The Engineers: Cole Lu

24 October 2024 - 25 February 2025
Nova Contemporary is pleased to announce The Engineers, a solo exhibition by Cole Lu as part  of the Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB2024): Nurture Gaia, which will run from October 24, 2024 to  February 25, 2025.  
 
The Engineers is a site-specific installation at The Museum and Library of Abbots of Wat  Bowonniwet Vihara, a first-class royal temple complex built in the early nineteenth century.  Combining Thai, Chinese, Khmer, and European influences, the temple is home to the first  Buddhist educational institution and is also the ordination site for many Chakri kings and royal  family members. The Gothic-style Museum and Library serves as a significant repository of Thai 
Buddhist knowledge, housing countless religious artifacts and monastic utensils associated with  the four Supreme Patriarchs who resided at the temple.  
The title of the exhibition references Lu’s questioning of engineers as architects of humanity, and  the myth-making origins of our social hierarchy. Through two large-scale, free-standing doors  burned from Neem (Sao Dao) wood and linen, Lu explores time and time travel, historical texts,  religious scriptures, mythologies, and ancient artifacts. Using fire to mark his gestures, he also  returns to a possible origin of storytelling before social construction, delving into issues of  history, memory, and home. The paired doors echo the space’s original entries, acting as portals  into an infinite Universal cycle between birth and death.  
 
Cole Lu was born in 1984 in Taipei, Taiwan and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His  recent solo exhibitions include: The Temple of Sleep (Chapter NY, 2022), Millennium Approaches (Nir Altman, 2022), Amnesia (Herald St, 2024), and Stoicheion (ICA Maine, 2024). His publication  Smells Like Content (Endless Editions, 2015) belongs to the collection of The Museum of Modern  Art Library. 
The exhibition will be accompanied by a public talk between the artist and Hera Chan, Adjunct  Curator, Asia-Pacific, Tate, at the Bangkok Kunsthalle from 2-3:30pm on October 22, 2024.  
The Engineers (2024) is supported by the Culture Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office  in Thailand, Bangkok Kunsthalle, and Holiday Tours. Lu was artist-in-residence at the Bangkok  Kunsthalle, where he completed the production of the exhibited works.  
 
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