Neomaterialism – Joshua Simon

In this absorbing theoretical manifesto, Israeli curator Joshua Simon
argues that we have moved into an economy of neomaterialism.
Despite the rhetoric of dematerialization in art practices since the 1960s, the embodiment of materiality has actually just shifted: the focus of labor has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become the historical subject and symbols now behave like materials. Here, Simon advocates for the unreadymade, sentimental value and
the promise of the individual as a means for a vocabulary in this new
economy of meaning. Reflecting on general intellect as labor and the
subjugation of an overqualified generation to the neo-feudal order of
debt finance, Neomaterialism merges traditions of epic communism
with the communism that is already here.