Milica Lopicic The New Deal

02/07/2021 – 07/08/2021

Galerie Nagel Draxler
Weydingerstr. 2/4
10178 Berlin

Öffnungszeiten / Opening hours:
Dienstag - Freitag 11 - 18 Uhr, Samstag 12-17 Uhr
Tuesday - Friday 11am - 6pm, Saturday 12am - 5pm

Beachten Sie, dass Sie die Galerie nur mit einem medizinischen Mund- /Nasenschutz betreten dürfen. / Please note that you may enter the gallery only with a medical mouth/nose protection.

Milica Lopicic „THE NEW DEAL“ Nagel Draxler Kabinett, 2021

Milica Lopicic „THE NEW DEAL“ Exhibition view Nagel Draxler Kabinett, 2021 Photo: Simon Vogel

Milica Lopicic „The New Deal_02“, 2018 C-Print 155 × 190 cm Photo: Simon Vogel

Milica Lopicic „The New Deal_01“ LED Ticker Display 700 × 32 × 15 cm Exhibition view Nagel Draxler Kabinett, 2021 Photo: Simon Vogel

Milica Lopicic „Waiting for the results“, 2018 Inkjet-Print 155 × 190 cm Showroom LeFreeport Luxembourg Photo: Simon Vogel

Milica Lopicic „The New Deal_01“ Letter, A4 Format First initial letter for Stock Exchange Listing Photo: Simon Vogel

Press Release

What would happen if artistic creativity would be openly declared as a commodity and traded like all other commodities? What if we use the tools of global financial institutions and power players and trade from their positions? What would happen if I put a work of art on the stock market instead of the art market?

As an inseparable part of the business, the core of the exhibition deals with the uncertain relationship between cultural value and the price of art - the character of art as a commodity. Instead of using the usual ways for a work of art to reach a collector, I will register it as a commodity on the stock market.

Milica Lopicic

The stock market as a trading platform is characterized by its regulating and supervising function, aiming for a transparent and fair determination and growth of value. By registering “The New Deal” on the Belgrad Stock Market, Lopicic sets up a concrete definition of its core business, it’s assets and names liable persons. The works around “The New Deal” function as material representations of the company, which identifies artistic creativity as its core business and hereby calls into question the potential definitions of value.

Artistic creativity is in turn used as a capital asset to register the company on the Belgrad Stock Market, it is divided into 100 acquirable shares. Anyone can buy them and trade them. Thus, the artistic product essentially becomes a commodity whose value is translated into shares and offered on the stock market.

By centering the exhibition around the price of artistic creativity Milica Lopicic evokes the concept of value of art in a straightforward way. As Hans Belting already proclaimed in the 80s, there is a change of paradigms to estimate and evaluate art. Since the rise of the art market the value defined by recognition and inclusion of art in a certain art historical canon, deviates in favor of market dynamics. The construction of value on stock markets, but also the set value and appreciation as theme of Milica Lopicic’s installation questions not only the position of the institutions involved in the art world but also approaches critically the liberal and irregulated dynamics of the worldwide art markets.

Milica Lopicic, born in 1979, lives and works in Cologne. Trained in art and architecture, she uses the potential of manipulating space through photography to open a door to read, represent and create this constructed space differently.

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The New Deal wird mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Stiftung Kunstfonds im Rahmen des NEUSTART KULTUR Programms präsentiert.