Artillery Magazine

Byline: Seth Hawkins

  • THE DIGITAL Form and Function May Still Have a Chance

    THE DIGITAL
    Form and Function May Still Have a Chance

    There are few places on this earth where I have stood and felt humbled, in awe of the grandeur of human achievement, where art and architecture intentionally merge with consideration of form and function—and where sexy-ass aesthetics rule the day. These sites are what the contemporary canon looks to as pinnacles of achievement, moments that defined the human race, where the construction ambitions of those in power were matched by the artistic prowess of the craftsman tasked with fulfilling those lofty dreams.

    This past week, I sat anonymously in the crowd as art consultant Ruth Berson (formally deputy director of curatorial affairs at SFMOMA) gave a speech to a small group gathered in a cavernous interstitial space between the faceted skin of the Intuit Dome and the actual entrance to the arena. This odd space is voluminous, containing artistically illuminated escalators and polygonal openings in the facade, allowing the planes landing at LAX to interrupt and interject into Berson’s speech and the environment as a whole. I was blindsided by my emotions as this seemed to be the most unlikely of locales. Formally, it could be defined as a multibillion-dollar sports arena, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers, the location where the upcoming LA Olympics 2028 will host basketball games and where Bruno Mars will perform in a couple weeks for the official grand opening. Those are the practical functions of the space, but conceptually—and in almost a more important double agent status—are the aesthetics, the form, the intangible community.

    The list of contributors to this impressive public art collection is already lengthy and touted, all of them having significant ties to the LA region. Jonas Wood designed the actual basketball court and Clippers’ uniforms; Charles Gaines has a large work yet to be unveiled and Catherine Opie has a series of LA-centric images being shown within the stadium. The exterior of the expansive new structure includes several other monumental murals. In the interest of transparency, I was a part of the flagship sculpture that welcomes patrons into the Dome—a 60-plus-foot Clipper ship in which the sails are transformed into basketball backboards.

    The reason I was reverential was not because of what I knew about this project, but rather what I did not. I was in awe of the scope and vision with which this was conceived. This is not a handful of shiny sculptures plopped in a plaza to reflect the sky, but rather monumental works that thoughtfully intersect our community—each oddly thematic in their own obvious or subtle way. What stole my attention were the monumental digital works by Refik Anadol and Jennifer Steinkamp.

    Jennifer Steinkamp, Swoosh, 2024. Lights built into the building skin. Commissioned by the LA Clippers for Intuit Dome. Photo by Iwan Baan.

    After crossing the new pedestrian bridge and entering the Intuit Dome, I was grabbed by Anadol’s digital paintings, titled Living Arena (2014), rippling in the distance—the artwork exists as the back wall of a public basketball court in the exterior plaza. On a monumental LED screen (40 x 70 feet), it was undeniably more impressive as I got closer, but the real magic happened later. After the introductions, speeches and public thank yous, guests were released to peruse the complex, explore the art, socialize, drink champagne and shoot hoops in front of Anadol’s work. As the silhouettes of the patrons athletically danced in the foreground of the undulating AI paintings, that special and unexpected thing happened in which art, architecture and the viewer merged into something worth so much more than the sum of its parts. The interaction of scale, humans and relevant data merged into a 3D digital art ballet. Who knew that watching AI-generated data points bounce around on a humongous screen in some contemporary version of Pong would be so entertaining.

    I was enthralled with the imagery produced as the sun set in the plaza, but with the darkness, my attention turned to the master-jewel. With the night came the true effect of the Steinkamp’s Swoosh (2024). It is somewhat hard to view in its entirety without either a private helicopter or on an LA flight—because it is the building. Berson regarded Steinkamp’s art in the most poetic way: “You could call the roof (of the dome) her canvas, and the embedded lights her pigment.”

    In a night filled with contradictions, I left feeling artistically hopeful for once. Who the hell would have thought that I would be so impressed at a privately funded basketball arena complex because of the art?

    So if you happen to be in first class flying out of LAX at night—raise a glass of champagne, look out your window as the lights dance across the Intuit Dome’s facade and make a toast to the fact that I was once again proven wrong. There still is hope in the new millennium for form and function to unite on a grand scale.

  • THE DIGITAL Frank Stella: A Story of Reinvention

    THE DIGITAL
    Frank Stella: A Story of Reinvention

    Have you ever started a journey, traveling a great distance through countless notable destinations, only to decide one day to completely reverse course? This column started out as many do, a haphazard scroll through Instagram looking at art, upcoming exhibitions, various galleries and the digital intersection of it all. A ubiquitous ad for Jeffrey Deitch caught my eye, reminding me of the newer works of Frank Stella. For an artist that has efficaciously existed for over 60 years in the art world—newer is slightly relative. These were not minimalist paintings that many in a contemporary art canon course may link with his name, but rather grandiose objects that merge geometric lines and undulating planes in a way that can easily be described as something seen in a Mad Hatter fever dream. All things move and connect as does an Escher staircase, visually confirming but at the same time sexily defying physics. I had never been able to explore these works at length but, considering the central role that both the digital process and 3D printing played in the manifestation of these sculptures—I was excited to be heading down the rabbit hole of exploring this historic artist’s newest chapter.

    Knowing Stella’s status as arguably the godfather of minimalist painting, I was somewhat less interested in a critique of the sculptures or how they may or may not tie to his paintings, but rather more to explore a tale of reinvention—a story of artistic rebirth while aging, as both technology and our interests change. The seed was set for what my critical curiosities desired. The timing was perfect—with Stella’s May show at Jeffrey Deitch in New York—for his most ambitious sculptural works to date. Little did I know that I would be finishing writing this after Stella’s death, about someone being bold enough to embody a new method of creation in the final years of an epic run in the art world. I had not anticipated this awkward version of an obituary.

    “Frank Stella: Recent Sculpture.” Installation photos: Genevieve Hanson.
    © 2024 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS).

    So, this column will not be that (an obituary), but rather a discourse centered around transitions, about how we align ourselves as new technologies grow and force themselves to the forefront. With these new tools, how and why do those who have been gaining acclaim doing the same thing for countless years decide to take a hard right turn and head down a completely different path? But isn’t this at the core of what being an artist is? Swimming against the current, painting straight lines and circles when it is unfashionable, moving on to the next realm when those same lines are now fashionable/inconsequentially accepted. It is well-documented that Stella made sculptural objects for more than two decades, but with his use of the computer as a 3D painterly tool, the objects continued to evolve. The evolution of 3D printing has contributed significantly to Stella’s work, primarily used for maquette production. Most notably in 2022, when Stella released his first NFT for his “Geometries”—which included 22 new works spread over 2100 tokens—each blockchain artwork included the digital model to 3D print the sculpture shown on the NFT.

    Some may argue that the magical embodiment of artistic creation lies in the manifestation of new ideas forming around what we can do as our surroundings and circumstances change. Some old dogs can’t be taught new tricks; with others it just takes time to catch up, to integrate new technology with their tremendous vision. I see both sides of the coin, or better yet, token. But why eat stale bread when a beautiful new bakery has just opened next door?

  • THE DIGITAL Tala Madani Explores the Darkness

    THE DIGITAL
    Tala Madani Explores the Darkness

    Have you ever howled at the moon? Stood up to your demons and screamed until your lungs ached? I have once. It was in the wee hours of the morning in Thailand. It was a pivotal moment in my story, and to scream without judgment was where I found solace, but that is a tale for another day.

    Darkness exists both in this world and in the shadowy corners of our consciousness. How do we deal with that? Some confront our demons more naturally while others keep them under lock and key. This darkness is where our inner voice is not censored or muted—where our most extreme visions are exposed without judgment or humility. There is an old saying about strength and secrets: Strength doesn’t come from having ones secrets protected but rather from exposing them.

    Enter Iran-born artist Tala Madani, who for decades has explored the visual space that would make others cringe. In the South-Park methodology, strong subject matter is dealt with in a backhanded and seemingly juvenile way. Madani saunters through the shadows with a childlike grace of style and sensibility, because in the end who doesn’t love a good scat joke?

    Still of The Womb, 2019, single-channel color animation, 3 min. 26 sec. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery.

    Madani’s paintings—some of which provide the foundation for her animations—exist in large format, and as we talk about technology and the crossover into art, she jokingly says that her interface with technology typically exists at the most basic level, “taping a longer stick to a paintbrush so it can be extended, knowing when to switch from a paintbrush to a mop.” While there is a subtle layer of both humor and truth to her statement, I would argue that the veins of digital manipulation run more deeply as one explores her prolific body of work.

    Madani’s animations are a testament to that depth—you lean into what you have and toss aside the rest. There is something viscerally exciting that happens in her animations, essentially stop-motion activations of her paintings that simply cannot be reproduced in a magic computer box. The fact that it can take 2000 paintings to make a two-minute video opens a portal in which her paintings step through, as if from the plot of B-grade horror movie. Painterly movements are accentuated, viewing angles change, and even if slightly—characters develop.

    For example, in her early animation Hospital (2009), a male figure lies in a bed covered in bedding, with only his head revealed. Another figure enters the room, stands beside the bed, then walks out. Soon a diaper-clad baby crawls (in a beautifully creepy way that stop-animation allows) in from the adjacent patient’s room, separated by a curtain. The baby pulls its way up onto the bed and makes a thumping motion on the man’s chest that is suggestive of a worshipful gesture. The scene quickly changes from playful to dark as the baby’s hands, the entire bed and man’s head gradually transform to a blood-red pigment. The baby then crawls off of the bed and exits the scene, the video ending.

    The rough flip-book style animation draws one in as it plays off the painting, and, inversely, the paintings play off the animations. As in much of Madani’s work, light and shadows are paramount to the visual scene—her digital connection provides the illumination to reveal all the perverse secrets hiding in the darkness.

  • THE DIGITAL Technology is Their Beat

    THE DIGITAL
    Technology is Their Beat

    For your next fancy art after-party, I would recommend the following signature cocktail. While somewhat nontraditional and off-menu, this enchanted concoction is guaranteed to please and is crafted with a simple combination of ingredients: two parts childhood nostalgia, one part digital manipulation, one part confusion, a splash of Dr. Seuss and a hefty pinch of Wonka (Wilder vintage). Chill and mix vigorously in a furry tumbler. Pour into a bulbous gold glass with stubby legs. Feel free to salt the rim with additional form or function to your liking. Serve as a double and this would be the distinct aperitif à la the Haas Brothers.

    The duo, Nikolai and Simon Haas, have been rising stars within the art and design world for some time. As in many epic Greek poems, the heroes have an uncompromising vision which does not formally align with previously established norms. Many interviews with the Haas brothers have focused on the aspect of art vs. design within their work, but it is clear through our conversations that neither world is their driving force—nor dominates artistic decisions. The Haas brothers unapologetically make objects that speak to a vision distinctly their own, refusing to be defined or influenced by simple function or lack thereof. Change the name on the title card and perception of the object transitions from a sculpture to eclectic home décor.

    My focus was to explore the brothers’ thoughts regarding co-creation, nonconformity, and most of all the integration of technology into their work—both archaic and cutting edge. This twin team is clearly at the forefront of bespoke high-end digitally manipulated objects, and luckily enough it just so happens that they recently finished a show at Jeffrey Deitch in LA that they consider their “deepest dive into technology yet.”

    Haas Brothers, “Sunset People” (exhibition, installation view), 2023. Photo: Joshua White.

    The worry is that many creatives use technology somewhat as a crutch these days. Whether providing the ability to enlarge small maquettes to monumental proportion or create hyper-detailed miniatures in the computer, it becomes a slippery slope where technology can easily overtake the entire artistic process. In conversation, this potential pitfall is acknowledged, but also casually discarded. Nikolai—the more physically hands-on/sculpturally oriented of the pair—explained, “We aren’t a practice in specific technology, we use it to express. They are simply just additional tools.” His brother Simon’s bond to technology clearly differs—he is the “coder” of the two and recounted the moment during the pandemic in which he began working in the 3D program Blender—and it all changed. The technology he had envisioned for years had finally caught up. The floodgates were now open to new ways of creating within even the most classic materials in their repertoire, bronze and marble. Same style, just new tools.

    In their exhibition “Haas Brothers: Sunshine People,” these new tools are no more apparent than in the “Emergent Sculptures” series, which consists of five life-size sculptures, each showing two biomorphic worms with phalange faces locked in a disintegrating embrace. Created by Simon in Blender, these 3D works have run through a physics simulation. Is that simulation a beautiful waltz, a heated argument or a loving goodbye embrace? Nikolai summed it up best, “The shapes are emergent. We didn’t decide the orientation, we ran them into each other and chose moments that we thought felt poetic—that was our filter on it. The viewer applies their own version of what they think the sculpture is emoting. These are emotional values that a simulation is absolutely not capable of, but humans just can’t help themselves but to apply their vision of it onto the artwork. To us this is what the show is about. It is this human projection of self onto work.” For me, I saw two lovers holding on until the last dying moment.

  • A Moment for Synthetic Self-Reflection Analia Saban

    A Moment for Synthetic Self-Reflection
    Analia Saban

    As with most endings, there exists introspection. The show is done, the crates have been shipped, the pieces have been sold—or not. Regardless of the success or accolades, regardless of the critic’s opinions, reality is now filled with days of waking up sans deadline. The infinite to-do list has expired, the phone no longer rings. In this deafening quiet after action, we as humans naturally pause and contemplate—if even just for a blink. This is the fleeting moment in life that I am intrinsically drawn to, the moment in which hubris wanes with fatigue. This undervalued and underexplored/exploited moment has always intrigued me—the comedown, the aftermath, the dust-has-settled moment.

    This moment is where I find myself catching up with Analia Saban. The fever-pitched apex of excitement for “Synthetic Self”—at her conjoined Los Angeles exhibitions at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and Sprüth Magers—has ended, purposefully forcing our conversation into past tense. While her new work is a momentous acknowledgment of how global dealers must now collaborate, my interests lie not in art-world hugs. The conversation of significance explores Saban’s laser critique, artistically focused on cooling this blip in the digital timeline.

    Analia Saban, Circuit Board with Deliberate Lines #4, 2023.

    In a hipster coffee shop in K-town, we were able to talk art, tech, computer fans (some made of marble in her new work), blockchains, crypto, FTX, AI and its beautifully sinister overlordly implications. Saban was able to reflect on some of the pre-exhibition thesis: “With this show I really wanted to grasp this moment  [humanity’s digital timeline] as it is so important. We are not giving it enough thought. I feel like the ride can be taken away overnight. Through art and primitive materials—beeswax, canvas, wood, marble—I wanted to address these totally abstract and high-tech issues we are facing for the planet.”

    I may come off in a multitude of ways depending on mood or situation—a lover of technology but also a fatalist regarding our trajectory as a connected and pulsating human organism being prompted forward by the next decimal place on ChatGPT. With almost ominous undertones I have re-listened to the recorded version of our coffee-shop conversation. Christmas music blares in the background as we have an academic conversation on the implications of AI and the role/duty of the artist during this time. Saban astutely speaks about self-driving cars, Open AI and Sam Altman, while I pepper in cynical jokes about Arnold and Skynet taking over as “Jingle Bells” continues to march forward. What a curious time we are existing in—whoever programmed this simulation truly does have a twisted fucking sense of humor.

    Analia Saban, Deep Fake (detail), 2023; all courtesy the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and Sprüth Magers.

    Throughout history, the classic canon acknowledges the artist as an unwavering explorer and proponent for technological advancement, while in the same breath its most vocal critic. The graceful interplay between creator and technological tool is in many cases where honest critique happens. This is where the acute vision of someone like Saban carries so much value. She has built an impressive career off conceptual destruction—questioning and reconstructing objects into something invariably altered, while also uncannily familiar. In much of this current status-quo life AI is trying to perfectly measure up to what it is to be human. Saban is purposely making works subtly riddled with minute errors or miscalculations, her own gentle way of commenting on the current state of artificial intelligence—or rather the previous outdated iteration. Through unsleeping unblinking reverberations, the errors are hunted down and eliminated from the matrix.

    As we scroll Instagram, gone are the sensual days with imagery containing six-fingered hands and emotive expressions completely unfitting to the visual dialog. In less than three years since OpenAI introduced DALL-E, AI prompt-generated images are nearly indistinguishable from reality. Art emulating digital life emulating the human existence—distilled down to its binary essence and regurgitated back via a seven-word prompt phrase. Let the holiday music rock on while Mr. Smith tirelessly hunts for us in the coffee shop.

  • THE DIGITAL Show Me The Proof

    THE DIGITAL
    Show Me The Proof

    There are moments in history, moments in which the tide can turn based on the will and actions of few. We are currently in one of those moments regarding the acceptance of NFTs in the mainstream art world. As best-selling author Malcom Gladwell would describe far better than myself, these moments don’t last—they are finite and fleeting. But give the right person access at the opportune time and a small spark will turn into an epic blaze with the potential for causing an iterated future. These moments are the literal incarnation of a societal “choose your own adventure game.” With the uncertain and volatile future of cryptocurrency fundamentally linked to an artwork, the traditional fine-art community needs reassurance when it comes to NFTs. There have been so many fads, scandals and trendy flashes in the pan. WE NEED THE PROOF!

    The IRL art collectors, critics and appreciators need a leader (more so a savior) to unplug the fine-art NFT arena from life support and prove to the world that this platform provides intrinsic and immutable value to traditional fine art. We need proof that NFTs are more than silly pictures of apes purchased by celebrities and crypto is not just imaginary internet money easily stolen to fund drug-fueled orgies in the Bahamas. Both of those don’t sound horrible if you are included on the guest list, but when you are just the unwitting financier—not as much fun.

    Kevin Rose. Image courtesy Foundry by PROOF

    As if by divine intervention or an auspicious moment, enter Kevin Rose—a human many would call a serial entrepreneur, some would call an angel investor and others on the platform formerly known as Twitter may call a conglomerate of names less appropriate for public consumption. X trolls aside, Rose is aligned to usher forward the transformation of how the traditional art world views NFTs. A new Los Angeles gallery—appropriately named “Foundry by PROOF”—states that its goal “aims to cultivate a greater understanding of the digital art landscape, specifically within the web3 space.” Collaborations with Pace Gallery and a plan to relocate to the LA Arts District in early 2024 put Rose and PROOF (of which he is the CEO) front and center in the IRL art scene and hopefully allows them to cultivate that much-needed understanding.

    While the upcoming move is imminent, Foundry by PROOF’s current location within the former American Apparel complex is hip, sleek and industrially modern. Envision a private club that is covered with futuristic flat screens showing NFT images that are magically pulled from the owner’s crypto wallet through the blockchain. This is not the JPEG reproduction I have complained about before, but rather a formal link to the actual NFT. Half of the 4000 square feet exists as dedicated gallery space, while the remainder is more akin to a nightclub. A giant bar built of cinder blocks and live-edge wood slabs delivers cocktails adorned with custom-made images—floating atop the liquor—of the digital art being shown in the adjacent gallery. A large stage surrounded by upscale seating exists to innately provide ambiance, but also easily accommodates regular podcasts in which artists, curators and special guests talk about the current exhibitions. Foundry by PROOF begins to set a new standard for what a high-end gallery feels like and, funnily enough, they don’t actually sell any art out of the space.

    If you don’t know Kevin Rose, he may be worth a google. Rose has started a handful of tech companies, invested in far more through his VC firm True Ventures, won a volume of awards from the likes of Forbes, Bloomberg and Time. He has the self-proclaimed “worst cover ever” on Business Weekly and—if that isn’t enough—his Moonbirds NFT collection made up of pixelized owls sold out in 2022 for tens of millions of dollars in a matter of hours (with some speculating over $50 million in mint sales). Rose has been in the public eye for well over a decade, so obviously I had no interest in regurgitating questions others had asked, when I caught up with him at his gallery. With his history and PROOF’s new space building the bridge between the blockchain and the IRL art world, I did feel it necessary to ask a hard-hitting question or two. The question which seemed most relevant was “How are you always in the right place at the right time, what is the cheat code?” Hint, hint: it starts with up, up, down, down, left, right … Fill in the blank—if you know, you know.

    IX Shells, Ixian No-Ships, 2022.
  • OUTSIDE LA: Einar and Jamex de La Torre Koplin Del Rio

    OUTSIDE LA: Einar and Jamex de La Torre
    Koplin Del Rio

    The whimsy is uncontrollable and seemingly pours out of the front windows of Koplin Del Rio Gallery in the SODO arts district in Seattle. The work is unmistakable and anyone that knows knows. The de la Torre’s brothers (Einar and Jamex) have for decades been a staple both within the glassblowing community but also the fine-art community. In a world where craft tends to be ostracized from fine art (until recently), these brothers have been breaking down that wall with youthful awareness that doesn’t even acknowledge barriers exist.

    Brave Heart, 2021. Courtesy of the artists and Koplin Del Rio Gallery.

    Entering the gallery, my thoughts go to a beautiful place which exists when you bravely mash together the sensibility of a child’s wonderland with the exaggerated talents of highly skilled artisans—throw in some cultural activism for the spice, and we have an amazing art menudo.

    The sculptures are not sexy high-polished objects a la Koons, but they are full of meaning, exude playfulness and seem to somehow freeze that magically moment of creation. As Einar and Jamex embrace the inherent quality that glass possess, they allow the viewer to experience what the creator sees as a molten bit of material is moved and shaped to become the curved ear of a dog staring at you from atop a pedestal.

    Taco Tuesday, 2023. Courtesy of the artists and Koplin Del Rio Gallery.

    The art is dense, both with cultural and societal refence, but also with materials and techniques used. It is formal and makes sense withing the historic cannon in certain ways but takes great license in others. It’s also a hodgepodge, a mishmash, but in all the best ways. I may venture to say that it is a sculptural organza of weirdness. Handblown glass transitions to cast resin with various objects hidden for the viewer to explore in true vignette like fashion. It’s seamless.

    The work is fun and over the top. It makes us embrace what we may have lost at some point in our youth and if you take the time to intimately explore each piece—you will be rewarded with small surprises delicately left by Einar and Jamex.

  • THE DIGITAL Dream Big: Remember Where You Came From

    THE DIGITAL
    Dream Big: Remember Where You Came From

    Memory is a funny thing. Do you remember skinning your knee when you were a kid, or do you just look down at the scar and think of the stories you’ve heard? As you drive down the first street you lived on, do you remember the market on the corner where you would get ice cream on hot summer days? What is the difference between a memory and a story? Does one have more value than the other? Are either based in reality or does that even matter?

    As I stood in a nearly empty room at the Japanese American National Museum and interacted with Aki’s Market (through oculus googles), I didn’t see someone’s quickly assembled CliffsNotes. I saw a rediscovered defining chapter in a family’s/nation’s history. It was a place torn somewhere between a dream and a memory, a place of value to Japanese- American history, to Southern California history, to East LA history. A once-forgotten corner store that now exists digitally again—thanks to its re-creator Glenn Akira Kaino.

    The original Aki’s Market existed in both a time and locale within American history that some may wish to forget. Shaped by the experience and memories of an entire ethnic population imprisoned by the US government (including the future owners of Aki’s Market)  and set in an East Los Angeles area better known at that time for homicidal gang activity rather than for members giving, building and uplifting the community, there existed Akira Shiraishi, “Aki.” By all accounts Aki (Kaino’s namesake—whom he never met) was a formidable man both in stature and heart, yet the stories were few and far between as Kaino grew up.

    Glenn Kaino, stills from The Store, 2023, VR equipment, mixed-media installation, courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery.

    In conversation with Kaino after viewing the exhibition, I began to understand that the show was not at all about the objects (whether physical or digital) but more about the conceptual nature of memories, both personal and communal. It was an exploration of family, community and the unknown stories you have been told. We often share the least with those the closest. We hold our fears, our mistakes and many of our triumphs from those we claim to love the most. What does it mean when we look deeper into what we are told? What trauma is found, what perseverance is exposed? If you look closely, if you ask the right people, if you search for the spirit that you’ve heard of—sometimes the facts are so much more inspiring than you could have dreamed.

    What was manifested for the exhibition was simply an extension of the exploration of Kaino diving deeper into relationships with family, community members and historical documentation to learn more about Aki. To be clear—the art was great. It does exactly what it should. It takes you to that intrinsically special place only profound art can do. It doesn’t try to be more than it should. It doesn’t try to put you in a place of true VR, of interacting like some first-person video game. That’s not what Aki’s Market does. Rather, it puts you in the confusingly beautiful moment where you wake up from a dream and struggle with whether it was a memory or a dream.

    With assembling communal memory, we think about what we have been told, by our moms, by our uncles. By someone that just passed through 25 years ago and had an opinion because everyone has an opinion: “That’s not how it was. I was there, It was like this. “The Donuts were over there. The Levis were here. The Coca-Cola display was there.”

    In reality, there wasn’t any Coca-Cola. The store sold Pepsi. So, who remembered it correctly? More so, does it matter? It may matter to some—to me, it matters less and less. I am a writer; I love a well-told story. I remember bringing my daughter home for the first time. I remember skin-to-skin before leaving the hospital. I looked at that picture today. Do I remember bringing her home? No, I don’t. What I do remember is taking her out of the hospital and not knowing how to put the car seat in. Do I remember turning onto our old street in East LA and passing by Aki’s Market less than two minutes from unloading my precious cargo? I do not remember it, but now it is a part of the story I will tell moving forward

  • THE DIGITAL Isn't Art WNDR-ful

    THE DIGITAL
    Isn’t Art WNDR-ful

    In a world that moves at the speed of quantum computing, filled with seemingly endless digital distractions, an afternoon at the art museum may feel like the perfect reprieve: Old Master paintings and silenced phones. Totally kidding! You are not unplugging that easily, and this is not your great-aunt’s museum we are talking about here. 

    The current trendy art experiences popping up around the US are immersive, experiential exhibitions. Pushed forward largely through the digital vein, whether it be VR, interactive video or the kitschy new advent of text-prompted AI images. These interactive art exhibitions are all the rage. 

    Once again, my art triggers are flashing. Alarms are ringing in my head, and my intrinsic need to question motives seems to always come into play. Were these exhibitions brought into existence to further art or commerce? What existed in vintage arcades, blacklight dorm rooms and the underground raves of my youth now fills museums which charge around $40 a ticket. Am I just being a self-righteous critic like the old man that hates rap music (window to my soul—I grew up on Tupac, Snoop and The Beatles.) 

    All my old-man feelings aside—kids these days need constant stimulation and have microscopic attention spans combined with inflated hubris. It seems that now may be the perfect time in the art world for a more viewer -centric museum, especially one with the tag line “We are all artists.” WNDR Museum (pronounced Wonder Museum) is one of the leaders in this new art vein. Originating as a 2018 pop-up exhibition in Chicago showing a large Kusama installation, WNDR now has permanent locations in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle and a fourth opening in Boston.

    WNDR is what we may call a most enjoyable spectacle—expanding like a trendy fast-food chain—each with its own Kusama. The rest of the museum is filled with a combination of experiential physical art, videos, food and even a classic Zoltar machine (á la the old movie Big) that predicts your future. My favorite artwork was an interactive digital hallway that moved and reacted like a wild oil slick as the viewer moved through the corridor. I should note that it was created by WNDR Studios. Yes, the museum also has a team that makes “art” to adorn the museum. How do we feel about a museum creating its own art? (Mr. Brainwash is currently doing it in Beverly Hills, but let’s call him an outlier or fringe case.)

    In the end, it is simple: The conversation comes down to art as entertainment vs. fine art. As we consider the entertainment value this type of experience provides, where does that ticket money go? One more Kusama in the collection? At least the billionaires that opened their own museums in LA let people in for free (partly). To be clear, I had fun at the WNDR Museum, but it was not because I was seeing art masterpieces. Whether or not a cash grab, it doesn’t mean WNDR isn’t a fun place to take a date—they aren’t mutually exclusive. 

  • THE DIGITAL Consumer vs. Appreciator

    THE DIGITAL
    Consumer vs. Appreciator

    With the current exponential rise in digital, AI-generated art and blockchain verifiable provenance, has the need for showing an original piece of art lost allure? Akin to a natural history museum showing a dinosaur skeleton that is 99% reproduction and 1% actual specimen or to a Vegas magician cutting the beautiful assistant in half six times a week, does it matter whether what we see is simply a beautiful illusion? Are we as art viewers more interested in the spectacle now? As handmade art goes the way of the dodo and is replaced with animatronics and videos of art, for the sake of all future generations I implore we ask: What is art and what is smoke and mirrors made for mass consumption?

    Projecting Old Masters work on warehouse walls is all the rage, but as an appreciator of the of the artist’s hand—I struggle to see the allure. This generation of youth (my daughter included) will grow up thinking that van Gogh was actually a video artist and that Starry Night (her favorite painting) is 20 feet tall. What is lost here? Some would argue nothing—that rather mass exposure to the end consumer is gained. Aha, there in lies the issue—consumer vs. appreciator.

    How could one argue that seeing a projection of art in any way parallels the experience of being in the presence of the most celebrated paintings the world has seen. I have taken the Harvard Google-earthesque 3D tour of the Great Pyramid on my laptop, but it is a far cry from traveling across the globe and experiencing the claustrophobic descent to the Queen’s chamber that a real exploration would provide. 

    Within the context of art—understanding the scale, the color, the frozen in time brush stroke/texture imbued by the artist’s hand—the je ne sais quoi quality that makes epic art epic can never be replaced by moving pixels or altered-reality. I will debate this point with anyone—that has never stood in front of a Rothko—and wants to take the side of the AI (trust me, they will become sentient). But at that point they may actually make good art!

    Few institutions can take out a loan to exhibit a noted work of van Gogh, but droves of entrepreneurs/opportunists are now renting projectors, leasing abandoned big-box retail stores and shining images of appropriated non-copyrighted art on the walls for a mere $50 entry fee. As we think about intellectual property and public domain free usage for historic art, the commerce aspect begins to change how I read this story. All you need to do is pay a licensing fee to a photographer for their high-res images of those beautiful sunflowers and you are the new hot-ticket immersive experience.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum from the digital exhibiting of Old Master works is the most contemporary of trends—the exhibiting of multi-million-dollar NFTs (which really boil down to a JPEG image whose provenance is verified on one of a multitude of blockchains.) What many don’t understand is that when an NFT is shown, the actual NFT is not really shown. There is no formal loan, no actual transfer of the art to the museum. Typically it is a simple JPEG that is shown, not the “actual piece of art.” Copy/paste. Does this matter? Does anyone care in the way I care about Vincent, that we are only seeing a reproduction.

    Back to van Gogh for a thought-exercise relating to the NFT copy/paste. If rather than seeing a digital reproduction of a self-portrait—ear bandaged, staring eerily off canvas—we were actually viewing a painting that looked identical but we knew was a forgery of the iconic original. How would you feel knowing that the canvas was not painted by Vincent’s hand while in a cold  damp room in Arles. Any difference there? I would still care, but I am a cynical viewer of art. To me the unseen affirmations that come with actual art matter. Why judge on simple aesthetics alone, be romantic, be critical, be poetic—the back story does fucking matter, the painting that was painted over by the masterpiece is still under there. We all came from somewhere, embrace your provenance. If we do not force this issue to the forefront, if we do not address that reproductions of art are not art, it will be lost on our children.

    All we will be left with are van Gogh Museums in every major city, not one with an actual painting hung on the wall. But hey, plenty of projector technicians will have job security. 

  • Cold and Down The Digital

    Cold and Down
    The Digital

    Alt Coins, Bear Market, Crypto Winter, Down Bad, Expected Returns, FTX Fraud, Government Oversight, Hacked ($477M), Insolvent, JPEGs, KYC, Liquidity Gone, Margin Trading; I could easily go through the whole alphabet alluding to the current crypto market conditions, but anyone who follows web3 or blockchain technology understands that there is blood in the streets. Well, that is not 100% true across the board. The traders are down and the holders have been defrauded, but what does that mean for those of us here for the digital ART? Honestly, it doesn’t mean all that much unless you are down bad and need to sell. Inherently there is less new money liquidity or as some like to call it—“fake internet money liquidity”—but the truly rich are still rich and the collectors are still collecting. Those with money know that accumulating during a down market is the best time to accumulate.

    Not everything is sunshine and roses and some of the rich have even taken an L this last year in the digital space; Meta (Facebook) loses over $30B on metaverse projects and fires a small city worth of employees (Ouch!), the owner/CEO (SBF) of FTX trading platform and crypto government oversight activist announces that he had “a bad month” in October as he loses over $10B in customer funds prior to stepping down and filing Chapter 11 (Oopsy). To add insult to injury—let’s call it the pixelized cherry on top—current market evaluations say that Justin Bieber’s Bored Ape has lost over 90% of its value this year ($1M+ USD). (Poor Guy).

    These major losses didn’t slow anything down in Miami, where collectors at this year’s Art Basel flexed their digital wealth in a volume of ways. One of my favorites was interacting with a technology-based sculpture by Brooklyn art collective MSCHF. The artwork—essentially a functional ATM located within the Perrotin Booth at the fair—oh so much more than that. The subversive art collective known for celebrity collabs retrofitted this ATM with a digital screen that scrolled through a real-time monetary leaderboard. As each patron stepped up and withdrew from the ATM, their picture was taken, ranking them based on the amount of money left in their wallet. For the opulent at Basel Miami, is was the perfect piece to feed your hubris or provide some hilarious content for social media. If you had $3.1M in the bank and a private jet—one could jaunt down to South Beach and overtake the current leader, Music DJ Diplo, who clocked in at $3M. For those over-invested in crypto—don’t be embarrassed by your account balance, you are probably at home in front of a computer anyway!

    Across the bridge in downtown Miami was the new NFT event for Basel that took over two city blocks and 12 buildings, “The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis.” Touted as a festival with classic fair-style booths, IRL art installations, NFT speakers and music—massive sponsors such as Christie’s and global galleries to the scale of Pace even grabbed a foothold. Pace Verso (the web3 division of Pace Gallery) showed a mix of artists, in which a fan favorite was Tara Donovan, known for her sprawling sculptural installations built from thousands of standard household goods. QWERTY, Donovan’s first NFT project, used the letters/symbols found on a computer keyboard in much the same way as she would use a stack of buttons in an installation. A repeated character is layered, spaced and patterned in a way that toes the line between legibility and design. In the end the 500-piece collection had the feel of digitally woven tapestries that embodied the thesis behind much of her work, yet pushed into the new realm.

    For those over-invested or simply without generational wealth, just hunker down and wait it out. As Hal Borland said, “No winter lasts forever.” Or even better, as our favorite singer-turned-angry-intellectual writer Henry Rollins said, “In winter, I plot and plan. In spring I move.”

    If you are rich, kindly disregard the above statement and show us that generational wealth. Now is the time to accumulate, buy the digital art and fuel the fire that will keep us warm through the rest of this cold winter. 

  • Superchief’s Super Party The Digital

    Superchief’s Super Party
    The Digital

    After parking on an ominous street, dodging detritus on the sidewalk and being ushered through the door by an equally ominous bouncer—we enter a sprawling fog-filled industrial space just south of DTLA. Loud music plays, neon flashes and the walls are literally covered floor to ceiling with digital can-
    vases     (essentially large televisions). Upon entrance a commotion erupts in the center of the space. The outline of a giant sphere hung from the trusses can be discerned through the mist. Art collectors in dress shirts retract to the edges of the gallery while several younger patrons advance with large sticks and subsequently begin to smash the artwork with a vigor only matched by a Rage Against the Machine mosh pit. Welcome to Superchief; let the party begin.

    Granted this may not be the art gallery to take your mother—if you are in search of adventure, are not a risk-adverse human, and have some inkling toward digital art on the blockchain—LA is home to the world’s first permanent NFT gallery. Before visiting, prepare yourself as you will leave with at minimum a slight buzz, a loud ringing in your ear, possibly a raunchy T-shirt, your first NFT artwork or even a black eye. I wouldn’t suggest wearing your Sunday white’s.

    The gallery has been a longtime staple in the art/party scene in NYC, Miami, LA and after a decade, they still go hard. Don’t get caught off guard, while the gallery may give the vibe of a rocker that has been on the road too many years, its provenance speaks for itself. Artists such as Swoon and epic partnerships with the likes of Christie’s Auction House, Scope Art Fair and OpenSea (the world’s largest NFT marketplace) are impossible to discount. Once again, Scope Art Fair has teamed up with Superchief as its official digital media partner for Miami Basel 2022. If you happen to notice the monumental 60-foot curated digital stage as you enter the fair—that is them. 

    Image courtesy of Superchief Gallery, Los Angeles.

    While Superchief was originally founded in Brooklyn circa 2012 by Edward Zipco and Bill Dunleavy, the focus on the digital began in 2016. The story told by co-founder Zipco may sound like that of many galleries at the beginning—long hours, little pay, nights spent sleeping in the space. As with many superheros’ origin stories, ultimate strength is earned from near-destruction. For the prophetically named “Superchief” this defining moment was in early 2020 when an explosion occurred in the building neighboring its original Los Angeles location. Fire/chaos ensued and while luckily no one in the gallery was injured, the damage to the building lead to the forced closure of this location. 

    Through COVID and a string of unforeseen events, NFTs stole the art world’s attention. The timing couldn’t be better and as if a phoenix rising from the literal ashes, Superchief returned after lockdown with a renewed vigor, an exhibition space of double the size and, as Zipco describes it—“a mission to help artists dream in web3.”

    Don’t think the excitement is over as in almost the next breath he speaks of a recently received compliment. The collector recounted—“I really enjoyed the vibe at the gallery, it was exciting and colorful, but on some level you could just tell it felt dangerous.” 

    For the ultimately authentic Superchief NFT Gallery this is part of the history, their pulse and not something they are willing to give up. Patrons: Just remember to keep your head on a swivel!

  • YANOE X ZOUEH’s Massive AR Murals The Digital

    YANOE X ZOUEH’s Massive AR Murals
    The Digital

    What do we imagine when we think about art in the most primal form that it has taken throughout the ages? It is easy to pick out important sculptural works or historic paintings on canvas—but often overlooked is the pureness of paint on a wall. Whether looking back to the age of smearing berries, ash or pigment on a cave wall to the baroque fresco paintings that dominated the Renaissance church walls or contemporary Shepard Fairey graphics on LA building facades, muralistic wall painting has and will continue to dominate large-format art making. The advent of the giant concrete building facilitating urban sprawl coupled with beautifying our urban spaces—plenty of structures exist to be covered with contemporary murals. But how do we actually make those murals contemporary? 

    Where does our obsession with the digital world overlap into the hard urban landscape? Easy: augmented reality. With the advent of AR and the access we each have to tiny supercomputers in our pocket, a classic wall painting has the potential to be so much more. A handful of muralists and artists are beginning to use these digital techniques, but artistic duo YANOE X ZOUEH is both originator and current world-record holder for the largest AR mural. 

    While the collective’s name is a mouthful, it echoes the graffiti backgrounds of the two artists, Ryan “YANOE” Sarfati and Eric “ZOUEH” Skotnes, who sharpened their artistic chops as street writers in opposing Los Angeles graffiti crews. Their public art now embodies cooperation and facilitates a global reach. 

    The two artists now exclusively collaborate to work on a scale that others must struggle to comprehend. Originally setting the record for largest AR mural in the world in 2019 with the 11,000 square-foot piece The Journey in Columbus, OH, the duo has subsequently one-upped themselves during COVID with the new mural The Majestic. Encompassing 15,000 square-feet and wrapping around the façade of the Main Park Plaza garage in Downtown Tulsa, OK, The Majestic stands alone as a formidable art piece in our version of perceived reality.

    YANOE X ZOUEH, The Journey, Columbus, OH, (AR). Image Credit: Jessica Miller.

    Sheer scale and visual aesthetics only scratch the surface of what this artwork is. Take out your smartphone, scan a QR code, and then everything gets interesting as the artwork begins to manipulate the viewers spatial understanding of the world around it. In physical reality we are confronted with this beautiful and dominating structure, but gaze through the phone in any direction and what you see is no longer that. As the first 360-degree AR mural, portions of the art remain in augmented reality, but the world has taken on a Tim Burtonesque feel with the occasional giant catfish passing while the bustle of the street has transitioned to a serene ocean.

    During my LA interview, the team mentioned a change on the horizon—an embracing of both the physical and the digital in experimental ways. Painting, AR, digital and physical sculpting—nothing is off the table. The 2021 work Rise Above in Inglewood, CA, began to embrace this transition by introducing digitally produced sculptural elements to complement the painting. Large acrylic components were engraved and cut from computer files and used to cover portions of the mural. They create an aesthetic component and also function as digital lighting to facilitate night viewing of the AR elements of the work.

    From what I gathered, this is just the tip of the iceberg of where this duo plans to push their real world/digital world art practice. With a multitude of public works in line that are awaiting formal announcement, it seems likely that we will see some new boundaries being pushed by YANOE X ZOUEH. Will a robot walk out of the mural in AR and trip over a real-world bronze sculptural element, stand up, shake itself off and hand (transfer) you a custom NFT based on the angle of the sun when you scanned the QR code? With these two artists, it doesn’t seem a stretch. 

  • Beeple and Madonna: Material Girl in a Meta World The Digital

    Beeple and Madonna: Material Girl in a Meta World
    The Digital

    When we think about groundbreakers or early adopters, we think of the first, the biggest, the people that jump up and exemplify a movement. Some will stand the test of time, others will bring shock value in being the protagonists. Whether it be Bowie, Hendrix, Basquiat, Warhol—the list of these trailblazers is long. But wherein lies the common thread? Talent and timing inherently play a role but, I might scream—FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD. 

    For those of us who exist only in the tangible art world—the human that made us stand the hell up and pay attention to NFTs was the unassuming Beeple. Combine this subversive digital artist with the historical boundary-pushing Madonna, Queen of Pop. We may be left with a collection of NFTs that have the potential to be some of the most controversial feathers in either of their caps.

    For this three-part collaborative NFT video series titled “Mother of Creation,” Madonna uses her classic recipe of sexually explicit imagery combined with controversial content—only at an older age with some digital manipulation. This time the “Material Girl” jumps into the Immaterial World of meta space, fully exposing her digital self. This is no unassuming wardrobe malfunction—rather the full monty in meta. Madonna’s three avatars that make up the “Mother of Creation” series are created by manipulating a 3D body scan of her in all her sexagenarian glory. This technology can now recreate hyper detail within the context of meta space, with the closeups leaving nothing to the imagination.

    Mother of Nature, 2022; stills from NFT video artwork; courtesy of the artists.

    Each of Madonna’s avatars vary slightly, but the traumatic birthing message remains clear. In the first, “Mother of Nature,” a giant tree takes root and grows and blooms out of a closeup 3D model of her “vagina,” slowly panning away to show the avatar lying in a sterile white room being overseen by a creepy robotic arm. In “Mother of Evolution,” a more plastique/Barbie doll version of Madonna lies on the hood of a truck—straight out of Mad Max. As the post-apocalyptic scene rages in the background, monarch butterflies flutter out of her crotch. 

    In the final and darkest of the three videos, a silver-haired avatar—one which best represents the aging pop star’s most current state—has a multitude of blood-soaked robotic centipedes crawling from the exposed area between her legs. This last chapter of the NFT trilogy may very well be the most accurate foreshadowing of the dark AI future awaiting us.

    With all the proceeds from the NFTs series going to benefit charity—this is not a money-making endeavor for either Madonna or Beeple but seems to be a great way to show the world what a 60-something digitally enhanced vagina looks like. And all for a good cause.

  • NFTs Flood LA The Digital

    NFTs Flood LA
    The Digital

    NFTs are here, ushering in a new Golden Age in art. The flood of fiscal support into the NFT market has changed everything. This world has become very real and very serious, extremely fast. Investment firms are buying Degenerate Apes to flip! There’s a need to understand a new vocabulary, a new system of provenance, a new sales structure and the elimination of the historic gallery model.

    My new column,“The Digital,” will be a place for elucidating the morphing digital art space, exploring crypto and NFT trends, understanding new verbiage, reviewing existing/upcoming collections, speaking with artists/developers, and shouting out my ridiculous advice in this space. —Seth Hawkins

    As the rain poured down and invaded Los Angeles on a recent Monday, so did the self-proclaimed NFT degenerates. There were representatives from both big NFT blockchains: mutant apes, nuked apes, boogles, money boys, cets on creck, and—did I mention that Sir-Mix-Alot was performing at the Magic Eden kickoff party shilling his own “Bit Butts” NFTs. What a night it was—I like “Bit Butts” and cannot lie!

    The attendees for NFT|LA, one of the first major IRL NFT events, was a mixed bag to say the least. Furries and crypto investors in their early 20s had on thousand-dollar shades, nerdy unkempt dev teams were huddled around laptops while gray-bearded old-timers tried to not miss the boat.

    Six original NFT’s by Sir Mix-A-Lot for his project Bit Butts, 2022

    The current state of affairs began to come into focus as I watched the Magic Eden keynote panel opening night. It included founders of some blue-chip Solana collections; Best Buds, Thug Birdz, Degods and for fun why not throw rapper Waka Flocka Flame into the mix. These are some of the heaviest traded collections on Solana—all in business for less than a year. To put this into perspective, the Degods is just about to pass the $25 mil in secondary market sales and they are only just hitting the six-month mark. What does that mean?

    It exemplifies the fact that this space is so new and so rapidly changing that by the time this column has published, one of these collections may be out of favor. Even the whole Solana blockchain that these exist on is still said to be in beta. With much of the discourse at the conference being about NFT collections establishing and connecting communities, even noted musician and NFT enthusiast Steve Aoki was on stage vigorously yelling about how much comes from his online discord interactions.

    I question what we are creating. Are these communities or investments? Do we ride the rocket to the moon and hop off with fiscal liquidity, or do we diamond hand for the community, as gravity inevitably pulls prices back to Earth?

    Six original NFT’s by Sir Mix-A-Lot for his project Bit Butts, 2022

    Of the 20 blue-chip art collections that currently exist on Solana, will five still be around in a year’s time? How will this ecosystem change in the next two months as the world’s largest website for NFT secondary market sales—Open Sea—onboards the hottest new blockchain—Solana.  We are days or weeks away from something big with this merger, but I am no financial advisor, just an enthusiastic onlooker.

    When do you dip your toe in the pool? If you have taken the time to read this far, then you can invest $20 in crypto and feel like you vested in the community also. Invest a sushi dinner’s worth in an NFT if you are feeling adventurous. Get in the Game. Invest yourself. Show people the picture on your phone just like you would your firstborn.

    The Question is: How do you even buy an NFT and what the hell is a phantom wallet?

    Keep reading “The Digital.”

  • From Mortar To Metaverse CONTEMPORARY COMMERCE

    From Mortar To Metaverse
    CONTEMPORARY COMMERCE

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    Eth, bit, sol, meta, block chain, bored apes, crypto punks, kitty litter squad, non-fungible, minting, mining, tokenizing, gas fee, hot wallet, cold wallet, generative NFT, destructive NFT, candy machines, early adopters—yes this is English—just not the English of our youth or even the English of a few years ago. This is the contemporary language of commerce and the new verbiage for the art world to understand. If you don’t know what this means, start googling, because the ship has left the dock and you are waving goodbye as everyone else is already on the Open Sea.

    Even a goofy ape with a hipster hat from a derivative collection can get a cover shot these days. If you braved the Omicron variant to be at Art Basel, you know that major galleries are moving from brick and mortar to the metaverse. Artists are no longer producing works with classical materials such as paint, bronze and photography but rather with AI algorithims, generative layers and 3D models. Art editions have somehow ballooned from 3+2AP’s to a 5,000 unit drop. And guess what, they cost more for 1/5000 than 1/3.

    Crypto is no longer a speculative fiscal structure that exists only in the arena of the cyber elite, it is something that is bought and sold everyday—even by yours truly—on the coinbase app simply a cell phone thump away. The NFT world has brought a whole new type of collector into the speculative art world: a collector who is digitally wealthy, crypto-swole, and has very few places to spend that wealth.

    If you were one of the smart (more so lucky) ones that spent a couple hundred bucks and bought in at the start of Bitcoin or Ethereum, you are now sitting on a hot or cold wallet with many many more zeros behind the one. Why sit there looking at your imagined digital $ that’s going to fluctuate, why cash out and pay taxes? In classic Buffet strategy—diversify your portfolio. What that means is, buy a pesky penguin, get some generative NFTs from your favorite artist, or buy a soon-to-be-minted farting cat from the Kitty Litter Squad. It is as if we have stepped through a tiny hidden door in the back of the blue-chip art-world space and have now walked directly into Willy Wonka’s factory. All is possible: you just need to mint it.

    Online gallery of Damien Hirst’s “The Currency:” A collection of 10,000 unique NFTs that correspond with original artworks, which the collector can choose to exchange with the virtual NFT for after its acquisition.

    Much of the new pseudo-art that is taking over the NFT platform is being made by artists or collectives previously unknown to the general canon or common discourse—but does that matter? Sure, the art world elite (e.g., Damien Hirst) has a foothold in the NFT space, but what is a Beeple, a Bored Ape, or most importantly, what is generative art?

    To all of these questions, there is a simple answer: those of us entrenched in the world of art understand that the rules were thrown out long ago—why ask so many questions? We are not some old man yelling at the kids to get off our lawn. Art is about taking new ideas to the limit, breaking the rules, and creatively making it up as we go along—cut up a shark, paint a lily pad, cover yourself in ketchup and cut a giant finger off, or maybe an ear—bring on the chaos.

    The NFT world is no different; it just came out of left field and sucker-punched the traditional art world as COVID stole our focus. No one saw it coming—well maybe gamers, but the last two years were a perfect storm to launch the crypto-fueled NFT market. COVID, skyrocketing prices of digital coins, and the whole world locked in front of computers tinkering when they were supposed to be on a Zoom meeting. A Hollywood writer couldn’t have scripted this monumental change more perfectly. Regardless, we are here and it is not going away any time soon. (Even a goofy ape with a hipster hat from a derivative collection can get a cover shot these days.) So either find your digital footing or sit on the porch yelling at the kids.

    Honorary Bored Ape #19 by BoredApeYachtClub (BAYC): an NFT collection of 10,000 original Bored Ape NFTs.

    Those previously established/successful/traditional blue-chip artists will always have a seat at the table, but they are being moved from first class to coach. A new class of artist is in town and, interestingly enough, many have never been successful in the traditional market, yet their NFT collections “mint out” in a matter of minutes for a cool couple of million dollars. As the time of papacy-ruled art wanes, Gagosian has given way to pixelized NFT collections that sell for much more and don’t need locations in Beverly Hills, Paris and Park Avenue.

    Where will this end? It is currently boundless, with one of the paramount aspects to this revolution being that NFTs actually protect the artist. The wealthy have always been sheltered by their curated collections and set auction prices. The blockchain is the ultimate equalizer; true provenance and the smart contract is the one time in history when an artist can not only formally show that what they have created is original and unique, but can also collect royalties on secondary market sales. No longer is it only the whales that get whalier, our people—the creators—finally have protection in this new metaverse of art.

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