By Susan Cunningham
TravelAge West
16 June 2026
Courtyard of Dib Bangkok MuseumWhile Thailand has a well-deserved reputation for its abundance of ancient religious art and architecture, modern art has never been a large draw for foreign visitors. Then, with its debut last December, Dib Bangkok landed the city on the international contemporary art map.
Few institutions in Southeast Asia rival Dib’s scope. The museum houses a permanent collection of 1,000 works created by 200 global artists — including Louise Bourgeois, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Takashi Murakami, Sho Shibuya and James Turrell — and Thai artists such as Montien Boonma, Pinaree Sanpitak and Somboon Hormtientong.
Dib, which means “raw” or “unfinished” in Thai, was the dream of the Petch Osathanugrah, who died in 2023. The heir to an energy-drink fortune, Osathanugrah was known to most Thais as the frizzy-haired singer-songwriter of several pop hits. For nearly 40 years, however, he collected contemporary art from around the world, supported young artists and mulled over his vision for a museum.
To realize his dream, he finally commissioned Kulapat Yantrasast, a U.S.-based Thai architect acclaimed for his work at the Louvre, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. MORE
Susan J Cunningham 