JUAN XU 庸现

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    • Bald Girls Iberia Center 2012
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    • Bald Girls -Chain Reaction 2022
  • 文章
    • 共享的危机
    • 记忆与身份认同
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    • 信息资本主义时代的博伊斯
    • 秃头戈女 - 和吴味谈男权视野的局限
    • 访谈包麦斯特
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    • 关于“西方主义”
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    • 《山花》杂志 2012 10月号访谈
  • 出版
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      • 直觉就是现实
      • “托斯”在行动
      • 至少疼痛还是真实的
      • 作为艺术概念的记忆和身份
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      • 中国女权运动与女性艺术发展历程
  • 联系
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • PROJECTS
    • Bald Girls Iberia Center 2012
    • Bald Girls A Door 2013
    • Made in China 2013
    • Beuys in China 2013
    • Bald Girls Timelag 2013
    • Femme Totale 2014
    • Bald Girls meet Fluxus 2014
    • Bald Girls Pink Solution 2014
    • Bald Girls Nanjing Forum 2014
    • Fluxus Nanjing 2014
    • Li Xinmo Excluded 2015
    • Performance Day 2015
    • Performance Day 2016
    • Performance Day 2017
    • Art Tour Live Tour 3 / Join us to Kassel 2017
    • Feminist Activism in China: In Conversation with Li Maizi 2017
    • Tianjin Live Art Exhibition 2018
    • Denn ich habe schon alles schon gesehen Frankfurt 2018
    • Performance Day Frankfurt 2018
    • Capital @Art. International Frankfurt 2018
    • Feelings as Facts - Memory as Identity Tianjin China 2018-2019
    • Spectacle International Art Exchange Jiangxi China 2019
    • The 7th UP-ON International Live Art Festival 2019
    • 0 Edge Shift Europe A 2020
    • Sharing Crisis 2020
    • Bull 2021
    • WoYeShi#me too 2021
    • Becoming A Woman NO.1 2022
    • Becoming A Woman NO.2 2022
    • Bald Girls -Chain Reaction 2022
  • ARTICLES
    • Sharing Crisis
    • A Very Serious Game
    • Bald Girls
    • Who is Mary Bauermeister?
    • Iberia Art Center
    • Time Travel to Fluxus
    • Memory as Identity
    • We are the Revolution
    • Capital in the Digital Age @ Art
    • Money Is Time
    • Operation Thanatos in Action
    • Memory and Identity as artistic concept
    • From Political Critique to Spiritual Embrace
    • Perception is Reality
    • At Least the Pain is Real
  • PRESS
    • New York Times
    • F.A.Z.
    • Global Times
    • ML Art Source
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • Catalogue Bald Girls
    • Introduction
    • Declaration
    • Preface
    • Li Xinmo
    • Xiao Lu
    • Lan Jiny
    • Female Performance Art
    • History of Feminism
    • Feminist Movement and Feminist Art in East and West
  • Catalogue Capital@Art. Int.
    • Artists and curator
    • Preface
    • From Political Critique to Spiritual Embrace
    • Perception is Reality
    • Operation Thanatos in Action
    • At Least the Pain is Real
    • Money Is Time
    • Feelings As Facts
  • CONTACT
  • 关于庸现
  • 展览
    • 秃头戈女- 北京伊比利亚
    • 秃头戈女 - 一个门
    • 中国制造
    • 社会雕塑 - 博伊斯在中国
    • 秃头戈女- 时差
    • 红颜女强 –从杨贵妃到“秃头戈女”
    • 油烟才女 - 秃头戈女 遇见激浪
    • 秃头戈女- 桃色策略
    • 秃头戈女- 南京论坛
    • 激浪时间
    • 排斥
    • 威斯巴登行为艺术节2015
    • 威斯巴登行为艺术节 2016
    • 威斯巴登行为艺术节2017
    • 第三届现场艺术巡展參展: 谁要同去卡塞尔?
    • 女权行动在中国:与李麦子的对话
    • 天津现场艺术创作邀请展 2018
    • 我都看过了2018
    • 法兰克福行为艺术节 2018
    • 资本@艺术. 国际 2018
    • 感受即真实 -记忆与身份认同 2018-19
    • "景观”国际艺术交流展2019
    • 第7届Up-On 向上国际现场艺术节2019
    • 0界 移位 欧洲篇上 2020
    • 共享的危机 2020
    • 牛 2021
    • 我也是#me too 2021
    • 成为女人 第一集 2022
    • 成为女人 第二集 2022
    • 秃头戈女- 链锁反应 2022
    • Bald Girls -Chain Reaction 2022
  • 文章
    • 共享的危机
    • 记忆与身份认同
    • 谁是玛丽·包麦斯特 (艺术国际版)
    • 信息资本主义时代的博伊斯
    • 秃头戈女 - 和吴味谈男权视野的局限
    • 访谈包麦斯特
    • 托尼•克拉格
    • 庸现与李勇政、 周斌对话。
    • 关于“西方主义”
    • 从 清洗 谈肖鲁对 颠覆 之 再颠覆_
    • 重要的不是秃头-再次回应吴味
    • 驳徐乔斯
    • 严肃的游戏: 对话李勇政
  • 媒体报道
    • 中国来鸿 纽约时报 狄狄
    • 凤凰艺术 : 策展人篇
    • 与画刊谈《博伊斯在中国》
    • 答复新京报记者李健亚
    • 《山花》杂志 2012 10月号访谈
  • 出版
    • 艺术家& 策展人简介
    • 《资本 @ 艺术· 国际》 >
      • 数字时代的资本@艺术
      • 从政治批判到精神拥抱
      • 直觉就是现实
      • “托斯”在行动
      • 至少疼痛还是真实的
      • 作为艺术概念的记忆和身份
      • 金钱就是时间
    • 秃头戈女画册 >
      • 作者译者简介
      • 秃头女性艺术宣言
      • 秃头戈女序
      • 李心沫:一个中国批判现实主义艺术的先锋艺术家
      • 重释肖鲁
      • 艺术视觉与真诚 蓝镜
      • 女性身体艺术的承担与实践
      • 女性身体艺术的承担与实践
      • 中国玻璃眼球 中文版
      • 东西方女权运动的思考
      • 中国女权运动与女性艺术发展历程
  • 联系

Capital in the Digital Age @ Art 


By Juan Xu
 
Since the publication of Karl Marx’s Capital 200 years ago, the world has undergone drastic changes. A new world order emerged after World War II that saw the birth of the United Nations and the process of European integration. In recent years, we have witnessed the Greek government-debt crisis, Brexit, a refugee crisis, and the ascendance of right-wing populists such Donald Trump. The world is full of uncertainties. 
 
So, what does “art” mean in the world we are living in today, a place that is “beset by crises”?
 
Marx once claimed that, "Art is not a mirror to reflect the world," but rather "a hammer with which to shape it." Today, the hammer is not in the hands of artists, but in the hands of auction houses and auctioneers.  Each time they bring down the instrument, a new million-dollar deal is sealed. Immediately after Banksy's iconic Girl with Red Balloon was sold for 1.2 million euros at Sotheby's, the artist shredded his own work. Some believe that Banksy’s “self-destructive” act was a mere publicity stunt, whereas others regard the artist as a spokesperson for the anti-commercialization movement. However, to collectors and auction houses alike, artworks are no different from stocks—they are capital to be traded. 
 
Conceptual artist Joseph Beuys believed that "Art = Capital.” In this model, art equates to creativity and productivity, and Beuys stressed the necessity of respecting alternative explorations within this new realm. Indeed, information throughout most of early human history was communicated viva voce. Yet, industrialization and standardization gradually deprived the modern adult of their ability to think laterally, though lateral thinking is one of the driving forces behind social, cultural and economic development. Restricted by numerous rules and regulations, the "rigid" world we currently inhabit is especially in need of art and culture in order to reclaim a sense of vitality and serendipity. When the essence of lateral thinking and artistic creativity is applied to modern, interdisciplinary institutions, it becomes a kind of methodology.  Art should not be limited to resistance, dialectics, and confrontation; it can also be a kind of product. Art can offer an alternative, fascinating way of turning individual fantasies into reality, of letting us indulge in little luxuries. Nevertheless, it should not stop at being a product either, but must go on to become a spectacle that exists outside the pressure exerted by the social machine. 
 
Beuys’s world was an "analog" world. His idea of art turning into capital and creativity becoming a form of productivity was theoretical and prophetic. In today's digital world, however, the transformation from artistic creativity to productivity has become a known fact. From the previously unimaginable success of Apple to the metamorphosis of Facebook and Google from college students’ fantasies to a worldwide phenomenon, once marginalized creative endeavors have taken center stage and become “new capitals” with trillions’ worth of digital productivity. So what does capital mean in the contemporary world? Does it still refer to bank stocks and luxury items like Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs? Has it gone virtual, as in the case of Facebook, Google, and Bitcoin? Or does it now refer to high-tech artificial intelligence? Industry 4.0 has capitalized the art industry. Capital in the digital age has become increasingly abstract and virtual, challenging the "authenticity" and "aura" of art. 
 
As home to the European Central Bank, Frankfurt is a global center of financial capital. At the same time, it is also a creative metropolis where different subcultures thrive. Throughout history, the city has always been a meeting point where opposing viewpoints and ideas intersect. Therefore, there's no better place to hold constructive, conflict-resolving dialogues than Frankfurt. CAPITAL@ART.INTERNATIONAL has chosen the former Mercedes-Benz-Niederlassung (10,000 square meters) in Frankfurt, a symbol of "old capital", to be the exhibition venue for the works of 26 artists from countries and regions such as China, the United States, South America, Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Israel, and many more in the hope of promoting the intercultural dialogue between capital and art in the digital age.  
 
One of the primary tasks of contemporary art is to pursue all questions pertaining to the present. From June to September 2018, over 20 artists used their own unique languages to reexamine and redefine capital, with special focus on its multi-faceted and inherent contradictions. Here, the word “capital” is no longer limited to its traditional, financial sense, but has been expanded to include the human body, human behavior, and technologies such as artificial intelligence. 
 
According to Marx, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”[1] The international artists in CAPITAL@ART.INTERNATIONAL utilized art to illustrate the two faces of capital: To children who are struggling to survive in poverty-stricken villages in China, life is their only capital; to Eastern European girls who tried everything they could to defect to foreign lands, the longing for a better life and their actions alone were their "capital.” The Diaspora caused by civil wars in South America; the lack of capital for survival and free marriages… these represent the “tragedy” of capital. On the other hand, in the bridge that represents the capital of “Man Power,” in works such as The Forever Unfinished Building, Money is Time, Operation Thanatos, Chinese Dreams, Washing 
Machine, and Driving the Ocean to the Boats, the dreams of personal and collective capital and power represent “farce.” What these artworks have in common is their account of the shared fate of all human beings: brainwashing and violence, dictatorship, and dystopian money principles. 
 
Art is not limited to questions of the present; it is also extremely valuable to our understanding of the future. Artificial intelligence has become prevalent in today’s world, and big data collects information about our behavioral patterns and thoughts, including our material preferences and political orientations, in order to generate standardized collective behavior on a scale never seen before. In the digital age, politics is replaced by computational optimization. Even if we are aware of being manipulated, we don’t know how far it has gone, or how far it can go. In an absurd and uncanny way, Day Dream explores the effect of artificial Intelligence on the future of humankind as a kind of “new capital” and shows the danger of power imbalance in global political discourse in the digital age.
 
Chinese avant-garde artist Wen Pulin once said that philosophy seals the coop to catch the chicken, whereas art lets out the mad dog to bite people. Has art in the digital age already become part of Capital, or is it still a mad dog on the loose? 


[1] Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
 
June 2018   Frankfurt am Main

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