Shaking the box of cornflakes, the head of a famous contemporary Chinese artist falls into the bowl along with the strawberries and cornflakes, a rotating spoon stirs them together, and a world famous breakfast 🥣 is complete.

Maize as an indigenous Mexican crop grown on a large scale in North America carries with it a natural colonial memory. In 1896 cornflakes were invented in the late 19th century in the United States during the ‘Gilded Age’, where they were further industrialised and commercialised. And as the United States surged in international influence in the 20th century and the brand’s marketing strategy spread across regions between centuries, it eventually became or was integrated into local breakfast ways.

It seems to me that to some extent the narrative logic of contemporary art around the world is almost identical to the way in which cornflakes are disseminated. It is embedded in civilisations and financial systems as a cultural approach, which is now collectively known as globalisation. From Egypt to China, from Africa to South Asia, who will be the next ‘Foreigners’?

Imagine there is a voting machine that keeps track of all known living artists in the world. The machine has 2 screen, top and bottom, the top shows the artist who is currently on trial and the viewer can press two buttons on the wall. The green button: to pardon the artist, or the red button: to kill the artist. The lower monitor shows the name of the last artist who was voted to be killed by the audience. In the first round of the game, all artists are judged by the audience in turn, those who are ‘pardoned’ by the green button will go on to the next round and those who are ‘killed’ by the red button will be permanently deleted. After several rounds of voting, there is finally only one artist left in the world, who will be the one？

BingBing-Pig ( Played by Xu Bing ) leapt a barrier but seemed to land in a hurry, he didn’t keep his balance and fell to the ground to be overtaken by ChiChi-Horse ( Played by Zeng Fanzhi ) behind him, and then by WeiWei-Can ( Played by Ai Weiwei ) and Shocking-Snake ( Played by Xu Zhen ). After BingBing-Pig fall, he seemed to have a bit of trouble finding his way and got stuck between the ball and the sand shovel. With less than 10 meters away from Guggenheim the Ice Ice Pig instantly lost all of its earlier advantages.

At this moment, 12 renowned Chinese contemporary artists take on the role of Pokémon and become ArtíMon ( Artist Monster ) in a never-ending Kart Racing. The race venue is a very stereotypical vacation scene, with a beach, sand, umbrellas and beach chairs, all of which surround a miniature toy car track for vacationers to play on. Paper cut-outs of some of the West’s most prestigious contemporary art galleries were interspersed throughout the course. On this art road, the artist babies need to find ways to write their names into history and land in the halls. Balls, sand shovels, shells and rocks are the stumbling blocks in the ArtiMon race, making them turn the wheel and miss out on opportunities.

In this simulation competition, each artist is stating his or her own art dreams, from childhood memories to student days, from fledgling to becoming an iconic artist in China. There is no doubt that the creations of this generation of artists are inseparable from several key points in their works, such as the Cultural Revolution, the 85 New Wave, the student movement, and other major historical events in China’s recent history that have influenced their works. In the short history of Chinese Contemporary art, it only took 20 years from fetishism to full marketization, and when it was still in its infancy, the market had already created several auction miracles.

So have these ArtíMon‘s dreams come true? And now that the wave has receded, what kind of artistic environment have our predecessor left us?