My friend Sean Stella and his team Jesse Maddox and Jorden Oliwa have been producing quality content for the crypto & culture sphere some three years now. As an audiovisual pro, the level of professionalism and entertainment value in this new series is top-notch. Having focused on BTC for the majority of the time, it has been mostly a self-funded effort. The algorithm battle can be pretty merciless for those who produce quality, as they can’t be online hustling for @’s and sharing whatever nonsense for the bots to pick up the pace. The series is an attempt at a journalistic balance in representation of the projects. Luckily we humans can lift up things above the noise worth checking out! — HardForking (@Hardforkers) January 31, 2020 Since I started the contemporary art journey some 12-years back, despite substantial media attention, it’s been a pretty fruitless attempt to get critics to pay attention to what is going on. This of course, is a part of a larger problem, where critics themselves, if honest, were ousted out of many shows & circles. The avalanche of worthless art being plugged, after postmodernism took properly hold, was simply an impossible mixture with individuals with integrity. Most things requiring sophistication, expertise and perspective are now determined in the court of public social media opinion. Futile as this might be, I recently started tweeting an Old Master Vs. VESA series, in order to turn a lamentation into delicious lemonade.Paul Gauguin vs. VESA
I’m aware of the potentially audacious nature of this to some, but in order to illustrate my point, and helping those who might care, it feels like an interesting experiment. The point is not if I am better or worse than any of these individual artists, but to take the temperature, if the expression belongs in the same arena and accomplishment as them as a visual and cultural endeavor.
The technique, technology, and expressions are very different. The point of comparing is whether these pieces have the same measure of feeling expressed while opening a new visual realm that did not exist before the artist made it. For more substance on the process and potential breakthrough check out this article by VICE published earlier on.
Old Master Vs. VESA continued.
A couple of very contrasted and powerful works by Edward Munch followed by two of mine. The point, as stated before, is not comparing better or worse. It’s about showcasing they potentially belong to the same arena. Your call if so. #art #arena pic.twitter.com/25d3j7iOdD
— VESA (@artbyvesa) February 7, 2020
Mutual NFT Plugs
?? thanks MagNft for creating this double spread for the VI issue. It’s a cool experience to read something that lives as the internet does. The plug aside from my contribution goes to Lawrence Lee Art.
“I have found art to be a demanding mistress” – Lawrence Lee
Can’t wait to land in Vegas soon for Unconfiscatable,
