The limits and flaws of the Art Market

I’ve been working with the Art market for about a decade now, and I have a gallery representation in NYC, as well as Brussels and Paris, and it’s been a very exciting experience and brought me to incredible places, art fairs, and I started very interesting conversations with collectors and curators (my partner Juliette Bibasse is a media Art curator herself). However, there are many aspects of the Art market that don’t work very well in that field: access is very exclusive, the authentification process not very well defined, works can be stolen, lost, damaged or destroyed, and there is literally no way to trace second market, where most profit and larger sales are made. So I’m very interested to explore the crypto space and see how this emerging field can help solving some of these recurring issues.

The need for new models

So let’s face it, the art market doesn’t actually work for emerging artists, and even after a decade of successful gallery sales, I feel the urge to explore alternative ways to monetize works and sustain my practice. I’ve always worked in various fields and with different clients: clubs, music festivals, then galeries, collectors and museums, and occasionally I would do works for a corporate client, like the incredible project we did with JayZ for the holiday windows of Barneys headquarters on Madison avenue. I believe that the more diverse our clients and partners are, the more resilient our art practice will be.

The impact of crypto

I’m a climate activist, and I’m doing some efforts to reduce my energy consumption and footprint in general, as an example, I reduced my plane travel by 90% to consume less energy. I’m aware that crypto has a rather intensive energy usage, and I’m looking at it very carefully. I want to advocate for a responsible use of crypto assets, and I’m investing part of the profits to get my studio off the grid by investing in solar power, and I am reducing my overall consumptions by at least 10% every coming year. I’m writing about that process and I hope to share my findings and define ‘best practices’ in the cryptoart world.

My first piece on SuperRare

My friend Pak urged me to join the CryptoArt space, and the piece I’ve chosen to release on SuperRare is very much grounded in my fascination for the geometric research of Victor Vasarely. The French-Hungarian artist, father of the OP Art movement in the 60s, explored isometric cube patterns and compositions of colorful gradients.

I’ve been working with this pattern obsessively myself for many years, but recently I felt the need to decompose and restructure its elements: to bring a sense of disorder and noise, and reflect my current state of mind: the need for stable, organized structures, yet with a rather grey perspective on the future. A dark spaceship, an immense cluster of unknown devices, a dystopian city? This structure of undefined scale conveys both a sense of beauty and the dry impression of an empty cityscape. The piece, made only of cubes, also reveals a circular shape defined by the angle and positions of the light source.

Today I’m really excited to release this piece on SuperRare, and I’m looking forward to the creative discussions and interactions that are emerging in the crypto space. If you have any question about the work, hit me on twitter: @joanielemercier

For more details, see this Twitter thread: