A BASED EDITION OF THE JPG NEWSLETTER
IRL exhibitions, interviews, some alpha and the latest on JPG
Hello friends! While everyone is vibing in LA or (not) hacking at ETHDenver, well, JPG is just working. During the past weeks, curators have been creating new and exciting exhibitions, and we’ve been working with a Berlin NFT group show to make JPG their digital home, which involved shipping improvements and features that benefit the whole of the JPG community in the very near future (aka next week!)
Even though there’s plenty in the JPG galaxy for this newsletter edition and then some more, I still would like to feature a few cool things around the ecosystem, especially at times when digging a hole in the ground and sinking our heads in it is more helpful towards discovering new exciting content than what currently goes on on the Twittersphere. So make sure to at least scroll till the end of this newsletter as I’ve worked hard on curating so that you don’t have to go on Twitter and get depressed and go back to bed like I did.
Honestly, the only thing good on Twitter was not about NFTs, but about the unearthing of the holy Based memes archive. For those that have no idea what I am talking about, Based was a farming project that was born (and died) during the 2020 DeFi summer, and the memes, community, nonsense, and vibes were second to none. So I was quite happy to discover that Buterin Sisters, an artist collective that has been around for a while, masterfully curated a JPG show about the sweet summer memories.
Therefore, I hope you find this newsletter useful and that it helps you discover new stuff. There’s cool drops and great articles and reviews, an interview I did with net art gallerists + curators, and even a lil alpha provided by artist Jonas Lund and the NfTNeTArT Berlin exhibition that’s opening this coming Saturday in two Berlin galleries + JPG as its digital home.
NfTNeTArT Berlin to be hosted digitally by JPG (and some alpha in the paragraphs below)
The exhibition NfTNeTArT curated and hosted by Office Impart and panke.gallery, two recognized Berlin entities working in the fields of digital art and specifically net art since its beginnings, are opening an exhibition on Saturday in Berlin.
The exhibition features works by Kim Asendorf, LaTurbo Avedon, Sarah Friend, LIA, Jonas Lund, Rhea Myers, Rafaël Rozendaal, Cornelia Sollfrank and Harm van den Dorpel, and JPG is proud to be hosting it digitally.
NfTNeTArT has been a brilliant experience to work together with professionals, and several of the improvements to JPG were built in preparation for the exhibition, and are now available for all our community.
The hosts also gave us an interview explaining their journey towards hosting their first NFT show, and amazing facts about their careers and contributions to net art and the digital art space. Link here.
And I did promise you alpha, so here it is: artist Jonas Lund has made available a secret preview link and mint ahead of the exhibition. He’s been using blockchain as a medium for several years and across many different works of his. What’s best - if you purchase any of his art, including this mint, you get voting rights in his art practice via getting JLT (Jonas Lund Token). Link to mint here.
Ps. if you happen to be in Berlin - try to pop by to the exhibition!
What’s new and good in the NFT space
Harm dropped a new project just yesterday, Indiscreet Units, commissioned by chemsex Benelux a new project around creating narratives and poetry in the space. While the drop sold out, you can potentially find some on Opensea.
Ed Fornieles, the creator of Finiliar, alongside JakeyWan, revived a 2018 project that I find very interesting - Studio Certificates, an alternative model for funding art studios. The project’s conceptually super interesting and a breath of fresh air for the blockchain art space that’s lately been just NFTs. You can purchase the physical certificates on the website. (still many available!)
There’s a new Folia drop happening tomorrow (February 19th, 7pm GMT) by OMSK Social Club. Since I just read about it I still need to dig deeper, but I am really excited about this new format: a memoir created by the collective in a LARP-like setting and illustrated by an avatar.
I also found David Rudnick’s new proposal, Tomb Series, a series of 177 works, super good. Especially the Ronin house whose tombs will be deployed within the smart contracts of a group of collaborators including Harm, Mat Dryhurst and Holly Herndon, M.I.A, IX Shells, Dhof, Zora, Folia and many more incredible people..
For the ones out there that are into cleaning, most specifically into floor sweeping, Gem, an NFT aggregator, launched a very slick sweep mode. Your floors will be sparkling!
And as in every newsletter edition, some great reading material:
The JPG community is now in custody of a Lifeform by Sarah Friend. I selected four people to take care of the lifeform, if they succeed, it will be alive for a year and three months. If you want to join this co-foster-parenting experiment, join us on Discord.
Sarah Zucker’s early experiences on NFTs have been documented in the Cent platform - read her fantastic and helpful article from 2020.
The friends at Office Impart gallery are doing a survey on art NFTs, and will publish the results in April. These kind of reports are super important to track down phenomena and behaviors, so it would be great if you could fill it out.
If none of these are helpful because you’re tired of reading, two weeks ago, VerticalCrypto Art, Anika Meier and Jesse Damiani hosted a Twitter spaces with artists using blockchain as a medium. Really recommend it.
New Exhibitions on JPG
Wilding August by Misha de Ridder - compelling curated photographs by August
Marfa by Jeremy Karl - some crown jewels from the conceptual NFTs sphere
Replicator Space by Trent - a selection of spawns from Replicator by Mad Dog Jones
Super Strong Acid by William - highlights some of Rob Corradetti's iconic SuperRare mints
Kohi by NFTerence - curated collection of on-chain digital works stored on the Ethereum Blockchain. Kohi collections are constructed with the Kohi Composer and Kohi Compiler.
On-Chain Goodness by wiltchamberlain - on-chain art not more much to say
The Pretender by William - a collection of his personal artworks
The Drifter by William- the best and most exhilarating Drift photographs
@bstract by Pete Keating - abstract expressionism and NFTs
Based by Buterin Sisters - I still have tears in my eyes from this one. Sweet DeFi summer memories
HYP3 B3AST by Ian - first time Unisocks got curated on JPG :)
🍀 By Phones - green NFTs, but really good green NFTs
Selfies by Gokhan - just check it out, really, it’s great
That’s it for now - next week we’re gonna be shipping a big awesome update to JPG that I can’t wait to tell you about. So tell your friends to sign up to the newsletter, follow us on Twitter and stay in touch.