Curator: Brandy Carstens

The exhibition takes its cue from the work and intellectual legacy of James Lee Byars, centring on mysticism, ephemerality, perfection and impossibility. Deeply informed by Zen Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, Byars’s practice invites contemplation on the meaning of the transient and, through a performative vocabulary, probes the threshold between presence and absence. This conceptual framework is reinterpreted within contemporary art through contributions from international artists across different periods.

Invited artists: Rodolfo Abularach, Seung Ah Paik, Afra Al Dhaheri, Georg Baselitz, Julie Beaufils, John Cage, Chiki, Marcel Dzama, Ha Chong-Hyun, Thiago Hattnher, Naotaka Hiro, Nam June Paik, Yu Kobayashi, Jannis Kounellis, Satoru Kurata, James Lee Byars, Rei Naito, Grigoris Semitekolo, Juliana Seraphim, Amitesh Shrivastava, Anh Tran, Paloma Varga Weisz, Evian Wenyi Zhang, Masamoi Yasunaga.