20 April 1994 |
This sculpture represents the special baskets carried by street vendors in Thailand to
sell food or small goods. Although modest and sometimes precarious, the job of a street
vendor provides an honest way to earn one's living. The artist is again playing with
words: 'ray khay', which means 'street vendor', sounds like the reverse of 'khay lay',
which means 'salesman who is a trickster', particularly because in Thai pronunciation the
sounds 'r' and 'l' sound almost identical. 'Khay lay' is used here to designate people who
pretend that they want to offer a service while actually seeking money. |