ASIA NOW, with the DSL Collection and theartofthiscentury, presented a selection of top level Asian contemporary artists with in situ commissioned projects and through a unique sensory experience at Palazzo Morosini on the occasion of the 56th Venice Biennale.

In the main space is presented “Last Day – Shop of Frozen Entities”. For this piece the artists acquired an actual bankrupt shoe shop, covering and thus sealing all the items of the shop with wax. A set of 11 painted flags, part of the series “The Brain Nerves”, is installed in the other rooms and outside the Palazzo. These flags show diagrams of brain activities of historical figures, like for example Francesco Morosini, Marco Polo or Karl Marx, and modern personalities such as Gina Lolobridgida or Pier Paolo Pasolini.

In another space, two videos by Zheng Guogu are shown: “My Teacher” (1993), “Planting Geese” (1994) and a documentary on the artist ‘’Minds Without Attachment’’ (2015). All the works reflect wittily upon the aspects of commodification and capital as determining factors in contemporary Chinese society. Redundancy and stagnation are juxtaposed with the aspects of energy and energy flow. The artists propose the free flow of energy – and not the flow of capital – as an alternative base for contemporary society. Calligraphy here is not only understood as an artistic practice but also, and most importantly, as a social and political one.