Tatsuo Miyajima opens his first solo exhibition in New York with Lisson Gallery, premiering his new series, Innumerable Life/Buddha. The exhibition will feature five works by the Japanese artist, introducing US audiences to his eastern philosophies and signature digital visual vocabulary. This new body of work, a series of glowing red installations, are inspired by a particular Buddhist teaching, reminding us of the power of the individual within a networked whole. A continuation of Miyajima’s meditations on time and its passage, these installations invite reflection, addressing the fundamental concepts of change, death, connection and eternity. The exhibition follows on from recent large-scale public commissions including Count Down Dialogue (2018) launched during West Bund Art & Design Fair, and comes ahead of Miyajima’s largest solo exhibition in Asia to date, opening at the new Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum in May 2019.

The five new works in the Innumerable Life/Buddha series are made up of glowing LED displays, with thousands of numbers counting down from nine to one at differing speeds, before going dark momentarily. These digits embody the human cycle and the eastern philosophy of change and renewal; each solitary, blinking diode signifying the individual body and soul. The counting sequence continues, as if everlasting, and yet ‘0’, implying death, is expressed solely by darkness. Through this allusion, the numbers – or ‘Life’ – are destined to an everlasting cycle of regeneration. This idea is also reflected in the colour of the new works: the radiant red of the installations denotes the blood of life, love, fire, passion, strength and joy.