May 26 - July 22, 2023
From Assembly and Art Blocks:
“Collecting the Future presents photography and generative artworks that speak to the historical trajectories of artists presenting and preserving their work through blockchain technology. Art Blocks and Assembly Curated are among the first platforms to embrace “Web3” as a generative tool, a method of cultural preservation, and a new frontier of dissemination for artists. This exhibition highlights several of the boldest uses of technology to fuel digitally native artistic practices and embraces the fluidity of artistic presentation on screen, as prints, and as sculpture.
Since 2020, Art Blocks has been a pioneer in bringing compelling works of contemporary generative art to life on the blockchain. The first-of-its-kind platform seeks to bring the future of art-making into contemporary life by connecting collectors, fine art, technology, and creative coding to manifest an extraordinary experience ripe with new possibilities. Beginning with founder and CEO Erick Calderon’s Chromie Squiggle, Art Blocks set out to create a community around the possibilities of algorithmic digital art. The company has since grown to be a leader in the generative art world. Included in the exhibition at Assembly are some of the projects that helped shape the history and community of Art Blocks, including early works by DCA (Daniel Calderon), Rafaël Rozendaal & Danny Wolfers (Legowelt), Anna Lucia, Sarah Ridgley, as well as more recent works by Matt DesLauriers, Aranda\Lasch, and Junia Farquhar. Assembly launched its “genesis” NFT project in 2021 with Alejandro Cartagena’s 50 Carpoolers, excited about the potential to bring art to new audiences as well as the blockchain’s ability to cement the artist’s participation in the secondary market. As an artistic medium and a technology that has historically been adapted to new methods of reproduction and circulation, the blockchain presents another step in photography’s evolution, tracking ownership, circulation, and provenance transparently within a decentralized framework. In early 2021, very few fine art photographers had ventured into this new landscape, and with the rapid success of this initial collection, a growing number became interested in its relationship to their own practices. As the first art gallery representing fine art photographers in the NFT space, Assembly serves as a lighthouse, guiding artists alongside the institutions that support them through the presentation of curated NFT collections that preserve the artistic process and context of the artist’s work. Since the launch of Assembly Curated, the platform has worked with many notable artists from around the world on their debut collections on the blockchain, including widely-exhibited works by artists as well as works created specifically for this new medium. Collecting the Future will feature works by Alejandro Cartagena, Daniel Gordon, Gregory Eddi Jones, Klea McKenna, Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, Alec Soth, Barry Stone, and Penelope Umbrico. Both Art Blocks and Assembly Curated present work that is inherently digital. Photography, which now often begins as or is printed from a JPEG file (made up of binary code), and generative art, which utilizes written code to create works through algorithmic systems. Both mediums naturally had lives before NFTs, but the blockchain has enabled a new way to circulate, preserve, and share work within its natively digital habitat. Unlike posting a JPEG on a blog or social media, which has found its apex in Web2 technology, the blockchain allows artists to gain more than just exposure for their work, creating a method of both ownership and community connection through engagement, socialization, and collecting of the work as NFTs. The 1/1 editions presented in this exhibition are hallmarks of the history of this emerging space for artists pioneering a new community for their work in the midst of a global pandemic, when physical interaction became limited and virtual methods for interaction became more widespread.”
Reception: May 26, 2023 | 6–8 pm
4411 Montrose Boulevard, Suite F
Houston, 77006 Texas
(713) 485-5510
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