“New Management” refers to the legendary management philosophy that Lee Kun-hee, Chairman of the Samsung Group, infamously introduced in the early nineties. “The New Management” principle was first proclaimed in 1993 at a high-level executive meeting at the Kempinski Hotel Frankfurt Gravenbruch near Frankfurt am Main International Airport. Lee flew in his entire top management from around the world for a three-day conference, emphasizing the need to globalize and preparing his employees for a new philosophy of change he was going to introduce in order to turn Samsung into a global market leader in all its sectors. This seminal meeting became known within the company as the “Frankfurt Declaration.” In the introduction to the publication, Simon Denny writes: “In Portikus one sees a fantastic conglomeration of material that tries to monumentalize [Samsung’s] powerful cultural message; arranging imagined and remade objects around excerpts from Lee Kun-hee’s texts and Samsung’s history. I’ve tried to stay close to the context it describes: the global material language of corporate pride and presentation.” In commissioning two different English translations of New Management, a publication in Korean about the philosophy and history of Chairman Lee’s legacy, Denny investigates existing hierarchies. On the one hand, the material carries with it extremely specific cultural and economic meaning and value, and on the other, it forms a part of global culture and public information. The same goes for Samsung’s comic version of New Management and the inclusion of Sam Grobart’s article on Samsung that originally ran in Bloomberg Businessweek. Denny levels the role of the artist with those of the professional from a tech company, a journalist, an independent contractor hired through freelancer.com, and finally the viewer of the work
This catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition Simon Denny: New Management, at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main
July 12 - September 7, 2014. Edited by Sophie von Olfers.
Authors: Simon Denny, Lee Kun-hee (translated by Dan Kwon), Sam Grobart, Matt Goerzen, Lee Won-bok, Jinny Kim, & BRD Global
Publisher: Mousse Publishing, Milan
Language: English
Softcover: 369 pages
Dimensions: 5.9 x 8.9 inches
ISBN 978-88-6749-071-4
About the artist
Simon Denny (b. 1982, Auckland, New Zealand)
Denny lives and works in Berlin. He makes exhibitions and projects that unpack the stories technologists tell us about the world using a variety of media including installation, sculpture, print, painting, video and NFTs. He studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. He is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg. Other recent solo exhibitions include Gus Fisher Gallery at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (2021); Petzel Gallery (2021 and 2011); K21– Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2020); the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Tasmania (2019); MOCA, Cleveland (2018); OCAT, Shenzhen (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2017); WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels (2016); Serpentine Galleries, London (2015); MoMA PS1, New York (2015); Portikus, Frankfurt (2014) MUMOK, Vienna (2013); Kunstverein Munich (2013). Denny has also curated significant exhibitions about blockchain and art such as Proof of Stake at Kunstverein in Hamburg (2021) and Proof of Work at Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2018). He represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. His works are held in many private and institutional collections globally, including Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, (Düsseldorf), MoMA (New York), Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis), Kunsthaus Zürich (Zürich), Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Berlin) and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Wellington). He co-founded the artist mentoring program BPA//Berlin Program for Artists and serves as a Professor of Time-Based Media at the HFBK (University of Fine Arts) Hamburg.
