Bangkok is one of the most photographed cities in the world. Yet photographer Alain Callebautreveals a side of Bangkok that rarely appears in travel guides or on social media.In Bangkok Raw, temples, skylines, and tourist landmarks fade into the background. Whatremains is the city as it breathes every day: chaotic, vulnerable, raw, and at the same time unexpectedly poetic. During several extended stays, Callebaut wandered for hours through narrow alleys, markets,bridges, metro stations, and forgotten neighborhoods. He photographed not the spectacle, but the silence between people, the light after the rain, an unexpected reflection, a fleeting gesture.
The result is a contemporary photographic exhibition in which documentary street photographyevolves into museum-quality fine art.
Bangkok Raw invites visitors to slow down, look more carefully, and discover a city that usually remains hidden.
The exhibition unfolds across two distinct worlds.
Two floors. Two worlds. One exhibition.
First Floor - BANGKOK RAW
A selection of powerful street photographs where light, reflections, rain, architecture, and human presence come together. No cliches. Alain Callebaut Just a city filled with tension, beauty, and unexpected moments of silence.
Second Floor - Make Women Happy All Over the World
A series of artistic photographic works in which the female form is approached as sculpture, line, light, and emotion. No sensation. Only elegance and respect for the human body as an artistic subject. Together, both floors create a dialogue between exterior and interior, between city and human.
An experience that invites visitors not only to look, but to feel.
03 EXTRAS AT THE EXHIBITION
In the adjacent Metal Warehouse, directly connected to the gallery, Alain Callebaut presentsBetween Steel and Skin.In addition, several new books will be launched during the exhibition, all closely related to its themes.
First, there is Bangkok Raw, which expands on the exhibition's central concept. Streets ofBangkok presents a selection of powerful photographic compilations, while Amazing Colors of Bangkok offers a playful exploration of the distinctive colors that define the city's visual identity. Asian Connection, together with Ltd, reflects Alain Callebaut's enduring fascination with thebeauty, elegance and presence of the female form.
03.01 Between Steel and Skin
This series reveals an intimate dialogue between the organic and the industrial within a metal warehouse, where professional nude model Donna embodies warmth and vulnerability in striking contrast to the cold logic of steel.
03.02 Bangkok Raw
Belgian photographer Alain Callebaut, trained as a political scientist, approaches cities as livingtexts, attentive to detail, layers and the silence between images. His work moves between documentary and poetry, where observation gradually transforms into imagination. He has visited Bangkok more than one hundred times and has experienced the city's full emotional spectrum - from moments of overwhelming joy to the most dramatic experience of his life.
Anyone who truly explores Bangkok will likely encounter those same emotions. You willdiscover a city built on powerful contradictions, where extraordinary beauty is suddenly andunexpectedly confronted by a harsh, often unforgiving reality. There is simply no escaping it. These are images that remain with you long after you have left.
03.03 Streets of Bangkok
STREETS OF BANGKOK reveals Bangkok not as an image, but as an experience: raw andpoetic. These photographs are not a tourist stroll, but a visual exploration of a city that is atonce modern and archaic, chaotic and meditative. What makes this work special is what it does not do. It does not rely on cliches. It does notromanticize poverty. It does not exoticize culture. Instead, it chooses proximity. Not literally -
the photographer remains clearly an outsider - but emotionally, through attentiveness, respectfor detail, and a willingness to embrace ambiguity.
The photography in Streets of Bangkok is distinguished by a rare combination of visualboldness, conceptual maturity and urban sensitivity. This is not merely a record of a city, but acarefully considered visual interpretation of it.
03.04 Amazing Colors of Bangkok
The Thai people proudly embrace their tricolour flag. Alain deliberately searched for thosesame colours throughout Bangkok's streets and captured them in surprising and unexpected ways. Blue, white and red are constantly present in the urban landscape, yet they are just as often overlooked. It was therefore time for a fresh perspective - one that resulted in a collection of unique and fascinating images.
03.05 Asian Connection
Asian Connection is the result of a series of photographic sessions with several professional Thai nude models in the metropolis of Bangkok. Fine art nude photography has become Alain Callebaut's artistic signature. Without ever
becoming provocative or vulgar, he reveals the beauty, elegance and individuality of his models with sensitivity and respect.
04 ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Alain Callebaut is a Belgian fine art photographer whose work spans fine art nudes, street photography, portraiture, minimalism, and contemporary artistic photography. His photographs are distinguished by powerful compositions and a cinematic approach to light. Although rooted in reality, his images constantly seek a timeless balance between documentary photography and visual art. Callebaut develops long-term photographic projects that exist at the intersection of documentary photography and contemporary visual art. His work explores light, human presence, and the poetry of everyday life.With Bangkok Raw, he presents his first large-scale exhibition devoted entirely and exclusively to contemporary Bangkok, following his solo exhibitions Uncensored and Abandoned over the past two years. For decades, Bangkok has remained one of his greatest sources of inspiration.
Alain Callebaut
05 ARTIST STATEMENT
"I don't photograph what Bangkok reveals. I photograph what Bangkok hides. Amid the chaos, there is sometimes a single second when everything falls silent. That is the moment I press the shutter." - Alain Callebaut
Alain Callebaut | Old Town Gallery, BangkokBANGKOK RAW
06 EXHIBITION
Title: Bangkok Raw - Not the City You Expect
Photographer: Alain Callebaut [email protected]
Curators: Yokin Valanlapat
Art Director: [email protected]
Nancy De Witte: Art Director - Belgium [email protected]
Venue: Old Town Gallery oldtowngallery@aa_laongpunhotmail-com
+66 89 118 5072
405, 407, 409 Chakkraphatdi Phong Rd, Ban Bat, Pom Prap Sattru Phai, Bangkok 10100, Thailand
