H Gallery Bangkok is very pleased to announce a group exhibition of photography that explores intimacy as a vexed rather than an assured relationship between people. Intimacy is typically understood as a state that can claim insights and understandings which are not generally accessible and are therefore all the more valuable. But, inspired by a number of examples across art, literature and film, this exhibition explores how the pursuit of intimacy can lead to estrangement, divergent desires and confusion, amongst other unpredicted responses.

The title, Intimately, is a qualifier rather than a statement, suggesting a certain lack of definitiveness and an invite to question or debate.

Intimately opens with mix of works by Tada Hengsapkul that explore the performative dimensions of physical intimacy with ideas about seduction, power and even disgust. Viet Le challenges how we might decide the terms of closeness and, therefore, distance in personal encounters with others. Imhathai Suwatthanasilp contemplates a relationship between intimate self-reflection and self-effacement; and Hanspeter Ammann plays with a sublimation of the unruly desires that can attend the pursuit of intimacy. Simon Larbalestier and Liam Morgan seek reflections of private experience in the world at large. And Waswo X. Waswo humorously explodes the politics of what is means to conflate intimacy with understanding.

The very notion of intimacy relates to ideas about the nature of photography, in terms of proximity and privileged knowledge. The artists in Intimately employ various types of photography, including snapshot, portraiture, theatrical, and historical. But, like the relationships explored – between the subjects of the works, the photographer and our engagement – questions and challenges, not closure, provide the order of understanding.