NFT Paris 2024 Curatorial Statement
By: Caitlin Cruickshank Sutherland
As a Senior Director at MakersPlace, I was honored to once again curate our exhibition for NFT Paris, held in the incomparable Grand Palais Éphémère.
MakersPlace was thrilled with our installations for the conference’s second edition last year, and greatly impressed with the presentation and quality of the event, which saw over 100 exhibitors and 18,000 visitors in just two days. I knew that this year, MakersPlace would have to bring a lineup of globally sought-after artists to stand out among the masses.
I set out to build “An Accumulation of Positives,” a phrase borrowed from ThankYouX, as a selection of deeply personal works by some of the most desirable names in the digital art world today. The artworks included in this exhibition allude to memories of each artist’s professional or personal lives. The curation contemplates the works as an early retrospective on their individual careers.
ThankYouX
I had been searching for the right time and opportunity to approach ThankYouX about doing a major digital release with MakersPlace. Once our discussions began, it quickly became clear to me that he should be the centerpiece of our curation for 2024 in Paris.
The artwork he selected for the event has never been seen by the public and will be unveiled in the MakersPlace booth at NFT Paris. The visual narrative of the animation pulls the viewer through the trials and tribulations of his life as an artist. The highly conceptual, emotionally driven work acts as a reflection on ThankYouX’s career to date.
Alchemy of Time
The initial visual focus of the work is a small glowing orb, seemingly celestial, which represents mind and soul. The orb is a constant, a focal point that the rest of the artwork is built upon and around. The viewer begins to see small particles being pulled into view from the depth of the black background, and it becomes clear that the orb is the gravitational lifeforce of the scene.
The particles grow in size and the audience soon see small, seemingly fractured stones gravitating toward the orb, but they are insignificant in scale and lack the power to hold themselves in place until larger fragments appear. As the mass grows and accumulates, it slowly spins to reveal the beauty of each component.
Small stone fragments are swept into view next to mirrored shards that reflect light out toward the audience. We begin to identify abstract brush strokes and dustings of brilliant gilding on the stones alongside objects with a more complete appearance, such as translucent colored blocks of various sizes, all drawn into the growing mass.
The depth of field expands until the fragments combine to form a sleek cube. The imagery immediately provides a sense of wholeness and unity. We’re able to see ThankYouX’s signature abstract style and color palette covering the cube. The artist intentionally pulled from existing artworks for this portion of the digital creation, combining small brushstrokes from major sales and layering them over details of never-before-seen creations.
The artist gives himself and the audience a short moment to appreciate the beauty of the artwork in this state while it points backward, and forward, in his career. We’re led to consider how his aesthetic has developed, and we’re given a glimpse of what is to come in the future.
But this moment of fullness and reflection is fleeting – a reminder that the path to success must be built by the accumulation and celebration of smaller moments. Soon after the audience is able to view the cube in a full rotation, the mass disintegrates, revealing a hollow interior which alludes to the feeling of emptiness one experiences if they lose sight of their goals and accomplishments.
In addition to ThankYouX, MakersPlace will have selected highlights on view from:
Botto
Following a successful sale of Botto’s first-ever ERC-7160 token during Miami Art Week in December 2023, MakersPlace will host another new release from the autonomous AI artist for NFT Paris.
The team behind the machine has produced a special limited-edition exhibition print, which comes with an associated highly-designed exhibition token. The release is thematically centered around the DAO’s curation and selection process. As a reflection of the DAO’s commitment to community governance and shared decision making, each purchase of the token enters buyers into a raffle to win 10k $BOTTO.
Botto’s work explores the relationship between human-machine collaboration. Initially programmed by a team of technologists and artists, Botto’s unique style draws inspiration from a centuries-old fascination with the creation of autonomous entities. Combining a unique approach to algorithmic processes and decentralized networks, its art is an exploration of boundaries between man and machine.
Osinachi
Laundry Day was completed in 2022 to assist with awareness and exposure of Osinachi’s Africa Here incubator program. Laundry Day was released immediately preceding the application window, and has become a symbol of the artist’s work to support emerging digital artists in Africa.
Laundry Day is a visual contemplation on the importance of renewal. We’re drawn into the theme by the artist’s choice to simply set the artwork in a laundromat. Osinachi employs his signature animation, where a selectively small portion of the work is minimally animated on a loop, to encourage further consideration of those areas. The audience is instantly visually told that the central figure stands in a place of physical renewal and purification, but are also left to consider the relationship between man and machine in this environment.
The washing machines are the physical embodiment of the process of renewal, while the central figure is the philosophical representation. The sole figure stands comfortably bare and deliberately central in the composition. The removal of the figure’s clothing during the simple act of doing his laundry, suggests that to achieve his sense of calm and comfort, one must remove the excess from their lives.
Osinachi (born Prince Jacon Osinachi Igwe, 24 October 1991) is a self-taught digital artist who grew up in Aba, Nigeria. Osinachi creates his work using Microsoft Word, where he utilizes the basic limited design palette of the word processing software to create narrative illustrations.
Jenni Pasanen
Jenni Pasanen will have one of the final artworks from her widely praised Mask Obscura series on display. Pasanen’s oeuvre is rooted in neosurrealism, and she uses her own GAN (generative adversarial networks) and AI tools to complete her works.
Mask Obscura – War shows an ethereal nonhuman central figure. While there is something soft and petal-like in the digital painting surrounding the torso, shoulders, and head, the hands appear starkly firm with elongated fingers resembling claws at their tips. Lacking a face and possessing three pairs of arms, the audience is immediately given several visual cues to reinforce the alienesque nature of this figure.
The pair of hands closest to the figure’s chest clasp onto each other with a bright red light permeating from within. Although light emanating from a chest often represents soul or purity in art, Pasanen selects a bright burnt red which washes over the rest of the figure in stark contrast to the muted gray palette of the background. The color feels purposefully harsh and aggressive when compared to other figures from her Mask Obscura series.
Pasanen, born in 1993 in Finland, stands as a forward-thinking figure in the digital art world, continuously pushing the boundaries and exploring new possibilities in her artistic journey.
Urs Fischer
A maverick of the contemporary art world, Urs Fischer has continuously embraced new technology to give life to his artistic ideas throughout his impressive career.
MakersPlace will be displaying three highlights from Urs Fischer’s sought-after digital series CHAOS. Each NFT in CHAOS consists of two unique objects (an array of items familiar to people today) that have been 3D-scanned. They are set on an intersecting course in motion and orbit. The sculptures, operating as an archeological examination of the present, prompt an analysis of the cultural impact of everyday artifacts.
In his own words, “anything can be used to create art—your mind, your hand, your elbow or toe.” This outlook makes his work engaging, playful, and timeless.