Wild Metropolis

Joseph Beuys declared: “Everyone is an artist” and Andy Warhol said “In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes”, these masters are long gone but the predictions stayed. More than thirty years after, these two prophecies came to us and constitute our reality. Facing this diversified, tumultuous and ever-changing world, art is intensively seeking for new forms of expression. Curated by the artist Xu Zhen, and with the philosopher Lu Xinghua as academic advisor, the exhibition “Wild Metropolis” will showcase this continuously mutating reality, presenting the diversified status quo of the virtual digital world in relation to urbanization development, and will reveal a pure state of contemporary cultural imagination.

Here the term “Wild” not only refers to the barbarism of the surrounding reality, the cultural environment without notions of classes and borders, but also to the growth of a popular network culture. Therefore, “Wild Metropolis” observes and excavates status quo without restrictions through cultural investigations and social researches. At the core of this exhibition, various topics such as the reality of virtualization, the capitalization of culture, big data calculations, the consequences of national branding, individual fragmentation and more will be addressed, while hotspots that are modifying the directions and dimensions of life will be explored in depth.

“Wild Metropolis” not only features international artists standing at the forefront of new contemporary art trends, it also includes cross-disciplinary artists such as musicians and fashion designers. Installations, performances, video works, media art and digital art will be exhibited transcending traditions and reflecting youthful expression in a spectacle manner. During that specific period, the exhibition venue will be designed in a dynamic platform alternating between contemporary art exhibition and experimental music stage, proposing an unprecedented experience to the viewers. The show will trigger visitors to explore how mass consumer cultural products are being produced, how to become a member of a social civilization, how to influence other cultural developments and other themes.

“Wild Metropolis” will gather various groups of people, from the perspective of humanities and sociology, to show creation and imagination, it will constitute a forward-looking exhibition of mixed reality and vision of the future.