Shanghai Plaza：Multiplies the Commerce of Passions

In this Internet era that is constantly upgrading, we still have to do business with passion, do passional business, and turn business into passion, because that is art-making and exhibition-planning. “Commerce of Passions” is how the famous utopian socialist, Charles Fourier, addresses art. He regards art as a broader business, as a business in a biological economy, a political economy, a libido economy, a contribution (anti-entropy) economy other than the capitalist economy. “Art For Sale” in 1999 had raised this question: Why not? In the age of stacking, contemporary art has to be such commerce of passions: through such exchanges, everyone has equal rights in front of automatic machines, express parcels and mobile phone screens; at the same time, it recognizes and encourages different workers to equally contribute to public welfare, so that everyone can freely devote themselves to the cause they love.

This is because the use of contemporary art to transform urban core and its commercial space must not only support the re-appropriation of wealth by all residents as co-authors of the city, but also re-utilize all concurrent estate in the city by building a dominant force, restoring their original use values, in order for cities to become everyone’s common currency, and everyone’s own art-text.

Therefore, at present, this art and commerce project with “Social, Vision and Playfulness” as the main axis is realizing an ideal: with culture and art as t thread, international vision as pattern, in the commercial space to explore interactive relationships among humans, between human and consciousness domains, and between human and urban space.

In addition to incorporating contemporary art, the “Shanghai Plaza” project is also engraved in history. It started in the east section of Huaihai Middle Road, and this year marks the 120th anniversary of its construction. In the long axis of time, it is the background of past prosperity, and also a testimony to the values of new generations. This is for the first time a business model integrates consumption, office, art, culture, creativity and other dimensions into one. It is an attempt to wrap around life with “fineness”, and “fineness” has already surpassed the previous customary definition, demonstrating further connotations and directions beyond.