Phnom Penh Street at Night – Chris Coles
While Phnom Penh’s come a million miles since the Khmer Rouge and Year Zero, it’s still a city with an edge, especially at night. Entire buildings and city blocks are often dark and unlit, sidewalks and streets in disrepair, piles of garbage are strewn in every direction. A small group of “Big Men” have their Mercedes, Toyota Land Cruisers and Lexus SUV, but most of the people who inhabit Phnom Penh grind away on almost nothing, living day to day with no real savings, no prospects, a daily darwinistic struggle for low-level survival with just a faint glimmer of hope far, far away, on a distant neon horizon.
In the midst of the ongoing debate about Cambodia’s present government, power structure, levels of injustice and impunity, etc., it’s nevertheless clear that there is an immense transformation taking place at this moment in Cambodia. Huge and rapid capital accumulation by a small elite, waves of internal immigration by young people from the rural/farming areas into Phnom Penh, a barely controlled influx of foreigners and investment from China, Russia, Korea, Europe, Australia, South Asia, North America and even Africa, a multitude of small business being started, so many NGO’s that they seem to be colliding with each other in their competition to “do good”, altogether a redefining of what modern Cambodia is and what it is becoming.
“Noir Nights in Phnom Penh” is a view of the present moment filtered through my perceptions and point of view as an artist rather than an academic or objective analysis. But perhaps the imagination, intuition and instinct can sometimes provide illumination in a way that eludes a more rational and scientific approach………
Lexus SUV in Phnom Penh Night – Chris Coles
It probably cost 100,000 plus USD, more than a lifetime income for most Cambodians, much less what they might save………it’s shiny, invulnerable, air-conditioned to the max and takes one of Cambodia’s Big Men wherever he wants to go………
Bargirl in the Phnom Penh Night – Chris Coles
Usually from one of Cambodia’s rural provinces, usually with at least one son or daughter, unlikely to have gone to school more than 6 years, the ex-husband or boyfriend AWOL, her mother and father subsistence farmers scratching out a few hundred dollars a year…….it all comes down to her, sitting alone in the Phnom Penh Expat bar, hoping to somehow find a way out………
Nite Cafe Phnom Penh – Chris Coles
Scattered around the Phnom Penh night, in between the pools of darkness, there are more and more Nite Cafe’s……liter bottles of Angkor beer, Khmer pop music, spicy food, snacks, warm and lively conversation, a re-knitting of the social fabric after so many years of destruction…………
Phnom Penh Hi-Rise – Chris Coles
Rising high above the rest of Phnom Penh, massive cement condos to be filled with large-screen plasma tv’s and newly rich Khmer, business guys from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, NGO chiefs from North America, Europe and Australia…..
Phnom Penh Night Market – Chris Coles
It’s late but the night market’s still open, at least some of it….piles of Cambodia fruits…a few rats scuttling through the trash……..
(to view more of Chris Coles “Noir Nights in Phnom Penh” photo essay, click here…………)
Good stuff Chris. Our trip together there a few years back was memorable.
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> “While Phnom Penh’s come a million miles since the Khmer Rouge and Year Zero”
I’d strapped myself in for a roller-coaster of insight and analysis, little did i know i was to be savaged by the dots…….oh look what my little camera can do at an ridiculously high iso level……look at my grocer’s apostrophe’s and capitalization……..so outside the boundaries…….my strings of dots of random length…..enigmatic and poetic and at the same time rebellious…..a finger to the Big Man….i read just enough to be dangerous…..so is it Angkor or Angka…….i don’t care………i don’t need an editor…..got to submit now……get back to the Phnom Penh noir!
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When can we have that in Burma?
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well done Chris, all the best from Krom
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I’m sorry, but you paint a thoroughly miserable and in some cases inaccurate picture of Phnom Penh. Pretty much everything you’ve written could have been dragged off the BBC’s equally depressing outlook of Cambodia. Try looking a bit harder for the good things and blog about those – or is your intention to dissuade people from visiting Cambodia so you can enjoy it and all its magic for yourself, in which case I salute your effort!
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Anthony, the piece is dross. It goes with the Singlish skits and Pavin’s piece on Karntoop as indicative of the depths of shoddiness that even a respected blog like New Mandala can reach.
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I don’t understand the value of this at all. It belongs with tourist’s travel blogs and self-published ‘bar-girl culture’ novels, and frankly would not even compare well with much of the latter.
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Although I appreciate the idea of depicting unaltered scenarios, I wonder what stance the author has towards all the things he encounters during his nightly tours through the city. He depicts brothels, bargirls, hostesses, and expats… Is this Cambodia by night? Or is it rather Cambodia by night through the lense of another expat?
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Donovan:
Do you need your political views spoon-fed to you?
Look at the photos, and draw your own insights and conclusions.
I interpret the photographer as is simply seeking to be an honest witness to a certain time and place.
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Guy Vandelay:
I agree that expecting or looking for balance or political commentary in this work is a mistake. Coles clearly states that as opposed to an academic he employs the “imagination, intuition and instinct” of an artist to provide “illumination”. I fully support this endeavour, and believe that a good artist must be subjective (though thorough in research).
But this work is so pedestrian it illuminates nothing. The photography to my eye is very poor and I agree with John Wright (2) as to the text. The photos don’t capture anything, neither the visual poetry of suffering and filth, nor the character and personality of Phnom Penh by night. They lack the details that would provide illumination, they could have been taken in any number of cities, and as such are reduced to a limited, blurry, one-dimensional and simplistic narrative of the developing third-world city through the dichotomy of politician and prostitute. (or Lexus and bargirl)
It seems very lazy to me, and as I said in my last comment in this thread, typical in every respect of the work of technically unskilled, expat dilettantes. Whether Coles belongs to the former category or not, I’m surprised to see work of this calibre on NM.
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Link Phnom Penh Post interview/article with Chris Coles on Noir Nights in Phnom Penh.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012061556832/7-Days/night-vision.html
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Guy:
No one mentioned something about “political views” here- so why do you bring that up? And, indeed, I made my own conclusion about the hypocritical stance of the author: While he depicts bargirls, “big men”, and expats, he generates a logical causality which might not be the reality but only in the eyes of the author since he is part of all that. This is a valid technique of artists, but it is also valid to ask for the artists opinion.
By the way, isn’t it striking that the negative valuations of the rather critical comments on the artwork all appear in patterns? Shamed be he who thinks evil of it, but please be so nice and respect the opinions of the others as well.
thanks
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re: Donovan Eiry
It doesn’t seem like you’ve actually read the Phnom Penh Post interview with the author per Susan’s link above. Why do you assume the author is “hypocritical” and “part of all that”? Other readers seem to disagree with you but that’s no reason for you to be offended.
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Fair enough that the author slips his imagination into the story and creates something far off the reality, but the pictures and these asserted stories are hokum. These kind of stories just reinforce romanticized clichés of Southeast Asian countries. I am deeply dissatisfied with this and the bulk of uncritical comments on that.
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I must say I agree with Jon Wright 100%. Grammar is very important, a priority in fact, and all sentences and thoughts should end with a simple period. I know that the university Jon works as an Asia recruiter for, Cardiff University, (the most highly-ranked university in Wales), would never accept any student who was not capable of writing English with proper grammar. And anyone who wishes to express themselves properly should be straightforward and clear rather than enigmatic, poetic or ambiguous.
Anthony makes a very good point as well. If you can’t think of something nice to say about Cambodia, it’s better to not say anything at all. After all, Cambodia has enough problems with its international image already. No need make it worse.
Nontok, while he leaves out mentioning the many photos in Coles essay that are not about Expats and bars, is also correct. Photographs should be properly lit, in focus and correctly framed. Otherwise they should not be published, especially by a respectable university blog. It is a poor example for that university’s students to think photographs can be blurry, grainy, and hard to look at.
And kudos to Donovan Eiry for pointing out that the view of Phnom Penh at night that Coles presents is completely fabricated and exaggerated. All the photos of stray dogs, dark streets, neon signs, messy street markets, tuk tuks, large SUVs, Big Man statues, Cambodian weddings, Chinese men gambling, bars, strange Expats and piles of garbage do not exist in the lovely, picturesque and pleasant sunlight of daytime Phnom Penh.
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Sean hit the nail on the head. Coles version of nighttime Phnom Penh is full of wildly over-romanticized cliches. In actual fact, the reality of Phnom Penh at night is far more dingy, more desperate, has more trash and is much darker than Coles whitewashed, romanticized photos and maudlin, sentimental white bread descriptions would have us believe.
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“Priscilla”:
“Photographs should be properly lit, in focus and correctly framed. Otherwise they should not be published, especially by a respectable university blog.”
These ideas are quite antiquated, and have already been for the past 80 odd years, in which techniques such as solarization, etc, have already been experimented with by the avantgarde artists/photographers such as Man Ray. Creative use of out-of-focus are standard repertoire of every photography student, and have over the past decades even made it occasionally into the selections of the in creative terms incredibly conservative wire services.
In creative photography anything goes if it serves the purpose of the artist.
Coles’ main inspiration in painting is expressionism, and so it seems also in his photos, using techniques that were popular in the exact same period by avantgarde photographers.
I thing most commentators here seem to forget that Chris Coles is not a documentary photographer, journalist or similar, but an artist – and therefore this is an entirely personal interpretation of what impressed his senses. His work has to be seen in this context, and cannot and should not be mistaken for a journalistic or documentary article on Phnom Penh.
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“Nick”
I guess even most of the rather critical commentators agreed that Coles is an artist. However, being an artist does not mean to be untouchable towards criticism. Particularly since his artpiece reinforces clichés (#sean), and his interpretations seem to be quite questionable (#nontok) for at least some readers. Again, being an artists does not exempt you from criticism-particularly not on an academic blog like NM.
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Nick, I think you missed the fact that Priscilla was satirizing some of the comments in this blog about “proper” photography and grammar, not endorsing them..
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Having now looked thru the 100 plus photos in Coles Noir Nights in Phnom Penh (link: http://phnom-penh-noir.blogspot.com/ ), I can’t for the life of me see what Sean and Dexter are on about in accusing Coles of presenting a romanticized version of Phnom Penh at night.
In fact, quite the opposite, Coles version of Phnom Penh looks pretty damn gritty I would say, not romanticized or romantic at all, at least in my book.
Aside from the 6 or 7 photos of bargirls and Expats in bars (I suppose despite that being part of the Phnom Penh reality, that’s the area Sean is accusing Coles of being cliched), the other 100 plus photos seem to cover a broad range, street dogs and cats, trash and garbage, lots of big SUVs, tuk tuk and bicycle taxi guys, street markets, odd things like an ATM machine, billboards of the royal family and Hindu figures, Chinese stuff, some large construction sites, the Naga Casino and the island where all the big weddings take place.
Please explain yourself, Sean, why and how all of these images fall into the romanticized or romantic Asia category.
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By the way, I just looked at the website and the pics looked good to me
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“tom hoy”:
I think you may be quite right there.
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Personally I don’t find Cole’s work to be very interesting art. I cannot say I hate or even dislike it. It is just something I would walk past. Then again that is my opinion and everyone has one. Art is not intrinsically good or bad but just an expression of a person that some may like or not like or have no feeling about.
It seems bizarre that people would want to row over something that is totally subjective
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Not only is Cole’s art not interesting, it’s downright depressing. Give everybody a break, we already know Phnom Penh is a blitzed out 3rd world backwater. I agree with #23, Nobody. I’d walk right by Cole’s art without a look or a thought. Personally, I prefer more positive art, Thomas Kinkade comes to mind. Art you can look at and hang on your wall that makes you feel good about yourself and the world. I’m sure if Kinkade were to paint Phnom Penh, he would make it really nice. Probably paint some of the temples and traditional dancers in costumes and charming views of the river.
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For all those whining about Coles’ gritty take on Phnom Penh at night, I suggest they drop by a Kinokuniya bookstore the next time they’re in Bangkok or Singapore (or Monument Books in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap) and feast their eyes on the racks of pretty photo books of a serene, harmonious and tranquil Orient, filled with picturesque smiling peasants tilling rice fields with their sturdy water buffaloes, uniformly robed Buddhist monks with matching umbrellas, lovely golden temples, humble, well-dressed and thoughtful elites, rulers, generals and kings, beautiful sunsets over the Mekong, and spotless beaches in Phuket without any vendors, beach chair and jet ski mafias or stray Rohingya boat people.
Not a single book of gritty photos of present day Phnom Penh in sight.
Oh dear, tut-tut, some say, Coles has included some photos of Phnom Penh bargirls, Expats and bars, dreadful and unpleasant cliches apparently in city where there are thousands of bars, nightclubs and massage places, with tens of thousands of bargirls, hostesses and massage ladys, ladyboys and rent boys providing service to a corresponding group tens of thousands of Khmer, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Expats. Not to speak of the substantial underage sex industry that still plagues Phnom Penh.
I would think even the driest and most academic researcher looking into the structure of modern Phnom Penh, its population, economy and culture, would need to include at least a few mentions of the booming Phnom Penh nightlife industry, its customers, workers, owners and those that provide the platform. Or otherwise risk irrelevance.
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Oh Art..Love it or hate it…
Good to have a wander through the gallery and listen to the comments. Our reactions to art reflect ourselves of course.
For those who find Coles work depressing there is always that picture of “The Green Lady” or “The Laughing Cavalier” to hang on your wall. Or 3 china ducks maybe?
Personally I like the neon colours. For those who want something lighter there is also the lady who paints with her bare chest on “Thailands Got Talent” though this appears to have elicited extremes of opinion also….
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Link to Alex Watt piece from Khmer440.com asking why most Cambodians are still living in almost total misery and poverty.
http://www.khmer440.com/k/2012/04/cambodia%E2%80%99s-booming-so-why-is-it-the-%E2%80%98least-thriving-country-in-the-world%E2%80%99/
Striking quote at the end of the article:
“As one former consultant to the government described it to me last night: ‘The problem is they don’t give a shit about the poor in this country. They don’t even care this much,’ he added, squeezing his finger and thumb to the width of a cigarette paper.”
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Alex Watt piece on China’s mega-casino/golf/beach/sex resort being built in SE Cambodia near Koh Kong touches on the extreme level of impunity, income and social disparity enjoyed by the present rulers & controllers of Cambodia:
http://www.khmer440.com/k/2012/03/when-will-angkor-wat-be-sold-to-china/
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Link to the 188 meter, 39 floor super-glossy deluxe Vattanac project in the new Phnom Penh:
http://www.vattanaccapital.com/overview.php
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