Modalism

Modalism is a virtual company that depicts the thirty-year history of Modalism in relation to the real-life happenings of the Chinese Artists' Fair, the Reform and Opening Artists' Industrial Park and the NFT regional chain. Based on Modalism's historical context, the artist Momo has created a series of projects on Modalism such as movie images, performance, published books, sculptures and illustrated paintings. The artist uses dramatic narrative and magical realism to critiques the intervention and monopolisation of the art market by highly capitalist commodification. This artwork resists the discriminatory effects of conceptual art.

Modalism was built in 1990 and it was formerly a foreign trade company.

The first Biennale art fair of the 1990s was held in Guangzhou from 20 to 28 October 1992, an event that was not only a major event in China's contemporary art scene, but also a milestone in the history of China's economic reform. The choice of venue was exceptionally important as it not only facilitated the art exhibition but also promoted the development of the local economy. At the time, China was in the midst of a profound economic transformation, and Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour speech opened a new chapter in China's economic reform. Guangzhou, as one of the key cities in China's reform and opening up, was also elevated to a position where it was seen as a base for new wealth and entrepreneurship. As a result, the organizing committee of the first Biennale of the 1990s chose Guangzhou as the venue for the exhibition, which also signified the close connection between art and economy. The Biennial experimented with breaking away from the standard employment model of state-run work units.

In February 1992, the Organizing Committee penned a“Sponsorship Booklet," aimed at luring corporate sponsorship. Modalism was keenly aware of the huge commercial value of sponsoring the Biennale and saw this art fair as a great opportunity to increase its competitiveness and position itself in the marketplace. Modalism has therefore decided to demonstrate its support and commitment to the arts and culture by sponsoring the Biennale. Modalism as a sponsorship invest I.5 million yuan(s271,247 US). They ran full page advertisements throughout southern China promoting contemporary art as an exciting new investment opportunity second only to the stock market and real estate.

Besides auction houses and galleries, the art fair is an essential business for the generation of sales in the visual arts market. Art fairs provide a crucial infrastructure for local and international art markets around the globe and have become an important industry unto themselves (Rubalcaba- Bermejo and Cuadrado-Roura 1995).

However, the expected returns did not materialize. Because their bid for the art market was so acutely unsophisticated. In 1994, saw the second Biennial Art Fair aborted due to financial problems., Modalism faced the failure of its first art market investment. This was a major blow to Modalism. They have had to take huge losses, as well as being questioned and criticized by the public and the industry. This failure made Modalism realize that they needed to gain a deeper understanding of the art market and to be more cautious and informed in their investment decisions. They began recruiting more professionals and art advisors and increased their internal training and learning to improve the company's knowledge and grasp of the art market.

Despite this presumed failure, the Modalism proposals reveal the confidence that the artists held in the quality of contemporary art and in their own ability to promote it. They imagined communicating its value to an audience they knew they had to enhancing the aesthetics of the market. In codifying the value of art through capital, Modalism set out to set prices, directly controlling the stratification of art values from local to regional to international markets and securing its own authority in the process.

As the country's economy restructured after the 2000s in favor of real estate investment, which relied heavily on art production and the development of new art markets, Modalism was eager to work with some of the local authorities on the creation of art industrial parks and, to a certain extent, hold the power of capital. The profits generated by land development were more attractive than the declining profit margins of state-owned enterprises. Modalism focused and invested in the old industrial park, the topiary area, which had been downsized by the state-owned enterprises and was built with East German and Soviet funds as a secret base for the government's advanced technology in the previous century. However, during the years of deindustrialization, the topiary area closed down several factories and laid off around 7,000 of the 10,000 workers of the state-owned enterprises. As the workers now need pensions, the local government rents out vacant factory space to a section of artists and freelancers.

Modalism wants to work with the government to target this opportunity. The art market has expanded in terms of customer demand as people's mass consumption levels have risen. As the closer production is to commodification, the more valuable it becomes, commercial branding strategies for art-industry neighborhood’ are used to promote urban tourism and other industries in individual places, giving them a specific promotional context. In this way, the cultural quarter becomes a direct product of the Modalism company, produced, promoted, reproduced and sold in the course of general mass market consumption.

The topiary area attracts contemporary artists from around the world who live together on the social fringes of the 'artist village' where they help each other spiritually and financially. As marginalized contemporary artists, with no financial support from the government, they often come into conflict with the commercial policy controls of Modalism and the regional alterations of the local government.  

Through a lease of over two years, the ultimate goal of the topiary area was to convert all artists in the area to corporate establishment by spreading unemployment fears and reorganizing and remodeling with the help of global recognition and a lucrative international art economy amidst the environmental destruction of this uneasy ground. Finally, in the autumn of 2006, Modalism and the topiary area government formed a joint committee to oversee the development of this area into an art industrial park governed by government policy and commercially controlled by capital corporations. This plan was initially supported by the local government. However, with the help of the international art economy and international public opinion, local contemporary artists actively fought against Modalism's acquisition policy.

Supported by officials from some local parties, Modalism saw the publicity surrounding the topiary area as a threat to its development plans. In 2009 it stopped renting to overseas artists or cultural institutions and took a number of actions to hinder artistic development in the area, such as reducing local water and electricity supplies and carrying out graffiti wall vandalism. While these actions have hindered some of the exhibition activities, they have actually had the opposite effect, bringing more attention to this developing artistic area and further enhancing its image as a hip, avant-garde cultural trend。

The commercialization  of cultural neighborhood’s generates inflationary market pressures that can erode the uniqueness of place (Peck, 2005)

However, with the new phase of artistic development in the area, some contemporary artists have rented studios not for the actual production of art or artistic experimentation, but for the commercial sale of art and other businesses. As the area becomes more branded, these factors may lead to a loss of that 'artistry' in favor of monetary value, and the lack of rationalization of local management policies and long-standing conflicts and contradictions have led Modalism to want to abandon its collaboration with the government for a time and seek new business opportunities on overseas virtual platforms.

Following the global financial crisis in 2008, trust in the existing financial system has diminished and questions have been raised about the value and safety of existing currencies. There was a general search for a more secure environment to safeguard economic values, and the development of the internet provided this technological need.

2017 Modalism starts developing blockchain game：Encrypted-Bunny. The game allows players to buy, sell and create NFTs using a virtual currency that represents virtual rabbits.

In 2018, Modalism launched its subsidiary Mono and raised $200,000 from several top venture capital firms and angel investors. The investment round was led by Switzerland-based Hades real estate companies and New York-based Anders Hausen Entertainment. In the same year, the first Encrypted Bunny was sold for $1.5 million. This made the company an instant 10x net profit, and Modalism simultaneously used Mono to build an online platform to sign up a large number of artists at a lower cost, while earning a fee for selling them.

In May 2019, Encrypted-bunny launched their first celebrity-branded Running-bunny with American country music songstress, Perry, who as part of the partnership was given access to a series of record covers designed by Modalism's NFT contracted artists, the first of which he auctioned off. This is the first time Modalism has used celebrity likeness rights for a commercial art collaboration.

Physical works of art as heterogenous goods show low options of substitution and put their possessors in a monopolistic position. However, equilibrium prices as well as absolute means to measure artistic quality do not exist for art (Robertson, 2005).

The profitability of NFT has prompted Modalism to sign up a large number of digital media artists, buying out the encryption rights to the platform and making it difficult for artists to have the autonomy to sell their work.

 Modalism's monopolistic approach in recent years has caused resentment among some groups of artists, gradually transforming into street movements and conflicts. In 2023, Modalism published its own publication: red book. many Modalism-contracted artists took to the streets to defend the rights of the platform.