BERLIN.- This exhibition brings together two of North Rhine-Westphalia’s leading private art institutions—placing video art from the Julia Stoschek Collection into dialogue with classic Japanese and Asian art from the Viktor and Marianne Langen collection.

“Incarnate” invites viewers to explore a continuum between material and immaterial worlds, and to discover surprising overlaps between spiritual inquiry and media aesthetics. While staging encounters between devotional art and onscreen figures the exhibition challenges distinctions between ancient and contemporary insight.

Throughout, the gallery presentations establish an affinity between the metaphysical concerns of Buddhism and the mirror games of video art: specifically, the former’s distrust of appearance, privileging a deeper reality, and the latter’s ambivalent view of the screen as a window/veil. The artwork selection was also inspired by the passage of the word ‘avatar’ from ancient Eastern thought into today’s digital culture.

In philosophy and theology, ‘incarnation’ names the presence of spirit within a physical form. “Incarnate’s” encounters between classic, modern, and contemporary artworks showcase a recursive loop between form/mediation and content, well-described in a passage from the Heart Sūtra of Mahāyāna Buddhism: “Form

is emptiness (śūnyatā), emptiness is form”. Traversing time and geography, the featured pieces ask you to reflect upon the ‘truth’ of illusion; how form and emptiness, body and spirit, surface and depth, old and new, are more connected than might first appear.

The show opens with the 1970 video performance Shadow Play by Vito Acconci, in which the artist appears engaged in a boxing match with his own shadow. Thereafter, in the Langen’s Japan Room, a selection of Kanō school painted folding-screens feature oceanic vistas and sea birds against resplendent gold-leaf. These dream scenes are offset by French artist Laure Prouvost’s Swallow (2013), a video exploring fantasies of nature and sensuous water-borne leisure. Together, they hone in on the seductive power of images, and our desire for immersion within their constructed realities. Nearby contributions by Matt Calderwood and Peter Campus establish a punctured (video) screen, and its ambivalent status as worldly mediator, as a thematic leitmotif.

After this opening act, the viewer’s descent into the main galleries mirrors a plunge into deeper metaphysical terrain. The second act begins with American artist Peggy Ahwesh’s She Puppet (2001), a video featuring repeated deaths and rebirths within the Tomb Raider game-world. This is followed by British artist Ed Atkins’s Warm, Warm, Warm Spring Mouths (2013), in which an undead digital avatar—residing at the bottom of the ocean—offers poetic reflections on mortality, memory, and data. In the same gallery, a historical work by Nam June Paik features a meditating Buddha confronting a televised image, underscoring an enduring tension between presence and the mediated self in both digital and spiritual art histories.

The exhibition’s third act frames one of the Stoschek collection’s most recent acquisitions, Lu Yang’s DOKU The Flow (2024), amid selected masterworks of Buddhist sculpture. This long-form video deploys intense animated visuals to explore the topic of virtualization of the human body and mind. Its protagonist is a genderless humanoid avatar named DOKU, whose name is inspired by an aphorism stemming from the Infinite Life Sutra (Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra), a Buddhist scripture: “Dokusho Dokushi’ (we are born alone, we die alone)”. Tracing overlaps between Buddhist metaphysics and posthumanity, DOKU’s journey through hyperreality attempts a ‘Madhyamika’ Buddhist aesthetic for our time—exploring the notion that all phenomena are devoid of ‘’nature’’, ‘’substance’’, and ‘’essence’’, embracing impermanence, interdependence, and lack of fixed identity. Set within the unique context of the Langen collection, Lu Yang’s contemporary vision is positioned in the long-view of Buddhist art.

Karla Zerressen, Director of the Langen Foundation said: “We are thrilled to collaborate with the Julia Stoschek Foundation on this ambitious exhibition. The partnership between two private art institutions—both led by women and dedicated to supporting contemporary art independently—marks a significant moment for the cultural landscape in North Rhine-Westphalia and beyond. The project underscores the importance of dialogue, shared vision, and collective commitment to the arts, and we look forward to presenting a show that reflects the strength and relevance of independent initiatives in Germany’s vibrant art scene.”

Julia Stoschek, Founder of the Julia Stoschek Foundation said: “I am delighted that we are able to create an incredibly powerful dialogue between the Julia Stoschek Collection and the Langen Foundation’s remarkable holdings. Sparking new conversations across centuries, media, and cultures, this project is reflective of the strength of institutional collaboration built on a shared vision and the courage to think outside conventional frameworks.”

Nadim Samman, Curator of the Langen Foundation said: “From religious statuary to digital avatars, what we take to be sacred or sentient is shaped by mediation itself. “Incarnate” suggests that subjectivity is not simply represented by media, but continuously assembled, encrypted, and performed through it.”

“Incarnate” is Nadim Samman’s first exhibition at the Langen Foundation since joining the institution as Curator in Autumn 2024. He previously curated “Julian Charrière: Controlled Burn” (shortlisted for exhibition of the year by Art das Kunstmagazin) and “Troika: Pink Noise” for the foundation (both with Dehlia Hannah). Prior to taking up the post he was Curator for the Digital Sphere at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, where he curated the major touring exhibition ‘Poetics of Encryption’ (among others). Samman read Philosophy at University College London before receiving his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was Co-Director of Import Projects e.V. in Berlin from 2012 to 2019 and, concurrently, Curator at Thyssen- Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2013-2015). He curated the 4th Marrakech Biennale (with Carson Chan) in 2012, and the 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art in 2016. He co-founded and curated the 1st Antarctic Biennale (2017) and the Antarctic Pavilion (Venice, 2014-2017). Widely published, in 2019 he was First Prize recipient of the International Award for Art Criticism (IAAC). His recent book Poetics of Encryption: Art and the Technocene is published by Hatje-Cantz (Berlin, 2023) and Luiss University Press (Rome, 2025).