Contemporary life is full of rapid changes, the virtual collides with reality, chaos is the ultimate master. In the current digital era, we are overloaded with information yet lack the wisdom to process it. We know everything, yet are still lost.

Life in a nightmare

We live in a nightmare, but also in a moment of great opportunity. As Buddha sought the Pure Land in the chaotic human world, inhabitants of the urban jungle crave escape to a beach paradise. If, one day, Buddha appeared on the beach, could he provide an answer to the chaos of the world? Or would he need a beach holiday, a moment to breath?

Contemporary Taiwanese Art

Buddha on the Beach comprises three large interactive installations, two live performances, and twelve works of visual and video art by contemporary Taiwanese artists. In tribute to Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach, the scenography is designed as a global space, aiming to provoke dialogue between the individual works while preserving the autonomy of each. The exhibition offers a poetic glimpse of the current world and invites the viewer to reflect on our current crises and the need to invent new paths for humanity.

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Works

Yi-Ping Hung  (TW): Smile Buddha

Interactive installation. A mosaic of faces confronts us, and as we begin to pick out the individual portraits, a familiar new addition appears. Hidden cameras take snaps of visitors viewing the work and each new image added replaces an existing one, so that the population of portraits gradually evolves and transforms.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Room 208

He-Lin Luo (TW): Digital Buddha

Interactive installation. Five abstract sculptures appear to take on figurative forms in motion – apparitions that exist only with the activating ingredients of time, movement and audience
attention.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Room 206 + 205

Chieh-Jen Chen (TW): Realm of Reverberation

Video installation. The elderly, the sick, the disabled, the poor and the unemployed are the primary victims of urban development devised by experts, politicians and financiers. But dign
ity remains intact on the victims’ side.

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz: THU September 4, 2014 10 AM-9 PM, FRI Septemebr 5-MON September 8, 2014 10 AM-6 PM
Curators Tour at LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz

Ji-Hong Lee (TW): September’s Work 2012

Video installation. A car moves repetitively in an underground car park before emerging into the light
. But the world itself remains opaque and incomprehensible.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Room 209

Wei-Ming Ho (TW): Self-destruction for Eternity

Video installation. The Fourth World War has begun: A video game in which players wage tot
al war on themselves. The enemy is within each of us and must be destroyed at any cost.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Room 210

I-Chun Chen (TW): Factory Life of “Little Black”

Video installation. An apocalyptic vision of the wor
king class’s future – Animal Farm is mutated through globalization.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Room 207

Joyce Ho (TW): Day Dream

Mixed media installation. Androgynous mutant creatures colonize cities,
rendering humankind obsolete

Akademisches Gymnasium, m>Stairway between 1st and 2nd floor

Chao-Tsai Chiu (TW): Yi

Mixed media / interactive installation. Visitors are invited to set in motion seven articulated sculptures based on the rainstick, a traditional American instrument.

Arkadenhof

Chieh-Wen Lin (TW): Hand

Mixed media installation. Territories, communities and identities are stripped away, leaving nothing but the naked body, trying to find – or rediscover – a place in nature.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Stairway between 1st and 2nd floor

Chih-Ming Lin (TW): Three States of the World

Aboriginal artist I-Ming’s three spherical wooden sculptures symbolize the three states of the contemporary world: paradise, fascism and chaos.

Mariendom, THU September 4-MON September 8, 2014, to the dom exhibit

Yu-Chin Tseng (TW): No Land to Live

Video installation. With despair, ennui and the absence of prospects, urban youth abandon themselves to silent, murky nights.

Akademisches Gymnasium, Room 211

Jui-Chung Yao (TW): Long Live

Video installation. The only spectacle still possible seems to be the military destruction of the world.

Dawang Huang (TW): Smashing Karaoke vs. Brass Band

Live performance. With the bracing impact of a cold shower, the artist uses standardized international musical to make us reflect on the cultural products that we consume like drugs.

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