Group Exhibition Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, Ampire & Co.Building 1&2 Floor, No.97 Yuan Ming Yuan Road
From September 29 to November 20, 2022, Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) will host the fifth edition of its special annual program RAM Highlights: The Good Life (tgl). In addition to the space of RAM, this year’s RAM Highlights will extend its presentation and events to two other historic buildings on the Bund, namely the Ampire & Co. building and ZA · Andrews & George building located within a one-block radius of the museum. It’s an attempt both to trace and activate the shared histories and memories of the city contained in the three buildings and, in line with the vision and composition of the program, to look for more possibilities to experiment with museum space and diversify audience experience.
Conceived during the spring lockdown, tgl intends to reconsider the sociality of art museums and their relationships with different communities in the face of global turbulence. The concept of “the good life” is not new; rather, it’s somewhat oversaturated and arguably dated. But the extended lockdown has pushed people to reconsider and reflect upon it. By interrogating the utility of this foggy concept in contemporary rituals, life practices, and social theories, this year’s RAM Highlights hopes to foster dialogues with different communities, inspiring new narratives of what a “contemplative, productive, or otherwise satisfactory life” is.
Participants of tgl include artists, designers, scholars, writers, poets, dancers, musicians, and chefs. Apart from local participants, we also invite practitioners from 16 other localities. According to X Zhu-Nowell, chief curator[WC1] of the program, “Participants question the integrity of ‘the good life’ from culturally and geographically divergent points of view. No two works will engage exactly the same visions, assumptions, or critiques about what ‘the good life’ is, [or where it’s located], grounding the vague, socio-democratic promises often associated with this idea to specific ethical and economic cross-currents, which flow, frenetically or systemically, at this moment in history.”
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