We do a Jan-Robert Leegte special, as a treat
Jan-Robert with Fingerprints, Jan-Robert at Café JPG, Jan-Robert at Market Makers, and a little bit of Jonathan Chomko x JPG coming up IRL next week in NYC
Sometimes, a lot of great things are coming from one side only. And as it turns out, I’m currently, spatially, not on the side of the good things. I’m quite homesick and want to hang out in my town, checking out some cute art. Luckily for me, the cute art I’m talking about is browser-based and I can take it with me everywhere.
Jan-Robert Leegte is an OG Dutch artist that we at JPG really love. He is also a very sweet guy, and cares deeply about medium-specific internet art. We’ve been in conversation for a while, and he just told me that he’s doing a drop for Fingerprints, which is probably my favorite to date. I (and lots of other friends) are some of his earliest NFT collectors - starting with Ornaments, a minimalist, beautiful artwork from 2021. Later, we went ahead to collect Window and JPEG on Artblocks. Jan-Robert’s been in the digital art scene for decades and is inspired by browsers and their elements, by the internet itself, and the software that makes it possible from its inception.
For his new collection Web, Jan-Robert proposes to explore the possibilities of a networked artwork. “Web is a network spawned in the dark, resting within a smart contract waiting to be explored. It is a performance of the Internet itself, a non-linear choreography of a thousand webpages. The pages are expressed as raw HTML structures, empty from content.” states Jan-Robert on the Web web (pun intended).
Users are invited to explore Web, as a matter of fact, they are doing it right now. I woke up today to Nic’s exploration screenshots on the JPG discord:
And I made a “discovery” thats when you spend an hour clicking till you find a page that has not been seen by anybody else.
Everything you need to know about Web is online, Jan-Robert has done an excellent job at explaining his project, so I’m not gonna tell you more about it. But to celebrate, we’re doing a Spaces on the auction day - sept 20, link below (as the auction ends, so if we are lucky we will be able to make Jan Robert cry, also as a treat) and I asked him some questions for my esteemed newsletter readers to learn more about him:
Have you seen any interesting evolution in your own art making when it comes to releasing NFTs? of course smart contracts are new, but since technology has always been part of your process, then maybe nothing changed, you just got a new tool.
JRL: The most important aspect is that it has turned me back to my original practice of net art. I always kept making pieces of net art, but this had become more marginal. Now it is right in the heart of my practice, and has made me realise how important it is to me. Also it feels like I have found my audience after 25 years. A fanbase of digital literate collectors, who read the computer cultural and material expressions so much better then in the traditional art world.
And of course the new form of generative collections is something else. A very interesting addition to my work. As most generative artists I mainly made 1:1 generative engines as websites. Thinking in terms of clouds of outputs is very tdifferent and refreshing. What is interesting about Web is that is does both. It is a 1:1 online engine piece, but also a cloud of instances all connected. It is one piece and many at the same time.
How was your first foray with NFTs, Ornament? How important was to find a technical person that supported your vision?
JRL: I was a bit late to the party, dropping Ornament in November 2021. Like many I was badly informed about NFTs, just seeing square images which didn't inspire me. Also I was very overworked teaching at multiple academies and keeping 10 jobs alive. It was Harm who came over one night to my house with loads of beer and gave me this long pep talk insisting I should join the nft space (just after the MGS drop). He also explained how generative art could work in a smart contract, and that sparked my interest. After that he left, and I, highly confused, set out experimenting and looking for places to release with. After nearly giving up a couple of times, due to the technology or not getting a foot into a platform I liked and me being severely overworked, Dan from Folio contacted me and offered to get me in contact with a developer. Jake Allen. Also he would promote the work, as he liked it. And then it went fast. Jake learnt me everything to know about the space and the tech. And when we dropped, Dan and Harm tweeted out and got me seen by my future collectors. And everything changed after that.
And because everyone needs lots of treats in this market, Fingerprints made it possible for us to raffle a few allowlist spots for Canonicon holders (please note, the JPG canonicon can no longer be minted, this is for our faithful OG users) - so look into #allowlists on our Discord.
We’d love it if everyone could explore Web and post your explorations on the JPG discord, so we can discuss them in depth and find out what reactions it causes in you all.
Finally, we’re delighted to announce that we’ll be installing Jonathan Chomko’s Natural Static at Public Works Administration in Times Square, New York City, on September 21st, before we announce mint date. INVITE HERE. PWA is a small gallery space inside the Times Square subway. I don’t know if you have been at NFT week 2022, but in case you did, that is where Sarah Friend did her Off show with Refraction and Fingerprints. We feel very lucky to have the opportunity to use that space again, all facilitated by Brian Droitcour from Outland who’s curating this show and an online one, Generative Art Beyond the Algorithm, to launch alongside the Natural Static drop.
Here’s the invite link, again. I won’t be there because I sometimes like to be at my home, but I hope you send me photos and enjoy it.
To recap, for easy access, links:
Jan Robert Leegte at Café JPG, on September 20th at 7pm CEST / 1PM ET
Web dropping on Wednesday 20th September 2023 at 9am PST / 12pm EST / 6pm CEST
Okay, that’s it for now, got a flight to catch to SF to see more art, this time, Simon’s show Read Write Own :) hope you are well.