Institut, a new platform for NFTs will present NFTism: No Fear in Trying –curated by Kenny Schachter –physically at Unit London and virtually via Arium. The exhibition brings together 100 artists including Rewind Collective, Marco Brambilla, Krista Kim, Olive Allen, Vhils, OseanWorld and IX Shells.
The physical exhibition at Unit London in Covent Garden will offer a bridge between the digital and physical worlds, with visitors able to view NFTs on screens. Accessed via new metaverse technology from Arium, the virtual exhibition invites viewers to navigate a browser-based space featuring 3D video chat, allowing art lovers from across the world to visit the exhibition remotely.
NFTism: No Fear in Trying will include a range of interactive works enjoyed through a variety of means, including augmented reality, VR headsets, and digital screens. London based Italian video artist Marco Brambilla will present a hypervision work, consisting of a hologram projected throughout Unit London’s gallery space. Brambilla recontextualizes old histories by fusing them with references to pop culture, thereby challenging traditional art norms.
courtesy the artist and Institut
Toronto-based contemporary artist Krista Kim, an early pioneer of crypto and NFTs, will present 8×8 XR (2021). Conceived as an antidote to relentless distraction and surveillance capitalism and using large LED walls to create a meditative art installation through the frequencies of colour, light and healing sound, 8×8 XR will be shown via VR headsets. Her Mars House—the first NFT digital house designed specifically for the metaverse which sold for over $500,000 on NFT marketplace SuperRare—will also be recreated via Arium. Kim is the founder of the Techism movement, promoting the confluence of art and technology, and the role of technology as a tool to further the development of ‘digital humanism.’
New York-based artist Olive Allen draws on her background in both fine arts and technology to create media art that captures the internet culture of the new age and exposes systems of value. A cryptocurrency early adopter, Allen is considered a pioneer of the NFT space.
Also on show are works by Iranian-born, Brooklyn-based digital artist Marjan Moghaddam. Moghaddam uses digital technology such as computer animation, 3-D modelling, and texture mapping in prints, videos, and installations. In her most well known works, she builds three-dimensional characters and environments that resemble the landscapes of video games or virtual reality to comment on the politics of innovation, communication, and warfare.
Alongside NFTs, Institut will also offer physical artwork collectables and editions, acting as a gateway for traditional art world collectors to enter the NFT market.
It’s a human defence mechanism to reject the unfamiliar without giving it a chance; change is hard to stomach, something that unsettles the status quo. Human nature pushes back at first blush rather than learn about and accept something new for what it is—a potential advance and step forward. NFTs are just such a transformative phenomenon, a potential revolution in the history of art and its dissemination into the collective stream of consciousness, and commerce! This show will attempt to do what no one has done before; FOCUS ON THE ART, art from a wide, diverse universe of talent from all walks of life.
Exhibition curator Kenny Schachter.
NFTism: No Fear in Trying 10th- 25th September 2021 The Stables, Covent Garden. 40 Earlham St, West End, London, WC2H 9LH unitlondon.com/whats-on/84-group-exhibition-nftism-no-fear-in-trying
About the Curator
American born and New York-based Kenny Schachter has been curating art exhibitions in museums and galleries across the globe for over two decades.
He has also been lecturing in art history and economics in international institutions for more than thirty years. Schachter has been a recipient of the Rockefeller-supported grant in Mexico and has contributed to numerous books and artist monographs. Along with his longstanding column for Artnet, Schachter writes widely for various international publications. He has been profiled in The New York Times Magazine, Observer, Independent and Telegraph.
In addition, Schachter has exhibited his own artworks internationally, including in a retrospective at Joel Mesler’s Rental Gallery in New York and solo exhibitions at Sandra Gering Gallery in New York and Kantor Gallery in LA. He also deals in international art from the Impressionist and Modern periods as well as contemporary art from the physical and digital worlds. In recent times, Schachter has been an outspoken proponent of NFT artworks and artists. He has written numerous educational articles and has curated NFT exhibitions, working to shed light on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies and the digital art landscape.
