The fifth Bangkok Art Biennale, which opened last week, takes the Thai capital's nickname — Krung Thep, the City of Angels — and turns it into a meditation on good and evil. Titled 'Angels & Mara', after the Buddhist demon of death, rebirth and unskilful emotions such as hatred and lust, the biennale presents 72 artists and collectives across 11 venues, from temples and palaces to malls and office towers. Artistic director Apinan Poshyananda leads curators Adulaya Hoontrakul, Rémy Jarry, Melanie Pocock and Kulapat Yantrasast.

At the Bangkok National Museum, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's fibreglass Angel (2008) lies face down, wings raised — the same dead angel that went viral in 2015 when hoax posts claimed a real one had been found. Nearby, Liu Jianhua's steel wedge Square (Siamese Triangle) (2014–26) aligns with the gold thrones behind it, while Teerapon Sisung's copper-wire crown jewels recall a replica crown stolen from Fontainebleau in 2015 and never recovered. At Wat Pho, Leiko Ikemura's bronze Memento Mori (2013/26) rests near the Reclining Buddha, and Max Hooper Schneider's Crocodile Pond Grotesques (2026) assemble brass chimeras of durians, crab claws and lizard tails.

Monsters recur throughout. At Museum Siam, Thai comedian-turned-artist Udom Taephanich fills lurid ceramics with figures that mutate and fall apart, while at Silpakorn University's Art Centre, American artist Mel Chin builds a disco for Thai spirits, soundtracked by Love Is in the Air. French duo Pierre et Gilles contribute photorealistic paintings of fallen angels and the Thai serpent Phayanak, including a portrait of former muay Thai champion Nong Toom — one of several works centred on transgender subjects.

Politics is not avoided either: Manit Sriwanichpoom addresses the war in Gaza in a video work, and an installation by the artist Ri takes up Myanmar's humanitarian crisis. With 5.5 million visitors across its first four editions, the privately funded biennale is Bangkok's flagship art event — and, as one closing work suggests, a mirror of who the city's art is really for: Naraphat Sakarthornsap's chandelier of prayer garlands, A Hopeless Hope (2025), grows more expensive the higher it rises.