Upside Down

Much like Bitcoin, you must first address what is wrong with fiat to get to why crypto is necessary. The payoff is for those who kick ass and chew bubble gum through the first parts without skipping the meat and potatoes to get to the gravy. This is much the point of the whole article. If you only serve sauce at a historically 5-star restaurant that earned its prestige over centuries of excellence – it won’t there for long.

When I arrived in London three years ago I was soon surprised how well the edges, beauty, transcendence, and humor had been polished off from the contemporary art experience. You know, only the parts that were the point of art to begin with. The feel of it is first and foremost corporate – intimidation over awe. Outside of abstract lines, the menu mostly serves political activism in a convenient up-scale setting. To find less homogenized expression, you can go and hang out with the underground east side but that, mostly, equals broke. I’m talking about the gallery life with grown adults with families making a living from a serious profession. The kind where you expect to see the best of what that world has to offer.

Some of it is undoubtedly still magical but in the global scheme of things, a BBC documentary “The Great Contemporary Art Bubble” argues that the real art star of the 21st century thus far is the market itself. The expression side has been sanitized accordingly to fit a new power hierarchy. In it, the artists once more, find themselves at the bottom. Much of the diluted depth and lack of substance is a politically supercharged left worldview working together with inflation-capitalism (printing value without much to back it up).

It’s hard to make sense of without looking under the hood a bit. For anyone even remotely interested in collecting, it is much like watching your first proper Bitcoin doc.

The Sleeping King

The perpetuated bubble protection myth is that you are uncultured if you refuse to see why an old shoe on a pedestal in a gallery is art. A lot of what has been happening to the news profession has been going on in the arts for decades. The prestige of art took millennia to build. The perspective that this offers us is that the days since Campbell soup cans are a blink of an eye but with serious implications. We just haven’t arrived at a point yet where many from within dare call what is being pushed fake art. It used to be the job of art critics but who has read one that felt honest lately? There is a hell of a lot of money at stake that can devalue like the Bolivar. Even the critics had to bend to participate.

For insiders even remotely critiquing the debased substance of the art itself, is verboten. To some of us who have sacrificed our lives to crafting with the original premise, statements like the above “all art is subjective” couldn’t be much more upsetting. It is much like the villains being hailed as heroes in superhero mythology. It is perverting the nature of reality to make it worse at the expense of coming generations. You can only tamper language so much before it loses the thing the signs point to. The application processes for government grants and publicly funded museums work much like a Youtube strike. You will never know what got you kicked off the list but artists with any sense adjust themselves to the political and bureaucratic dogma to participate.

The documentary does not go into the arts education or Marxist flip side of it all but gives a wider picture than most. For the political side of it, Professor Jordan Peterson lays down the case of the radical activist side here. The rebuttal of it, which feels misrepresented to me, is here. It used to be that art scams referred mostly to sold forgeries and skillful thieves. Now, the BBC  documentary argues the real scam has become the whole contemporary art world itself. Much like everything else, it was also hijacked by politics. The old masters are likely to hold their value for a long time and deservedly so. The world-changing historic substance won’t die unless the paintings are destroyed. Up to Pollock and Rothko, I’m still largely with it myself. There truly is abstract art your kid could have not made. The political hard-fork of Warhol is where I switched off. With the more contemporary stuff, best be as careful as you are with your shitcoins.

The Great Upside Down

Artist: Cy Twombly with an Untitled (Bacchus) piece that sold for 46 million.

A real quote to support the sale.

Enough said.

The Prestige Economy

The above information offers a massive opportunity for those who want to set up some competition for the regressing creative field. The potential of the arts is still as powerful as it was in the days of the Renaissance. Those who know how to work with will inspire an exodus from the current contemporary paradigm. Some will soon recognize an emerging new sustainable market here. Betting on substance now is the art equivalent of BTC. The blockchain solutions against forgeries are going to make many art jobs obsolete. It might not be profound for dead artists, but those of us meticulously putting our work provenance on the blockchain now will override many others in the future.

My aim is also to help artists realize they no longer have to beg for breadcrumbs nor live in fear due to the blockchain space if they have diverse substance to the norm. This extends to talking to companies about how essential implementing creativity to their core model is. Apple is the behemoth it is because it transcended the meaning of the company from technology to a creative revolution from the start. There actually is a difficult and absolutely necessary learning revolution going on that the blockchain space can participate in while benefitting from tremendously. Sir Ken Robinson in his many talks is doing amazing work cutting through what is needed inside the education realm. Watch one of his many lectures about it here. The risk gets smaller, the more of us speak our truth.

The New Creative Tech London

#ETHLDN and Stephan Tual was the first one to give me a performance and keynote break about a year ago during Blockchain Global. This kicked off a lot of cool things in the US to be continued at the 2019 Litecoin Summit in Vegas later on. A lot of the show revolves around exploring monetary healthy and unhealthy hierarchies.

After going to a #ETHLDN meet up again Consensys London, I bumped into Vlad Cealicu from Crypto Compare. I heard they are putting together a summit with Andreas Antonopoulos and Dr. Peter McCormack. He is now giving me my second chance to exhibit in London. I can’t say enough about how important this support is coming from the blockchain space. Also, neither of the top gentlemen speaking are strangers to heavy corruption fights against all odds, so thought to make them proud with this article that, in part, is advertising my participation with the summit.

I’ll be exhibiting four large re-paint works and can’t wait to high five all involved.

Come join us at the Digital Asset Summit // June 12th event by getting a ticket here.

The first 5 people to use CRYPTO35 at checkout can get 35% off their ticket cost

Among three other works, the piece on offer is “Red Eye” with a special price including the digital original.

Watch a video about it here

You best believe I know I’m not doing my art world cred any favors by writing stuff like this. Due to articles like this, deserving or not, my work won’t be found in contemporary museums or the White Cube Gallery any time soon. Your support as collectors, re-tweeters, and word-of-mouthers are vitally appreciated!

V E S A
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