Myanm/art is pleased to present Intellectual Pleasure, an exhibition featuring 12 contemporary artists from Myanmar. Established in the wake of the country’s transitional government, Crossing Borders is a self-proclaimed contemporary art movement, but in many way it is also an artist collective, a group of impassioned artists, poets, and activists dedicated to building bridges through art work. Intellectual Pleasure is one such investigation into the minds of this multi-generational group, reflecting on a range of topics from global politics to societal pressure to conform.

What Intellectual Pleasure communicates to the audience is the need of artists to express in multiple mediums. A mere painting cannot contain the depth of intellectual and emotional growth experienced by these artists over the last decade. Or, a painting would need to communicate with the work around it, to fully extend its meaning. In her work, Ohn Ohn addresses the impossible power struggle in Myanmar’s current government, those still in power and those who wish to be. Myat Kyawt notes the self-fulfilling prophecy of war and the continuation of mental manipulation. But more than commenting on contemporary global events, artists are responding to global art world, how art is being made around the world and how that art intersects with our intellect.  

Ke’ Su Thar asks the audience to question their own knowledge structures while looking at the art. Nge Ein Htet Myet gets conceptual by creating an installation that attempts to contain or perhaps personify another man’s emotions. Pleasure from intellectual conversation, visual or otherwise, comes from challenging our preconceptions. Crossing Borders is true to its name. Its participating artists are from all over the country of Myanmar. But in Intellectual Pleasure, the borders signify the walls we put up and must break down in our minds, where the diversity of thought and appreciation begin.