Here/Not Here: Buddha Presence in Eight Recent Works

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco presents an exhibition that brings together the art of three artists who use traditional Buddhist ideas and imagery to comment on contemporary life.

Here/Not Here: Buddha Presence in Eight Recent Works brings together recent art by Jakkai Siributr, Sopheap Pich, and Pinaree Sanpitak, three artists who use traditional Buddhist ideas and imagery to comment on contemporary life.

The Buddhist notion of impermanence—the idea that everything is devoid of fixed, identifiable characteristics and is constantly shifting relative to everything else within the universe—is a common theme in these works. The concept seems particularly relevant to the flux of modern living.

Here/Not Here also explores displacements of time and place—between the traditional and the contemporary, and among Asia, the West, and beyond. While the works in the exhibition address specific cultures and personal histories, they also resonate far beyond individual biographies, offering connections (and disconnections) of time and place that characterize the global human condition.