The DSL collection is a private collection representing 70 of the leading Chinese avant-garde artists, artists having a major influence on the development of contemporary art in China today.

The range of media present in the collection include painting, sculpture, installation, video, and photography; yet the choice of works tries to go beyond the current contemporary art market frenzy. A fixation with emblematic Chinese artists who are at present the darlings of the market could easily distort the understanding of both, history and actual situation of the contemporary Chinese art scene.

Even though focusing on the contemporary production of a specific culture, the collection is nevertheless not guided by the search for otherness. It admits basic cultural similarities and dispositions, however, goes beyond a simplistic approach looking for typical cultural signs and symbols. The collection is limited to a specific number of art works - about 120 pieces - that as an entity is open to constant redefinition itself. Openness, movement and communication are basic qualities we want to promote.

The DSL website is as attempt to create an open space for public actions, a journey for unknown encounters. As we witness an acceleration of exhibitions activities across the globe, the scale of a show is becoming less relevant than finding new ways to engage a new audience. An encounter with the “dematerialized” can also bring about something tangible and relevant.

The first rooms of a virtual museum are already on line.

I would like to invite you to have a closer look at the collection website:

www.dslcollection.org

Why this collection? There is no doubt that China is extreme in every way. With the blanketing effect of the new global economy, China is experimenting with a new social and economic order, one that endorses late capitalist logic while confronting with its own ideological past at the same time. In spite of the respect by the international community for its economic power, China is a Pandora’s Box whereby an immediate meltdown may happen any minute. The second great leap forward not only refutes conventional notions of harmony and sustainability, but more importantly it offers an engaging context for artists, architects and writers alike to redefine the role of contemporary art relative to a new social order. It follows that to assemble a collection of “contemporary Chinese art” in hope of unraveling the complexities/contradictions of a post-communist state is more than timely.

The west is collecting anything Chinese and this is often done at the expense of denying the nuances of artists’ subjectivities. To merely label an artwork only in terms of its cultural traits is also the moment when we delimit the possibilities for contemporary art for real transcendence. What could Chineseness really mean? What can a collection of artworks tell us about the logic of our everyday lives which is not just bound by national borders or identity politics?

The DSL website is as attempt to create an open space for public actions, a journey for unknown encounters, or what the French cultural theorist/urbanist Paul Virilio calls tele-actions. Virilio claims: “We now have the possibility of seeing at a distance, of hearing at a distance, and of acting at a distance, and this result in a process of delocalization, of uprooting of the being. “To be” used to mean to be somewhere, to be situated, in the here and now, but the “situation” of the essence of being is undermined by the instantaneity, the immediacy, and the ubiquity which are characteristic of our epoch.”

Running contrary to the common belief that an art collection is a physical yet static establishment, the intention behind the DSL collection is to provide a study collection for a broader public. As we witness an acceleration of exhibitions activities across the globe, the scale of a show is becoming less relevant than finding new ways to engage a new audience. Art means nothing if it fails to stimulate discussions or debates. While this collection is a constant work in progress, it is not intended to celebrate the collector’s personal ambitions. For we believe that the sum is bigger than individual parts. An encounter with the “dematerialized” can also bring something tangible and relevant? Imagine if you were to relate your experience from this site to what is happening around you wherever you are. Your experience also becomes a part of this emancipatory experiment; let’s embrace what temporal and spatial dislocations have to offer us… In other words, this website is as attempt to emancipate another space for public participation and actions, a journey for the unknown encounters,

Hope that you will enjoy your visit.

Yours sincerely,