\n <\/p>\n
“The Great Regression of globalization and neoliberalism signals the beginning of a most revolutionary and subversive era since the last century. German scholar Heinrich Geiselberger perspicaciously suggests, \u201cWhile the blank spaces on the maps had grown smaller and smaller over the centuries, things now appear to be going in the opposite direction. In the age of Google Maps there are a growing number of territories of which one knows very little and which ancient cartographers would have marked with the Latin phrase \u2018hic sunt leones\u2019.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cHic sunt leones\u201d was used to denote unknown territories on maps in ancient times. Dangerous beasts such as lions, dragons and serpents were believed to roamed the realm. Thus, this expression is also used when suggesting perilous territories where only brave pioneers would dare to enter. It could also mean \u201cno civilized men here\u201d, \u201cprohibited territory\u201d, and quite literally, \u201chere be lions\u201d etc.<\/p>\n
It was a prophecy made by the west but has today become the global political situation. In other words, we have long been swept along by it. In China, \u2018hic sunt leones\u2019 means much more. Without a doubt, we find ourselves in a more complicated context. It could even be said that \u2018hic sunt leones\u2019 is no longer the fulfilled prophecy but the reality itself, and has been the reality for a long time, only that the lurking \u201cextraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, spiritual beings\u201d and \u201cthe violence apparatus\u201d would not wait in the dark any longer for their chance but have become explicit and reckless, threatening our everyday life, our thinking and even life itself.<\/p>\n
In the early stage of the last century, the outburst of irrationality and brutality urged European intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud and Aby Warburg to focus their research on the inherent darkness and the desire for annihilation in the human. A century later, an even more brutal globalization gives rise to a new wave of political paranoia which again shatters the rational promise of a world of shared values. We are compelled to confront ourselves with the following: how do disturbed and fragile individuals perceive the arrival of a new era of fission? How do they inscribe and react in the face of fear and anxiety about irrational violence and an uncertain future? And, will they become the brave adventurers who step onto a new \u201cprohibited\u201d territory of life?<\/p>\n
\u201cHungry lions don\u2019t hurt the real king\u201d is an old adage that still inspires the benighted to this day. The exhibition begins with the prelude \u201cLeviathan\u2019s Ghost\u201d. It proceeds with the narratives of the three sections: \u201cThe Promising Land\u201d, \u201cI Thought I Saw Murderer\u201d, \u201cThe World of the Hard and Soft\u201d and ends with \u201cManifeste?\u201d. A total of almost 40 works by 31 artists and artist groups provide us with multiple covert perspectives and dimensions for sensing and thinking. What seems to be a grand subject is actually inescapable and the most urgent issue at the present time, that is, how do we reexamine the relationship that individuals have with the state, the world, and the political paranoia? A relationship that is, amongst others, strung out and divisive. And how does this relationship reshape our sensing mechanism and our world view?<\/p>\n
The exhibition coincides with the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg\u2019s death. Her revolutionary thinking and action, especially her criticism against Lenin are particularly worth savouring. Unlike Lenin, for Luxemburg, revolution is not a utopian construction by mechanical rationality but a form of action as life\u2019s process. As James C. Scott stated, \u201calmost all strictly functional, single-purpose institutions have some of the qualities of sensory-deprivation tanks used for experimental purposes.\u201d Today is no exception and what we have to do is no other than winning back the freedom of perception in a time of varying forms of autocracy and chaos.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“The Great Regression of globalization and neoliberalism signals the beginning of a most revolutionary and subversive era since the last century. German scholar Heinrich Geiselberger perspicaciously suggests, \u201cWhile the blank spaces on the maps had grown smaller and smaller over the centuries, things now appear to be going in the opposite direction. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibitions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":912,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/surplusspace.cn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}