2008 - Lin Ju│Body - A Survivor's Utopia

Lin Ju's Solo Exhibition: Body—A Survivor's Utopia displays the time when mishaps in the real world cannot be manifested by thinking; survival then becomes a challenge. Lin Ju inhabits in this chaotic realm as a survivor and uses his extraordinary insight to view the miseries of life. In this incomplete, traumatized flesh, and dream like world, Lin accomplishes what he has visualized and imagined as utopia. The word “utopia” comes from Greek, which means the virtual realm that does not exist in reality, or so called the “never land”. The socialistic “utopia” highlights the idealism within, despite its futility, it does have a perfect palette.
 
Lin Ju's non-academic origin urges his creation to come directly from intuition, like psychic's neurotic talent and craziness. The utopia in his mind is neither perfect nor ideal, but it does carry a profound surrealistic sense. The imagery within the dreamy ambience carries the amputated body or the motif of holy child and mother, which sometimes implies the life history of the artist and sometimes transforms into a metamorphosis of desire. The dilapidated body and pain, the violent performances have all filled with dramatic tension and religious fanaticism. Here, we have seen what is filled with life and death, it can either be alive or dead, be human or ghostly, it is thus an eerie realm where destruction and rebirth are complexly intertwined.