The Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX is the subject of the solo exhibition Sometimes As A Fog, Sometimes As A Tsunami at Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, on view from November 26, 2021. Concluding their five-year project that began at the institution in 2017, the exhibition challenges the integrity of the global financial system and the value of money imposed by today’s neoliberal agenda. Questioning the role of artists within a contemporary society, SUPERFLEX has persistently contemplated the nature of existing economic and power structures. In this exhibition, which employs the framework of the Five-Year Plan—a centralized, systemic economic development initiative issued by governments—the artist collective presents a selection of works that prompts viewers to reevaluate the current global economic structure.

As a start to their five-year project in 2017, SUPERFLEX installed C.R.E.A.M (2017), a sculpture that takes the form of an ATM, at the foyer of the museum. Placed next to the chrome-plated, deactivated ATM sculpture is a poster that reads “Cash rules everything around me.” This combination creates an environment in which the fundamental elements of capitalism have lost their original function. In 2018, SUPERFLEX carried out their Free Shop project in shops located around the museum. By distributing goods to customers free of charge, the project raises questions about the internalized forms of commercial transaction. Subsequently in 2019, they mounted Number of Visitors (2019) above the entrance of the museum, a large counter that displays the total number of visitors to the museum which lampoons the criteria cultural institutions are judged upon for their success today. In 2020, the artist collective presented Lost Money / Handful (2019), an installation displaying euro coins distributed across the floor, so firmly attached they cannot be lifted. Along with these older works, the concluding exhibition presents major pieces such as We Are All In the Same Boat (2018) and Beyond The End of the World (2021). Also on view at the exhibition is Investment Bank Flowerpots (2021), a series of sculptures that take the form of a flowerpot. Suggesting a harmonious, symbiotic relationship and a new form of coexistence between species, the sculptures expand communal notions amidst the imperfections of the capitalist system. Commended for their utilization of art as a “tool” to discover inspiring solutions to some of today’s greatest challenges including sustainability and environment, SUPERFLEX received the Danish Crown Prince Couple's Cultural Award in September. The exhibition, which prompts viewers to contemplate the legitimacy, susceptibility, and duplicity of the capitalist system that seeps into every crack and corner of the world “sometimes as a fog, sometimes as a tsunami,” will remain on view through March 13, 2022.