Le Nouveau Riche (2017-2018)
The artist is struck that many of the new world's powerful are no longer displaying the usual symbols of their power. Multibillionaire tech founders appear at public conferences wearing Crocs or t-shirts. They drive to work in a VW Golf rather than having a Rolls Royce or an auto cad waiting at the door. They tend to live a merely abundant middle-class life rather than an awe-inspiring lifestyle. They even work themselves, proudly, rather than command around.
In a neo-capitalist society, those symbols seem unnecessary, but what are the new ones? In the search for these new symbols, the artist is making contemporary archaeology, looking at the constructions and objects surrounding these people and trying to make sense of them. Le Nouveau Riche's intention is an exhaustive inventory of a holiday house he built for himself while he belonged to the financial power. The work included research in the archives to find the places of purchase, prices, and descriptions in the original language of the objects and constructions. It is a photographic register of artifacts joined with lists in different collage formats.
Power through big masses
Big power in neo-capitalist days doesn't come from imposing on people or physically controlling them for their work. Instead, it comes from two sources: First, attracting a multitude of people to benefitting from services at no significant perceived cost. If one billion people generate one dollar, it is one billion dollars, and none of them will bother much for the price. The other method is the financial industry. Thousands of billions of dollars are indirectly owned by people in their pension funds, insurance companies, state funds, etc. Capturing a marginal value of these capitals and flows to manage them, again perceived as tolerable, allows captains of the finance industry to amass huge fortunes.
In both cases, the power is achieved through contracts between one company and many individuals. They are all in the framework of laws, using perfectly peaceful means, and have little perceived importance to the individuals, either because they are free or seem to cost little to ensure the security of wealth or future incomes. The founders and owners of these large companies draw their business income from an anonymous and mostly uninterested mass.
In the capitalist world, for instance, at Michelin, the owners would see their employees at mass every Sunday. At IBM, large and professional customers had to be satisfied and feel secure. If your power comes from the workforce or identifiable individuals, you have to impose on them, protect them, make them feel appreciated or fear you, or both. In this configuration, showing stability and strength are paramount to getting and keeping power. The symbols attached to it were estates, tradition, politics, charity, idleness, tailors, etc.
If you are a new generation rich, you have no local community to take care of, your sphere is global and above single states, you have no history and just have to ensure that you have sufficient bright professionals willing to work for you. Beyond the competition in Forbes’ ranking, what are the symbols of this new power?