working collaboratively. PLAN.b is a network or node, where visual artists, photographers, architects, musicians, poets, and other individuals or groups can join in at any time, and from anywhere. We would like to apply all the communicative tools available in daily life, crossing both physical and virtual borders, in order to keep the flux fluid.

O ver magazine is the first publication from PLAN.b publishing station. It involves stories taken from everyday life: food, music, sport, travel, fashion, fiction, non-fiction, art, architecture, living culture, politics and science.

In the founding context of our name, “Ver” is a common Thai slang word derived from the English word “over”, and can be translated as "severe." We are interested in various senses of the word “over” - “across an intervening distance”; "from an upward to an invented or reversed position”; “in repetition”; and “again”. But we are not interested in its sense as “the end”.

Thus each issue of O ver magazine is a memoir - of passing, of crossing an intervening distance, of going from an upward to an inverted/reversed position, of again. We approach the notion of life and living in a realistic manner, according to the Thai saying, “let it go”.

The magazine is divided into two sections: image (the paper part) and sound (audio CDs with music and ambient noise and spoken text).

The making of O ver is like the process of film editing. The difference is there are endless possibilities of story/plot created while listening and flipping through O ver magazine. O ver magazine is composed of stories, time and space.

We have also provided collaborative opportunities for artists, designers and other creatives abroad to realize and produce work in Thailand. In such capacity, we have been working with artists as Tobias Rehberger, Olafur Eliasson, Philippe Parreno, Superflex and many others.

About Gallery VER

Gallery VER was established in 2006, as an artists-led initiative, with the intention to bring forth a collective stream of ideas and dynamism in how we define and look at contemporary art and culture. In the curatorial form of exhibitions, projects, one-off activities and events, institutional exchanges, the gallery seeks to initiate new strands of programming under the best possible circumstances and processes.

As from February 2010, the gallery has moved to a new location near the historic area of Bangkok, Rattanakosin. Set within a three-floor shophouse, you will find our elongated gallery space of 140 sqm, an architecturally mobile office equipped to meet the full needs to develop imaginative discourse and reflection and so, generating a stimulating atmosphere in manifesting an active frame of interaction. The gallery space provides and supports a discursive platform that invests in both artists and curators to realize innovative exhibits and projects relevant to artistic and conceptual practices. Past individuals and cultural organisations that we have worked with include, renowned Italian curator Pier Luigi Tazzi, Thaiindie, and Para-site Art Space, based in Hong Kong.

Under a new artistic direction and team set up in June 2010, the gallery aims to forge closer ties with artists through professional representations as well as marking mutual relationships between our represented artists and institutions. We strive to market and promote the artworks and practices of our artists on the basis of the various agendas and disciplines they interconnect. More significantly, a continuing commitment as an active agent to complement the formations of conceptualism in contemporary art as a legitimate and vital art form. Whether it’s singling out new relationships between art and the public realm, developing strategies based on contemporary art production and dissemination, it is our willingness to explore uncharted territories when selecting artists, themes and frameworks for our works.