the-new-social-environment#255

Art on the Blockchain: Debates on NFTs & Crypto Art

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

Please join us for a discussion with Ry David Bradley, Claudia Hart, Steven Sacks, and Anne Bracegirdle, led by professor Charlotte Kent. We’ll conclude with a poetry reading from Sam Riviere.

In this talk

Christie’s recent auction of a work on the blockchain increased speculation on the blockchain realm. Variously called crypto art, NFTs, and blockchain art, artists and galleries are embracing its potential. How does it work? Why does it work? Is it an art work or just a form of currency? What are the environmental concerns? Is it a way to help artists retain some fiscal control over their work? Is it just a tech bro scam? Join long-standing participants in the digital art realm for a discussion on why they have now decided to make this a part of their studio practice or to sell it through their galleries.

Ry David Bradley

(b.1979, Melbourne) lives and works in London, New York City and Melbourne. Bradley has exhibited internationally including LA, London, New York, Berlin, Brussels, Milan, Cologne, Sydney and Melbourne. His work often shifts media but always looks closely at painting in the 21st century, the new opportunities and the shortcomings in our digital moment. Recent solo exhibitions include “Post Truth II” at Galerie Derouillon, Paris; “Unvalley Valley” at Evelyn Yard, London; “Not To Be Digitized” at Tristian Koenig, Sydney and “Where Do You Want to Go Today” at Brand New Gallery, Milan. His work debuted in the USA with Bill Brady Gallery in Kansas City in 2015 with “Access All Areas.” His work has recently been added to the permanent collection of the Victoria Museum in Melbourne.

Anne Bracegirdle

An art + blockchain thought leader, currently Head of Sales US for Convelio and Co-Founder of the Art & Antiquities Blockchain Consortium. She previously led digital strategy at Superblue, and while at Christie’s New York, she spearheaded the Art + Tech Initiative which included the 2018 conference ‘Exploring Blockchain: Is the Art World Ready for Consensys?’ During her ten years at Christie’s she was a specialist of Russian Art, 19th Century European Art, and Photographs. Anne speaks widely on the topic of art and blockchain and has been cited in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Forbes, The Art Newspaper, among others.

Claudia Hart

Claudia Hart emerged as part of 90s intermedia artists in the “identity art” niche. Her work is about issues of the body, perception, nature collapsing into technology. She considers it Cyborg-ish, creating liminal spaces, and is in love with the interface between real and unreal because it is space of contemplation and transformation. Hart’s work is symbolist and poetic. Hart calls her work “post photography,” and has created a body of theoretic writings and exhibitions based on this concept. At SAIC, she developed a pedagogic program called Experimental 3D, and is the first art-school curriculum teaching simulations technologies in the art world. She lives in New York and Chicago, shows with Transfer and bitforms galleries and is married to Austrian media artist Kurt Hentschlager.

Steven Sacks

Founder and director of bitforms gallery, a leader in digital, internet and new media art. Since 2001, the New York bitforms gallery has been advocating and supporting media art, showing artists who push into the boundaries of this territory, including Casey Reas, Quayola, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, R. Luke DuBois, Marina Zurkow, Manfred Mohr, among others. Steven is an expert in the new media landscape and its evolving nature, as well as an authority on collecting and preserving digital art.

Charlotte Kent

Assistant professor of visual culture at Montclair State University Charlotte Kent, PhD, has a particular interest in historical frameworks for art practices, with a research focus on contemporary digital culture and the absurd. She writes for assorted magazines and various academic journals. She is an Editor-at-Large for The Brooklyn Rail.

In the Rail: Charlotte Kent

More on Charlotte Kent

The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poem, and we’re fortunate to have Sam Riviere reading.

Sam Riviere

The author of three poetry books: 81 Austerities (2012), Kim Kardashian’s Marriage (2015) and After Fame (2020, all published by Faber), as well as numerous limited-edition titles. His debut novel Dead Souls is out in May, published by Catapult in the US and W&N in the UK. He lives in Edinburgh and runs the micropublisher If a Leaf Falls Press.