NFTs are first and foremost a technology that solves a problem: digital files are abundant. An NFT is a certificate of authenticity for each digital file stored in the blockchain, making these files unique and thus also acting as a digital signature for artists.
The current heated debates about NFTs are the high point so far in the discussion about digital art. The NFT hype of 2020 and 2021 has a long history. Although the underlying technology has existed for years and has been used by the financial market, it was ultimately artists who brought about this change and brought the issue into the mainstream. With the rise of NFT marketplaces, the economic possibilities of this new system have become attractive to artists. This also shifted the debate from the treatment of conceptual to the thematisation of aesthetic positions. The discussions about NFTs, which have so far been conducted mainly by the art market and art critics, are forcing public cultural institutions to assume their responsibility and ask fundamental questions about the artistic, material and sociological value of digital art and to find answers.
The Upper Austrian Landes-Kultur GmbH is pleased to take up this challenge with PROOF OF ART and shows the origins of NFTs and their development from the first formative experiments with digital technologies to the first artistic experiments with the blockchain to current crypto art. The multimedia exhibition presents off- and online around 25 positions of artists who deal with the new system of meaning and values, examines the role of artists in their high-tech environment and discusses the effects of virtual spaces on our reality of life.
The essential question that the exhibition explores is quite simple: What is the basis for this development? Which artists were involved in dataset-based art before NFTs turned the world upside down? What did these artists expect from decentralisation before there was even a hint of monetary success? What does it mean to establish the value of oneself or one’s work? Can technological automation bring about positive systemic change?
The rise of centralised marketplaces for NFT-supported art popularised Crypto Art – those who determine content, control access and manage finances. Soberly, a technology that was praised for reversing power relations and giving voice to the silent is again just applying old power structures. Often, the greatest value of a disruptive new system is that it forces us to rethink what already exists. NFTs force us to reframe our perspective, offer a general chance to discuss, debate and rethink and change our current value system.
Conceptually, the focus has shifted from intellectualised works of the early and mid-2010s to works that reference the metaverse, a hybrid space that connects the physical and digital worlds. PROOF OF ART brings together these newcomers, many of whom are self-taught outsiders, with protagonists of media, digital and crypto art who were already active in these fields before the rise of the NFT marketplaces. All of these artists enrich the discussion about the new standards by which art is “successful” and can be received as such.
In the course of its preoccupation with these red-hot topics, the OÖLKG acquired an NFT property in the Metaverse Cryptovoxels on 24 April 2021 and established its latest location there at 17 Clarion Alley on San Francisco Island with the “DFC Francisco Carolinum”, the digital offshoot of the House of Photographic and Media Art of the Province of Upper Austria. In addition to various exhibitions, a space will be created to discuss the legal issues surrounding NFTs for artists, museums and collectors. From 11 June 2021, the fourth chapter of the exhibition PROOF OF ART will be on view there, the rest of the exhibition from the same day in the analogue rooms of the Francisco Carolinum.
Participating artists:inside the Francisco Carolinum Linz
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Kevin Abosch, Ai Wei Wei, Refik Anadol, Nancy Baker Cahill, Blake Kathryn, Cryptowiener, Simon Denny, Harm van den Dorpel, Constant Dullaart, Primavera de Filippi, Finest Rares (Jason Rosenstein), Herbert W. Franke, Sarah Friend, Fvckrender, Keiken, Larva Labs, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Nili Lerner, Jonas Lund, Marjan Moghaddam, Sarah Meyohas, Rhea Myers, Nam June Paik, Anna Ridler, Mark Sabb (Felt Zine), Terra0
Participating artists:inside DFC Francisco Carolinum
Claudia Hart, Addie Wagenknecht, Sasha Katz, Gisel X Florez, CryptoYuna, Helena Sarin, kyt, lulu xXX, Flufflord (Tea Stražičić), VXN (Victoria Campobello), Joaquina Salgado, Serwah Attafuah, Krista Kim, Itzel Yard (IX Shells), Grimes x Mac, Hackatao, LaTurbo Avedon, REEPS100 (Harry Yeff) & Trung Bao, Ness Nissla, kai (Kaigani Turner), Chris Torres, Coldie, Alexander Reben, Olive Allen, Mario Klingemann, SIRSU (Ameer Suhayb Carter), Robert Alice, Robert Gallardo, Casey Reas, Hideki Tsukamoto, Kenny Schachter, Matt Kane, Carlos Marcial, Keiken
Publication
A catalogue in German and English accompanies the exhibition.
