Next week, a dozen newly minted NFTs by artist Urs Fischer will go on view in a digital exhibition hosted by Pace, another step in the gallery’s full-fledged commitment to crypto-art.
The show, presented in collaboration with the Loïc Gouzer-founded Fair Warning auction app and the digital market platform MakersPlace, will live on Pace’s website.
Each of Fisher’s NFTs features two quotidian objects floating in a blank white space like a trippy screensaver, constantly converging with one another to form Frankensteinian compound-sculptures: a broccoli stalk bisecting a green sponge, a showerhead merging with a red Nike shoe. Weird stuff.
The works belong to “CHAOS,” a larger series of 501 NFTs produced by the Swiss artist.
For buyers, each piece comes with a reference rendering, access to the raw data behind the visuals, and instructions for how to exhibit it.
“The individual objects selected for ‘CHAOS’ are engineered, cultured, or manufactured by humans and sourced from the physical world and transformed into a 3D digital model through 3D scanning,” the project’s website explains. They’ll be offered up for $50,000 a pop, according to the gallery.
The artist will offset the carbon emissions involved in the minting of each work through a partnership with the nonprofit Conservation International.
Urs Fischer, CHAOS #23 Splendor (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery.
Fischer debuted “CHAOS” in April when he partnered with Pace to sell the first entry in the series, CHAOS #1 Human, which depicts a lighter colliding with an egg.
The work sold through Fair Warning for $97,700. (The collaboration reportedly caused a rift between the artist and his longtime dealer, Gagosian.) Pace did not disclose the prices for the new NFTs.
The first 500 “CHAOS” works will be unveiled over the course of several months. After that, a capstone 501st artwork, composed of all the objects in the pieces that came before it, will be minted.
Among mega-galleries, Pace has been perhaps the most ardent embracer of the crypto art wave. Earlier this month, the gallery announced that it would accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment for all artworks, physical or digital. And in September, it will launch its own dedicated platform for selling artists’ NFTs.
See more examples from Fisher’s upcoming show below.
Urs Fischer, CHAOS #20 Sashay (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery.
Urs Fischer, CHAOS #22 Simulacrum (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery.
Urs Fischer, CHAOS #24 Analysand (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery.
Urs Fischer, CHAOS #25 Gratis (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery.