This show is a multi-directional chamber of echo. A few months ago, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy came across a book, Pacem in terries [Peace on earth] published after the Geneva Conference on World Peace in 1967. With photo collages and quotes from only men, the book belongs in many ways from another era. It was dedicated to Martin Luther King whose seminal speech at Riverside Church condemned the Vietnam War.

But as history and violence repeat themselves implacably, we wonder: what if Buddhist philosophy—which is more than a religion—was more widely spread, heard and applied? Thanks to Audre Lorde, we know that “the Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”. (1) We definitely need to find other paradigms.

Buddha, “The Awakened One”, was born in Ancient India (today’s Nepal) in the sixth century BC. The imagery of Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s paintings on textile draws inspiration from narratives of the Dhammapada, a collection of poetic sayings attributed to the Buddha. They are also reminiscent of the Tibetan tangkas (2) and of manuscript covers.

India is also where the new capital of Chandigarh was founded right after the independence, in 1947. Pierre Jeanneret co-designed with Le Corbusier this utopian modernist city. Many of the serial institutional furniture have been progressively discarded. They were recently brought back to Europe to become symbols of Western Luxury design. This is the way it goes. But we need to take a closer look at their complex hybridity. Those pieces of furniture were produced with the overlooked Indian designers and architects as Urmila Eulie Chowdhury, Jeet Malhotra and Aditya Prakash. (3) Those forgotten figures reemerge, finally regaining attention.

The bed and the chairs have been re-customized by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, allowing somehow the return of the subconscious, bringing new narratives in. The foam of the mattress that he carved was also the tool he used to stamp his paintings that were also partly silkscreened. “The more Buddhas the better”, he says. They popped up everywhere. Buddha’s finger tips are showing the way. They do not point towards the sky (nor Starlink, nor Mars), but towards the Earth. Let’s reconnect. “All Living Beings Are Just This One Mind”. The flowers the artist painted are also Buddha’s manifestation. They open up. Actually, a citrus fruit native to India from the cedar tree family is called “Buddha’s hand”. Cedar and teakwood were indeed used in Chandigarh. The frames of the paintings, painted by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy as well, are also integrated onto their compositions. Not additional, not supplemental. They do not create frontiers; they are transcontinental borders. One is all. All is one. 

Poetic state is the contrary and antidote of passive despair. For Patrick Chamoiseau, the world is full of relational possibilities to resist the unthinkable. This is the only way out. And it’s actually rejoicing.  (4) So, lie on the day bed, play with the costumes in the basement, layer yourself, dare to transform yourself, speak out, and speak to each other. Touch the soft wool pompons—they are energies and will touch you back. When anger and frustration win us over, immersing yourself in blue tones can help channel and reshape them.

1. Audre Lord in a 1979 conference on commemorating the 30th anniversary of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir at New York University. Text published in Sister Outsider, Berkeley, Ten Speed Press, 1984.

2. Other influences are from Kado (the art of Japanese flower arrangement), the tradition of flower offerings.

3. See Petra Seitz, Nia Thandapani and Gregor Wittrick, “Design Crime in Context: Mass-manufactured Design, Design-as-art, and Chandigarh’s Modernist Furniture” in Art Crime in Context: Global Perspectives on Art and Heritage Crime, New York, Springer, 2022 about the systematic erasure of the names of those young designers who worked with Jeanneret in India.

4. Patrick Chamoiseau, Que peut Littérature quand elle ne peut ?, Paris, Seuil, 2025.