MABSOCIETY, Shanghai, is presenting an exhibition that, in quoting Frederic Jameson, proposes, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the current order of capitalism.”

BANK presents The BANK Show, Vive le Capital, an exhibition that explores, celebrates, and critiques the omnipresent power of global finance through its site-specific venue, the former Bank Union building in Shanghai’s historic Bund district (est. 1925). 

Curated by Wang Xin, Christoph Draeger, MABSOCIETY, the exhibition features works by Badlands Unlimited, Orit Ben-Shitrit, Cai Guoqiang, Chen Tianzhuo, Chen Shaoxiong, Heman Chong+Marcus Yee, DeYi Studio, Double Fly Art Center, Christoph Draeger, Rainer Ganahl, Kevin B. Lee, Liao Guohe, Dieter Meier, Aernout Mik, Gianni Motti, Raqs Media Collective, Hito Steyerl, Javier Viver, Heidi Voet, Wang Sishun, Xu Zhen Produced by MadeIn, O Zhang, Zhao Yao.

“In the past, political ideology and religious conviction shaped the conduits of power, but as the world accelerates into the 21st century the fate of human sustenance is more and more dependent on the ebb and flow of capital,” according to the curators. 

“Over the past decade the divide between the haves and have nots, global south and north, has become wider while national identity and borders have become more tenuous. Through this exhibition we aim to flush out perspectives from artists and others that examine the momentous and intimate experiences with multi-national capitalism: its virtues and vices, catches and loopholes, what it renders visible or precarious along a discursive discourse from Marx to Piketty.” 

“At the outset of the 20th century, BANK’s home was at the epicenter of global commerce,” said Mathieu Borysevicz, founder of BANK. “Shanghai played host to banks from throughout Europe and the United States as an outpost for Asian manufacturing and trade. Shanghai’s Bund essentially incubated what we know today as modern market globalization. Taking the gallery’s distinct location and historic context as a departure point,” he continued, “The BANK Show considers creative practices as impressed in the world of global capital and finance, rather than reducing them to vapid gestures of political correctness or over-sim- plifying dichoto- mies of morality.”

The BANK Show, Vive le Capital continues through May 24th at BANK, located at 1F, 59 Xianggang Lu, Huangpu District, Shanghai 200002, China. Information. Contact: +86 21 63013622 / +86 21 63013622. All photographs are © copyright the artists, courtesy BANK/MABSOCIETY.

THIS JUST IN from DART subscriber Chemin Hsiao: 
Thursday, April 30, 6-8 pm: Touch of Remembrance, including 10 of his drawings. ArtSpot Pop-Up, 103 Allen Street, NY, NY. Information.