Beijing museum opens 'supermarket' of images

More than 50 artworks, spanning photography, painting, sculpture, video, and installation, are on display.

The exhibit derives from Szendy's 2017 book The Supermarket of the Visible, in which he developed the concept of iconomy, a portmanteau combining "icon" and "economy". The author compared the circulation of money to that of images and argued that images have become a new form of capital.

The exhibit, divided into five sections – stocks, raw materials, work, values, and exchanges, will enable viewers to explore answers to questions such as what images are made of, how they are stored and exchanged, as well as how image over-production has engendered labor exploitation.