#ArtProject2020 Vancouver Biennale Art + Tech Expo demystifies burgeoning field of cryptoart
Speakers James Fox and Anna Louise Simpson have taken the digital plunge and found avid collectors and an open new world of opportunity
James Fox’s Covid Morbus, sold on the SuperRare platform.
Vancouver BIennale presents #ArtProject2020, a free art and technology expo powered by Ephimera, from November 11 to 15
WHAT IF ART existed only virtually? What if artists sold their work to collectors who bought it using bitcoin, with code ensuring they legitimately owned a one-of-a-kind work?
We are already there.
A thriving cryptoart market now exists online on platforms like Ephimera and SuperRare. And it can be lucrative: American artist Kevin Abosch’s Forever Rose sold for more than $1 million worth of cryptocurrency in 2018; celebrity heiress Paris Hilton even sold a doodle of her cat for $17,000 on the Ethereum-based auction platform Cryptograph earlier this year. Art lovers can take a walk through virtual exhibitions. And the lucky buyers of digital creations are displaying works on digital screens in their homes. They know they own a legitimate piece because the artwork has been “tokenized”--converted into digital tokens using blockchain, ensuring it is “scarce”.
Like all things digital, the cryptoart market is picking up speed during the pandemic. And now the Vancouver Biennale is launching a cutting-edge new art and technology expo called #ArtProject2020. The free event will showcase the burgeoning field with a mix of panel discussions, workshops, gaming activities, and display of digitized art.
Artists who have taken the plunge into this new world of tokenized art say they’ve discovered a more open, welcoming art market online than the conservative art market that’s ruled by the gallery system and old-school gavels and paddles.
Detention of Tatiana by Anna Louise Simpson
“Cryptoart is very different from the traditional art world: it's very decentralized, you have different platforms, and it’s very open,” says Anna Louise Simpson, the Edinburgh-based artist known as as Miss Al, who entered the digital realm 18 months ago and is now a full-time cryptoartist. She’ll be speaking at the expo, and exhibiting on show presenter Ephimera during the event. “You can go on Discord and put your views forward. It’s supportive and it’s great to see all these creators together and hear about the journeys of other artists. You’re breaking down the barriers to accessing art and I think that’s great for building up a new wave of collectors.”
“There are a lot more artists and more collectors. And what I love about cryptoart is there's something for everyone. We have some amazing curators on the scene,” she continues. “If you have something for everyone, that will lead to a blossoming of the creative industry, particularly at a time when people are worried about their living….And as a female artist, it’s encouraging to see how many women are involved in the scene. That’s quite a change from the old art world as well.”
Gas Mask Couture by Anna Louise Simpson
Cryptoart doesn’t necessarily have to be digitally based, though that’s certainly one strong area of the market. What may be more interesting is the contingent of artists like Simpson who are exploring the way analogue, or hand-created, art can intersect with the digital realm.
Simpson melds black ink and collage with digital painting in images that draw from pop and consumer culture, fashion illustration, and even the COVID crisis. Recent cryptoart pieces have included Gas Mask Couture, a scribbly digital painting of a model in a gown gazing solemnly out of what looks like a military-issue mask. In Detention of Tatiana, A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s fairy queen takes the form of a mysterious female figure wrapped in yellow “Quarantine” tape, her dress a flurry of bright red swaths of paint and drips of black ink.
Simpson, who came to the world of cryptoart from mostly collage work, says the digital realm has impacted her art.
“It’s an ecosystem in itself; there’s quite a lot of different artists and graphic designers. And what I hadn't realized when I started was how those ecosystems would influence my own practice,” says Simpson, who will share her process and experiences at the expo. “For instance, I started to read about glitching and artists exploring that; you read about generative art and it's quite crazy, and about computer coders talking about data corruption. Before you know it you're trying to put that into your art.”
Simpson doesn’t consider herself a coder, but her work is a mix of analogue and digital, using programs like Adobe Photoshop. She often employs black ink, and realized it was a material she could use for handmade “glitching”. “Ink became almost as a corruption in my work,” she explains.
Red Lips by Anna Louise Simpson
Simpson has thrived on cryptoart platforms; as a gamer, she says the technological demands were not intimidating and blockchain came easily to her.
“I paint everyday and I digitize every single day, and there are all these people viewing your art and putting bids in,” she says.
Photography, resin, and blockchain
Canadian artist James Fox has found another niche between a more traditional art form and the crypto realm: photography.
Fox is an abstract macro photographer, meaning he specializes in shooting small-scale subjects close up. In the Ontario artist’s work, that means finding gorgeous, splashy forms in the vivid colours of inks and resins--or as he recently called it on Twitter, where he’s got an active following, “fantastical fun with funky fresh fluids”. He also works in blacks and whites that highlight the textural and sometimes haunting effects of the media. But when you look at his art, you might assume it’s computer generated, when it is actually photography.
“For me cryptoart is just a new avenue for me to show people my work and have people to invest in my work,” he tells Stir from his studio in Violet, Ontario. “I'm niche even in cryptoart because my work is pure photography.
“There's a lot of 3-D rendering and a lot of sci fi and fantastical work. With my style you almost wonder if it even is photography and that's how I squeak in there a little bit,” he explains. “I focus on macro photography and abstract--shots that look otherworldly even though there’s no real digital manipulation. If you were just doing still-lifes or landscapes it might not do so well there [on the crypto platform]. But it's ever evolving and that's the great thing about it.”
Beksiński Dreams by James Fox
Fox has only recently made the plunge into cryptoart, and he admits there was a technological learning curve--although he stresses it wasn’t too daunting. Already, like Simpson, he’s found the market has influenced his art a bit: more recognizable figures are emerging from his lush resin explosions, such as the haunting skeletal face in Beksiński Dreams, Fox’s ode to the mix of beauty and horror in the works of Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński.
“A lot of people say, ‘Why can’t I just right click and save the image?’ or ‘Why would anybody buy a piece of digital art?’,” Fox says of the crypto platforms. “But for collectors of art it’s virtually the same as in the traditional market: you receive something that says you are the owner of it.
For Fox, it makes no difference how his buyer might display the photo art. “When somebody gets the work they could print it out and hang it on the wall, and some display digital art on a digital frame, in their house--a screen or monitor in a frame,” he says.
When he speaks at #ArtProject2020, he’ll give advice to other artists interested in exploring the digital frontier as well. And like Simpson, he sees huge potential on the emerging platforms.
More than anything, cryptoart has provided an exciting creative outlet, not to mention an income, during pandemic times.
“Earlier this year if somebody would have told me I'd be involved in this, I wouldn't have known what to say,” Fox says with a laugh. “Anyone can jump in. It’s full of amazing artists who support each other. It can be a little daunting for people to dip their toes into but once you start exploring, people are keen to explain things.
“I think as people understand how powerful this movement is and is becoming, all sorts of different artistic venues will be participating,” he predicts.
James Fox’s Speculum.
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