“2121,” Italy’s first museum exhibition on Crypto Art inaugurates alongside past masterpieces

It is called “2121,” the first major NFT museum exhibition in Italy, as the future centenary of the year of grace that saw Crypto Art explode on a planetary scale and bring it to the attention of the general public.

From 23 November to 6 February 2022, DART Dynamic Art Museum, an innovative museum project conceived by Piergiulio Lanza and architect Riccardo Manfrin, and WRONG THEORY, the first real life production in the NFT world, formed by the union of Alessandro Brunello, Founder of the exchange Bibipom.com and InartNFT.com exchange, Alan Tonetti, Founder of Stardust S.p.a. and CEO of TaoDust and Serena Tabacchi, Director of MoCDA, Museum of Contemporary Digital Art, have brought the largest collection of NFT works to the historic spaces of the Museo della Permanente in Milan.

The artists include blue chips such as Beeple, XCopy, Pak, Coldie, Trevor Jones, Hackatao and Matt Kane, the so-called OG (acronym for Old Gangster, i.e. the pioneers of the Crypto revolution), alongside a select group of artists from all over the world, from Germany’s Bakaarts to Norway’s Henrik Huldalen, from the Englishman Billelis to the Frenchmen Alotta Money and Raphael Lacoste, from the Dutchman Daniel Martin to the Australian Nate Hill, as well as a large Italian group including Dangiuz, Skygolpe, Fabio Giampietro, Federico Clapis, Annibale Siconolfi, Dot Pigeon, Giovanni Motta, Alessandro Bavari, Mattia Cuttini, Alessio De Vecchi and many others. The exhibition also features stellar collectibles such as the Cryptopunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which have become status symbols for collectors and icons for the crypto community.

To underline the scale of the event, along with the ‘2121’ exhibition, DART also organised a large exhibition of Old Masters, entitled ‘Masterpieces from Private Collections’, with works by

Sebastiano Ricci, Caravaggio, Guercino and Velsquez, among others. The idea is to affirm a kind of continuity between past and present, rather than to emphasise the technological discontinuity between physical art and crypto art. Yet if it is true that creativity does not depend on the medium used, there is no doubt that the blockchain and NFT revolution has brought out a gigantic artistic potential, a new scene that has brought to the fore a large number of new artists who have worked in film, video games or advertising and who can now finally express themselves outside of any commercial commission. Alongside artists from the traditional art system, there are many self-taught and above all many conceptual artists, art directors, web designers, game designers and matt painters who have joined forces during the pandemic to develop new systems to give their digital art practice a commercial dimension that was previously almost non-existent. The exhibition catalogue, the first publishing product of its kind dedicated to NFT, represents the entry of crypto art into the history of art.

The crypto artists represented here, the architects of a revolution that was facilitated by the opening of the first platforms dedicated to the sale of NFT digital art, which, through the function of “minting”, made it possible to insert dematerialised works into the blockchain, find themselves for the first time within the walls of the Permanente in Milan, a museum that in the past has launched and made recognisable other important artistic currents.

The “2121” exhibition is the most far-reaching of the recent European exhibitions and, with over 60 artists, the most representative of the international crypto scene. It is the first stage in a journey that promises to bring together the younger generation and those traditionally interested in art, but it is also a sort of baptism of fire to present what is likely to be the dominant art form for decades to come.

KEVIN ABOSCH . AEFORIA . LUCAS AGUIRRE . MARCELLO BALDARI . ALOTTA MONEY . ALESSANDRO BAVARI . BAKAARTS . BEEPLE . BILLELIS . ANDREA BONACETO . BORED APE YACHT CLUB . GARYCARTLIDGE . ANDREA CHIAMPO . FEDERICO CLAPIS . COLDIE . ETIENNE CRAUSS . SOFIA CRESPO . CRYPTOPUNKS . MATTIA CUTTINI . DANGIUZ . ALESSIO DE VECCHI . DIEWITHTHEMOSTLIKES . DONNOH . DOTPIGEON . JESSE DRAXLER . IDIL DURSUN . JAN HAKON ERICHSEN . ESKALATOR . FRENETIK VOID . FABIO GIAMPIETRO . GIANT SWAN . MATTIA GIORDANO . GMUNK . RAF GRASSEETTI . GREBENSHYO . HACKATAO . HEXERACT . JANNE . TREVOR JONES . MATT KANE . RAPHAEL LACOSTE . GIUSEPPE LO SCHIAVO . LUSHSUX . MAD MARACA . DANIEL MARTIN . TIM MAXWELL . MISS AL SIMPSON . GIOVANNI MOTTA . NATE HILL . NEUROCOLOR . PAK . SANTIAGO PANI . DAVIDE PETRAROLI . RAREPEPE . OVECK REYES . ROBNESS . ANNIBALE SICONOLFI . SINCLAIR . SIX N. FIVE . SKYGOLPE . FABIANO SPEZIARI . THE SARAH SHOW . THOMAS STROKES III . TOOMUCHLAG . HENRIK ULDALEN . PINDAR VAN ARMAN . VEXX . JONATHAN WOLFE . XCOPY . XSULLO . ZHUK . ONDREJ ZUNKA

“2121” and “I CAPOLAVORI DELLE COLLEZIONI PRIVATE”
Museo della Permanente
Via Filippo Turati, 34, 20121 Milano
18 Nov 2021 – 6 Feb 2022
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Mon – Fry: 10-19
Sat – Sun: 11-19

www.dartmilano.com
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