Liu Ding’s Store employs a utilitarian economic model — a shop — to establish a platform for thinking and discussion centred around the creation of value. Liu Ding’s Store was launched in the summer of 2008. Besides selling works online (www.liudingstore.com), Liu Ding’s Store frequently makes appearances and sales in an assortment of contexts and situations, from social and cultural events to art exhibitions. Liu Ding’s Store is an ongoing project that continues to develop new lines of work. Through different approaches that include product pricing, promotion, marketing and circulation, it seeks to investigate, understand and discuss value — particularly the complex characteristics and essence of the subject of value in art — as well as the rules, mechanisms and politics behind the creation of value. At the same time, it is an art practice that expresses the artist’s vision and political imagination.

A practice of diverse directions and forms, Liu Ding’s Store offers a critical contemplation and understanding of the art system. It touches upon the definition of art, the roles and power of artists, the definition of artworks, and the intellectual and economic value imbedded in the relationships and human networks of the art world. What the artist is concerned about in this project is not the revival of these old issues within contemporary society or an historical context, but how to raise these issues again through his own practice in order to initiate effective discussions. This art project, in conjunction with similar issues deriving from those of other artists, will thus generate practical examples for the construction of new forms of institutional critique.

As of the present, Liu Ding’s Store has developed four product lines: Take Home and Make Real the Priceless in Your Heart; The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality; Conversations; and Friendship.

这是一系列由从工厂定制的、批量生产的、未完成的局部风景油画。每张画由于签上了刘鼎的名字而获得了升值的潜质。这些大批量低价销售的产品（每张售价仅1,500元人民币）由于附着了象征价值的艺术家签名而使很多顾客趋之若骛。在这笔交易中，真正被易手的是一个更无形的东西—— 一个艺术家在未来成为传奇的可能性，这是一个可以预见但又不可确定的未来的目标。在这个目标里，买者和卖者成为利益的共同体。批量生产的绘画在这里不过是这种利益的一个标志而已，也是艺术家自我的一个公共化的符号和载体。从这个意义上讲，绘画的形式感只不过是该商品的一个附加值罢了。

“刘鼎的商店——艺术乌托邦的未来，我们的现实”是一个进行中的艺术计划。是将各种价值观重新联合起来，建立自由艺术社会模式，这样的一种艺术理想的基础之上的。

这个艺术理想所面临的社会现实是建立在技术之上的、重视因果关系的世界对每个人提出的种种强迫性要求。

这种社会现实在艺术世界中体现为一种对艺术品要更加象艺术品的无限追求，以及艺术世界中无处不在和时刻被巩固和强化的等级制度及优越感。“刘鼎的商店”将艺术品、工艺品、设计品，和产品交错混杂地陈列在店中，并以一种无差别的态度进行销售，忽略物品之间的等级、类别和属性的差异，忽略概念和经验中的艺术品和非艺术品、成品和非成品（它在特定的阶段也是成品）、设计品和生活用品、区域性的特殊产品和全球化中具有普遍性的产品（如电子仪器）、独一无二的商品和无限量的商品等之间的界限，在混杂的多元性中取得一种新的秩序的可能性。

在这个项目中，目前已经建立了六个主题商店：

> 完美的圆
> 经验的容器
> 金
> 瞬间的意志
> 一本艺术史书的重量
> 变化的知觉

艺术家按照这些主题出发寻找和组合物品，把它们放置在各个主题的柜子中，自成体系。每个主题都是一个非常具体的所指，但作为寻找放置在其中的对象的标准时，它又是非常抽象和宽泛的。被放置在其中的对象一概被称之为物品，是为了更无差别地对待它们，并按照所设定的不同的规则（这些规则是脱离一般意义上的理由的、无功能性的、无明确目的的，比如一个重量、一个形状等）来组合和安排它们，将它们按照各个主题放置在独立的柜子里。它们在一种貌似一致的规则中突破原有界定它们的框架而联合在一起，形成一个新的秩序，这个新的秩序没有明确的时代、区域、国籍、文化特殊性或经济秩序的标志，也没有价格上的差异。每个物品的单价是根据每个主题商店的总价平均除于物品的数量所得出的。在这里，普通的物品与艺术品通过存在于艺术家所建立的语境中取得了价值上的平等。这种价值体现出一种相互依赖的关系：物品依赖于语境而获得新的价值，语境也依赖于物品的存在而形成意义和价值。这种对艺术新秩序的乌托邦式的设想也来自于对艺术系统以及更宽泛意义的价值系统的思考和研究：语境确立价值而我们既是构成语境的一部分，也依靠语境而获得价值。语境中的每个元素又都互为语境。

Liu Ding's Store: The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality is a concept that is based on the artistic ideal of unifying things of different values within a new order to create a model for a free artistic society.

The social reality that this artistic ideal is attempting to challenge is the compulsive demands that a world reliant on technology and embedded in the relation between cause and effect, has imposed on everyone.

Inside the art world this social reality manifests itself as a never-ending pursuit. All this in order to make an artwork look more like an artwork, whilst an omnipresent hierarchical system and its related feelings of superiority are consolidated and intensified by and within it.

Liu Ding's Store: The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality proposes to create a platform to go beyond this reality by introducing an economic dimension to it: using a one-to-one retail approach (initial contact made through the website: www.liudingstore.com) as part of an experience-based market economy model. It brings together artworks, handicrafts, and design products under concepts invented by the artist, and selling and treating these items without any high/low cultural differentiation or classification. They are displayed, described and handled as if they were the same with no material distinctions of nature or characteristics, thus abandoning the differentiations in the definition and classification of what is an artworks and what is not. Finished products and part-finished goods (at a certain moment of their production circle, which here will also be considered as finished products), design products and everyday objects, traditional or specialized products, common objects (such as electronic devices), unique objects and unlimited editions products. In this comprehensive pot-pourri of choices, the store offers the possibility for a new order.

Up to present, there are six theme stores in this project:

> The Perfect Sphere
> A Container of Experience
> Gold
> A Momentary Lapse of Willpower
> The Weight of A History Book
> The Changing Sensibilities

Each theme is devised with a very specific point of reference which is then abstracted as a rule to determine categories for products to be included. Liu Ding searches for items and artworks he considers relevant for each theme and places them in an individual vitrine to generate its own system. Everything placed in these vitrines is referred to as an 'item' so that everything can be treated equally. Liu Ding organizes and groups these items based upon rules that are free of any cause, functionality or motivation. They are, for instance, a specific weight, a form, etc. The items are unified under a seemingly consistent rule, thus transcending their former classifications to create a new order. This new order appears with no specific reference to any particular era, region, nationality, cultural specificity, economic model or pricing scheme. The unit price of each of the items within a theme store is equal — the amount attained by dividing the total price of the store by the number of its items. Here, everyday objects and artworks are granted equality in value by their co-existence within the framework the artist has devised. This equality of value is the manifestation of an interdependent relationship: objects have gained new value by being included in a special context, while the formation, meaning and significance of the context is based on the very presence of such common objects. This utopian vision of a new artistic order has been based on a reflection and examination of the artistic system and more general value systems: contexts determine value such that we are both the components of a context and our value is derived from being part of that context. Every element of a context frames another.

这是一系列刘鼎与其他同行业的实践者在相关语境下进行的非公开对谈并以记录性图片和录音为销售内容的产品。这些对谈在没有观众的前提下进行，消除了任何带有表演性或教育性的言说的必要，为对谈的双方创造了一个坦诚和深入讨论的平台和基础，不需要作出任何妥协。这是一种自主的文化生产的形式，思想和情感的自由交换。它不是采访，也不是辩论，更不是为了达到任何意见的统一或目标而进行的协议。它是一次在一起的机会，并且具备了非常明确的目的：面对面的交流。在这个产品中，价值的载体实际上是一段思想碰撞、激发和交流的体验和经历。艺术家大胆地赋予其价值并标上了价格，召唤着同样具有冒险精神和前瞻性的消费者。

This is a series of products featuring photographic documentation and sound recordings of non-public conversations the artist conducts with other artistic and cultural practitioners in specific contexts. These conversations, which take place without a public, eliminate the necessity for any performance or didactic speech, creating a space for open and in-depth discussions for both parties without any compromise. It’s an autonomous form of cultural production and a free exchange of thoughts and emotion. It’s neither an interview between Liu Ding and the people he’s in dialogue with, nor a debate. It’s not a negotiation in which an agreement or goal needs to be reached. It’s rather an opportunity for being together with a very specific purpose: to communicate face to face. What carries value in this series is the actual experience of intellectual exchange, mutual inspiration and clashes of ideas. The artist boldly claims these experiences to be of value and prices them, calling for customers of an equally adventurous and forward-looking spirit.

这个产品概念出售的是一个抽象的精神性空间和一个建立关联的平台，一个由刘鼎设计的家具和物品组成的环境和语境。这个语境鼓励并允许人们在一起，产生交流，将人们联结起来。它充分利用了物理空间和情境氛围对人的身体、意识和行为模式所能产生的影响，通过制造一个功能性的空间使友谊的形成成为必然和必需。

This product offers for sale an abstract psychological space and a platform for establishing contacts, a context and surroundings made up of furniture and items Liu Ding designs and brings together. This context invites people to be together and communicate with each other. It connects people. It’s based on the realization of the potential influence a physical space and atmospheric surroundings can have on people’s bodies, minds and behavioral patterns. Friendship turns the formation of friendship into a definite outcome and a necessity by creating a functional space.

刘鼎出生于1976年，现居北京，是艺术家和 策展人。

刘鼎曾参加过第二届广州三年展、第四届首尔媒体双年展等重要展览，并于2009年代表中国参加第53届威尼斯双年展。其作品也 曾经在英国特纳美术馆、英国布里斯多Arnolfini艺术中心、奥地利维也纳Kunsthalle Wien、挪威奥斯陆Astrup Fearnley现代美术馆、巴西圣保罗国 家美术馆、德国卡尔斯鲁厄ZKM艺术与媒体中心、瑞士比尔PasquArt艺术中心、意大利都灵Sandretto Re Rebaudengo基金会、韩国首尔市立美术馆、美国旧金山Luggage Store艺术中心、中国北京伊比利 亚艺术中心、上海当代美术馆和广东美术馆等机构展出。

Liu Ding was born in 1976. He currently lives and works in Beijing as an artist and curator.

Liu Ding has participated in a number of major exhibitions such as the Second Guangzhou Triennial, the Fourth Seoul International Biennale of Media Art, and the Chinese Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. His works have also been featured in many museums and galleries in China and abroad, including: Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK; Arnolfini Art Centre, Bristol, UK; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway; São Paulo Museum of Art, Brazil; ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; Centre PasquArt, Biel-Bienne, Switzerland; Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin, Italy; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; the Luggage Store, San Francisco, USA; Iberia Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China; Shanghai MOCA, Shanghai, China; and the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China.