DIGITAL DADAISM – S2/E1
June 9 - June 19, 2022
Opening: June 9, 7 pm

Sat 11 Juni, 13 Uhr
Lunchtime conversation on NFTs and cryptocurrencies
with Daniel Hug, director of art fair Art Cologne and artist-curators of the exhibition Il-Jin Atem Choi and René Schohe

This group exhibition was conceived based on the question of the relationship between analog and digital art. While this problem is not new, it has recently added a new component with the blockchain-based ownership inscription possibilities of digital files and artworks. Especially since the Corona pandemic, artists and artworld protagonists have become more engaged with the possibilities of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), cryptocurrencies, and their ecosystems. As have the artists and curators of the exhibition Il-Jin Atem Choi and René Schohe by conceiving the "dadacoin" as a Neo-Dadaist hybrid between a Gesamtkunstwerk and exemplary cryptomatter - a fungible crypto token by artists for artists, as well as an attempt to unite paradoxes and contradictions such as the following: how can a new exchangeable unit be created while incorporating individual unique elements?

Furthermore, what is the genuinely artistic element of NFTs as opposed to analog artworks? If every reproduction of a work of art could be ascribed more value as an NFT than the one of a kind original, then absurdly the copy (the simulation) has finally overtaken the original; without rendering it obsolete nonetheless. The artworks of the 29 participating artistic positions are pluralistically conceived and selected - it is about options and contingencies: either as an original (in the Temporary Gallery), or as a digital file (in the Mona Metaverse), or as a unique digital file (NFT in Voxels), or as an original connected to the blockchain through the unit of dadacoin (both in the Temporary Gallery and the Mona Metaverse):
https://www.mona.gallery/spaces/N1aLaKpjuhzt?invite=TlRRMk5qVTNNUTphc2lhLyo
https://www.cryptovoxels.com/play?coords=N@355E,475S
The main objective of all of this is to build a real community, provide basic knowledge, as well as get closer to the absurdity of digital life and art.

The exhibition gathers works by artists who have either already made a so-called "dadacoin digging" contribution, or might be interested in doing so, or are skeptical and inexperienced when it comes to crypto and want to let the real artworks speak for themselves first. Works by: Florian Adolph, Larry Bonćhaka, G.S. Broz, Il-Jin Atem Choi, Julian Cording, Anita Esfandiari, Christoph Esser, Olga Fedorova, Jennifer Gelardo, Tobias Hahn, Frankfurter Hauptschule, Jochem Hendricks, Julian Heuser, Valentina Knežević, Samuel Baah Kortey, Young Joo Lee, Tomás Maglione and Sebastián Garbrecht, Violette Maillard, Nikolas Müller, Michael Riedel, Mark Sabb, Sarah Schoderer, Götz Sophie Schramm, René Schohe, Mamadou Sow, Alyona Volkova, Mark Walker, Liu Xue, Tomomi Yamakawa

Artworks will be for sale.

 

Funding and support
Kunststiftung NRW
Kulturamt der Stadt Köln
Deltax Wirtschafts- und Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH
Hotel Chelsea