This thoughtful, surprising, eclectic yet focused group bridges the gap between an elevated gallery presentation and the untamed wilds of the cryptoart space. “Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror” is organized around the theme of architecture. Displayed on high-res screens, at no point until purchase does it matter that the work lives on the blockchain. Curators Jesse Damiani and Sinziana Velicescu conceptualized the show posing questions such as, if artists are indeed creating a new world, what kinds of spatial and temporal structures will be imported? What will be replicated or reimagined, used as symbols to elevate or smash? What laws of physics, gravity, perspective and time will they obey, subvert or ignore? The assembled artists answer these questions by mining not only fantasy and literature, but the territory of art history, which has in its own way asked questions like these before—especially the last few times the world changed forever.

Petecia Le Fawnhawk, Luminous Depths, 2022. Courtesy Vellum LA.

In Luminous Depths (2022, photography with digital render and effects, 18-second infinite loop), Peticia Le Fawnhawk and DeepLight Labs offer a perfect, motion-enhanced take on de Chirico-style surrealism in a scene where a lone figure in a windy, desert expanse faces a luminous portal to the unknown. Vince Fraser’s Deconstruct to Reconstruct (2021) digital-mixed reality/AR video animation, one-minute infinite loop) has the majesty of a Sphinx, revealing that its flamboyant colossus is backed by scaffolding, a resplendent work in progress. Sabrina Ratt based Machine for Living, Deconstruction I (2018–21, video, 1:06-minute infinite loop) on a Brutalist complex outside Paris. As a verdant, prismatic stream floods tiers of concrete the piece asks, whose Utopia is this? 

In Mari.K aka MadMaraca’s Happy Place III (2021, digital 3D) Ruskin’s battle of the sublime and picturesque still rages. A floating city of terraced gardens, an isolated paradise with no egress, or a memory palace for the ages—the citation of Greco-Roman, Babylonian or even Olympian motifs complicates the rush toward pure futurism with obvious delight. Escher meets Eco in Kirk Finkel aka untitled, xyz’s Monument of Errors (2022, digital, MP4, 32-second infinite loop). Inspired by the speculative writing in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, this vibrating confection of distorted Roman architecture turns sacred geometry into a playground for poetry. Nate Mohler’s Echo the Color (2022, video, 2:45 minutes) glories in fusing mediums. He works with a combination of street photography, drone footage and AI to generate Fauvist scrolling landscapes that turn language about movement in painting into something literal. It’s like he’s fulfilling the goals of the fin-de-siècle painters using tools of the future; at the same time, he’s exploring the present in these aerial love letters to the city of Los Angeles.