LU YANG | DOKU: TRIAGE stages an encounter between medicine, technology and Buddhist concepts of reincarnation, expanding Lu Yang’s renowned DOKU universe into a unique spatial experience.

LuYang’s 3D animations and installations explore fundamental questions about the relationships between the body and consciousness, spirituality and science, technology and the limits of being human. For him, the hospital is not a neutral site: as a child, he spent significant time in emergency rooms, where he encountered the fragility of the body. From a young age, he was repeatedly exposed to illness, ageing, death and separation — experiences that gradually became familiar to him. His installation at the historical ‘Kochhaus’ of DRK Kliniken Berlin Westend was developed specifically for this setting and for the context of ‘art in the hospital’. An installation of hospital beds arranged throughout the main hall and large-scale banners suspended from the ceiling responds to the site in a restrained, contemplative and yet direct manner, drawing on imagery from LuYang’s renowned series DOKU The Self and DOKU The Flow. Both works centre on LuYang’s genderless avatar DOKU. The name derives from the phrase “Dokusho Dokushi” — “We are born alone, and we die alone.”

DOKU The Self (2022) is the first narrative film on DOKU. Referencing LuYang’s own memories and an experience of the “overview effect” during a plane-flight through a lightning storm, the film follows DOKU through the six realms of spiritual reincarnation — Human, Heaven, Asura, Animal, Hungry Ghost and Hell — and explores the instability of body, identity and consciousness. 

DOKU The Flow (2024) continues this narrative. After DOKU’s body disintegrates into glass-like fragments at the end of The Self, a recomposed DOKU descends to earth and moves through changing digital forms. Grounded in the Buddhist philosophy of Madhyamaka, the film shifts the focus toward emptiness and the idea that all phenomena are without fixed nature or essence. 

In LuYang's installation at Kochhaus, the act of viewing becomes voluntary and intimate: The viewer chooses to lie down on one of the beds, put on the headphones and enter LuYang's work. Patients, relatives and visitors are not involuntarily exposed to the imagery upon entering the exhibition venue. 

In the adjoining rooms of Kochhaus’ main hall, lightboxes present the six digital avatars of DOKU. Drawing on Buddhist and Hindu cosmologies, they appear as six virtual incarnations of the artist: DOKU Animal, DOKU Asura, DOKU Heaven, DOKU Hell, DOKU Human, and DOKU Hungry Ghost.

In this setting, ›Doku The Self‹ and ›Doku The Flow‹ appear as private dream-states or moments of self-observation, linking the hospital bed, the viewer’s body and DOKU’s digital body with themes of life, death, identity, and transformation.

About LuYang

LuYang lives and works between Tokyo and Shanghai. His solo presentation DOKU The Illusion is currently on view at the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia. Current and recent shows include New Humans: Memories of the Future at New Museum, New York, a large scale survey exhibition at Amant, New York, accompanied by a solo presentation at Museum of the Moving Image, New York. In 2022, LuYang was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by Deutsche Bank. 

LuYang has held solo exhibitions at major international institutions including Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Kunsthalle Basel; Palais Populaire, Berlin; ARoS Museum, Aarhus; M Woods, Beijing; MOCA Cleveland; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and Kunstpalais Erlangen. 

His work has been presented in significant group exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Centre Pompidou, Metz; Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf; The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Times Square Arts, New York; CCA Tel Aviv; ICA, London; Muzeum Sztuki, Poland; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; and Fridericianum, Kassel, among others.

LuYang is part of a number of public collections including ARoS, Aarhus; Asia Art Archives, New York; Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; Kunstpalais Erlangen; M+ Collection, Hong Kong; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Taguchi Art Collection, Japan; UBS Art Collection; Ullens Foundation, Switzerland; among others.

The exhibition is kindly supported by Société, Berlin and EIDOTECH GmbH.

For the entire Berlin Art Week programme please visit: www.berlinartweek.de