Cari Ann Shim Sham* & Joey Zaza of the Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art selected to curate for objkt.one

Monday, Jul 3, 2023

cari ann shim sham* & joey zaza of the Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art selected to curate for objkt.one
cari ann shim sham* & joey zaza of the Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art selected to curate for objkt.one

Full Press Release under "Read More". New York, NY - June 28, 2023 - We are honored to announce that objkt.com, the largest digital art and collectible marketplace on Tezos, has selected cari ann shim sham* and joey zaza from the Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art to curate an exhibition for their new platform objkt.one, which houses a collection of curated 1/1 artworks by artists from across the globe. The Wild & Newfangled exhibition, dropping June 29th, 2023, features an exciting collection of new and singular works by 15 mowna artists representing 11 countries. A Twitter space was held with objkt.one, mowna, and the artists who spoke about their exhibited work on June 28, 2023 at 3 PM EDT (9 PM CET). https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OyKAVEVbANGb

This exhibition can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home viewable online at https://objkt.one. These 1/1 artworks are minted on the Tezos blockchain on objkt.one and can be purchased through an auction. Sales directly pay the artists 82% and fund the museum 10% and objkt.one 8%. The works will be available by a reserve auction; when a bid is placed to meet the reserve price a 24 hour auction is started and the highest bidder receives the work. Two of the works come with physical components as prints.

cari ann shim sham* and joey zaza selected these artists from mowna's five blockchain exhibitions: the 2023 mowna Biennial, mowna OUTRAGEOUS! Exhibition, Tezos Exhibition, Wild Ideas and Radical Actions Exhibition, and mowna NFT Show. This diverse group of artists ranging from emerging to established in their fields reflects a wild and newfangledness in their practice, energy, and artwork that mowna seeks out, supports, and amplifies. The objkt.one Wild & Newfangled exhibition includes digital painting, GIFs, 3D composition, 3D LiDAR scans, video art, self portraiture, poetry, an interactive Unity world, and a nostalgic glitch cinematic narrative. The exhibit will also be available for viewing on mowna.org with the original new artworks created specifically for this exhibit. The exhibit along with all of our exhibitions will be archived in our mowna permanent collection to serve our collective future as an educational tool for researchers, a treasure trove for art lovers, and a backup storage space for our artists.

​​mowna has a longstanding agit-prop responsive curational style to critique, subvert, and shift situations and spaces in the art world. "The traditional art world is slowly waking up to the seachange happening with Web3 and blockchain technology. Now there is a new space, a new market, and a new community surrounding a wild and newfangled art movement. With this comes great responsibility, to create space for everyone, to not repeat what was done before, and to build better with inclusivity, equity, and diversity in mind we see as our charge as curators and builders," says cari ann shim sham*, mowna co-founder and curator. "The Tezos blockchain and the objkt platform both have created a special opportunity for artists, collectors, and curators to connect around wild and newfangled art. The objkt.one platform is bringing forth some of the most interesting artwork of our time, and making those incredible works available for both the world and lucky collectors," says joey zaza, mowna co-founder and curator.

shim sham* and zaza along with the objkt.com curational team, Kika Nicolela and Ombeline Rosset and objkt.com founder Brian Mc Alister have joined forces to bring the Wild & Newfangled drop to the objkt.one platform.

A spoken-word, media-rich poem, "Why You Still Shower with Your 10-Year-Old Son," by award-winning first-generation Colombian-American poet and artist Ana María Caballero, is a touching work reflecting upon the relationship between a mother and son through the lens of intimacy and cleanliness; a ritual daily shared shower. Caballero's work explores how biology delimits societal and cultural rites, ripping the veil off romanticized motherhood and questioning notions that package sacrifice as a virtue.

The colorful work by Quilla Nina, "SISA PACHA," captures the Peruvian and Argentinian cultures that the artist hails from with a trio of mystic characters under a geometric sunburst in an acrylic and oil painting, inspired by the tarot card "The Lovers."

Brooklyn based artist, Nygilia, whose GIF work, "I Feel Like Myself Again," is a gorgeously glitchy and pixelated surreal moment in solitude of having the courage to accept what cannot change and heal.

LUREX from Brazil has us grooving with "THE GRAVER," a 3D glitchy deep red dancing body in a swirling colorful haze complete with butt slaps and music that will get you moving. "RAVE TILL THE GRAVE," says LUREX.

Violet Bond from the outback of Australia describes her new work with the following: "When I was a child my father gave me a book called 'The Eyelids of Morning, The mingled destinies of crocodiles and men.' It was a book that has stayed with me all of my life filled with the photographs and artworks of photographer Peter Beard. It made me realize that others were living the life that I was living. Full of crocodiles, another culture, and the beautiful wild places, it felt like home. 20% of primary sales from this work will be given to the traditional owners of the land where the work was made. Comes with a physical print signed in blood."

"Pagoda in the Sky" is a brilliantly designed interactive Unity world by Micah Alhadeff, who describes the work: "Up above the clouds, a sanctuary awaits where the brisk scent of cherry blossoms flows through the atmosphere. Wind chimes ring as the steam rises from the hot-springs in this garden oasis. A glitch goddess is the keeper of this realm. The goddess traverses through the icy landscape up to their pagoda where they oversee the endless skies. Analog glitch tapestries flow in the wind as the stars glimmer with the early morning sunrise."

The nostalgic glitch narrative "Roberto Baggio" by the Brazilian artist Henrique Cartaxo is a heartfelt and deeply moving personal telling of a universal story to reflect on all that has become since "July 17th, 1994. Rose Bowl stadium, Pasadena, California. World Cup final. With Italy behind in the penalty shootout score, Roberto Baggio is about to take a shot that can give them a chance, or crown Brazil as world champions. I was seven years old that day, and there was much I didn't know back then."

"Medusa Uncut" by LA based AI artist Connie Bakshi "is synchronous lore, written and visualized in collaboration with AI, that rereads the eastern tradition of the Comb Sisters (自梳女, zìshūnǚ) together with the western canon presented by Ovid's Metamorphosis... Within the silence of her stone walls, the braided tendrils whisper their secrets to her, echoing across chasms of time." Deeply feminine, mysterious and dark, the work whispers to our subconscious about the past and future.

The ever evocative "Fandango," created by Mario Klingemann, a heavily exhibited and awarded artist from Germany who uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to create and investigate systems, depicts entwined bodies deep in dance. "In the fandango's embrace, we entangle, Limbs interwoven, a dance of desire, Latent flames awaken in the dim night's grasp, Embers aglow, a symphony of yearning. Fingers glide, tracing lines of fire and flight, Unveiling secrets in delicate pirouettes, Whispers linger, entwined in the moon's glow, The tango of shadows, a clandestine ballet. Silhouettes sway, entangled like ivy vines, As night's mysteries unfurl their intricate dance, Sublime entwined, we waltz through dreams untold, In this midnight reverie, our hearts find solace."

"Objkt Containing the Essence of an Ancient Coral Reef," an animated GIF by Trinidadian Rodell Warner who works primarily in new media and photography, and a recent winner of the Tito Prize, considers "ways to capture and transform heat and light, energy into energy... cell to cell, organism to organism, together as a single conscious entity" through a swirling sparkling pelagic chrysalis.

"Centergate Junction," a mesmerizing 2D digital simulated and semi-automated fabrication animation with machine embroidery by Huw Messie from upstate NY, is described by the artist: "Enveloping wanderers deliver agents from beyond this centergate via semi-recursive cooperation of the temporal self. As these gateways serve as points of 'absolute down,' agents enter this plane understanding it to be flat and spatially repetitive. It is only the agent's ascent away from this gateway that omits this observation of infinite spacial repeat."

"Yonder - June 6" is a 3D LiDAR scan by New Yorker Carla Gannis from The Yonder Series, a collection of scans that she's created with her smartphone, to represent her thoughts "on space and place as it is expressed within the radical phenomenology provided by the advent of mixed reality. As I sit in the window seat of an airplane, or in a moving vehicle, or walking the streets of New York City, it is through 'a scanner darkly' I go. For these works I reconstruct '3D snapshots' into fragmentary mise-en-scènes, through a multi-media process that includes 3D modeling, digital painting, and AI generated imagery. In this context, 'yonder' is a place and state of being, just within sight, but not quite. Even when we perceive we have arrived, much remains illusory."

Graphic designer, visual artist from Turkey, and creator of Sloth Zine, Burka Bayram's "Not in the mood" captures the artist's unique style of cynicism and dark humor through a lens of social commentary and reflections on society in a black and white stop motion. A ghost in a bed wakes up and punches away the sun, goes back to sleep, wakes up, has a smoke, punches away the moon, and goes back to sleep. "Not in the Mood today, tomorrow, forevermore," referencing the "lying flat" social and cultural movement rejecting overwork that is present and growing in the younger generations of our world today.

Sasha Belitskaja aka beisik is a digital artist and designer from Estonia who explores various extremes of geometry through abstract compositions, simulations, and VR sculpting. She co-founded and leads iheartblob, a Mixed Reality Design Studio offering various digital and design solutions and strongly believes in collective intelligence. Her work "DigitalChronicles.01 is a symmetrical 3D composition that contemplates the transformation of historical memory and its integration into the digital realm. Departing from traditional architectural and figurative depictions, this piece signifies a new era of preserving and embodying history. Within a fusion of Baroque aesthetics and digital elements, it invites viewers to contemplate the fluidity of time and the evolving nature of remembrance, blurring the boundaries between the past, present, and future."

And finally the historic work in the collection is LM24.PCX by Lee Mullican brought to mowna by the Estate of Lee Mullican. In the fall of 1986, Lee Mullican began participation in UCLA's Advanced Design Research Center's Program for Technology in the Arts. The program allowed the then 66-year-old artist to expand his vast oeuvre to the digital. He found inspiration in the similarities between his painting style and a computerized matrix. Replacing his brush and signature palette knife striations with a clickable mouse and pen-like stylus, Mullican merged the late Surrealist method of automatism with the computer's instant and precise replication of marks, stating "I found that beyond what one thought, the computer as being hard-lined, analytical, and predictable, it was indeed a medium fueled with the automatic, enabled by chance, and accident, discovery of new ways of making imagery." The artworks in LeeMullican.PCX were originally created in PC Paintbrush and saved as PCX files, one of the initial bitmap image formats for DOS and Windows. This work comes with a vintage print to the lucky auction winner.

We are honored to have this wonderful opportunity to bring our wild and newfangled artists to the forefront of the art revolution. We serve up this unique and care filled selection with reverence to all that has come before us, and all that will follow, as we shift towards a better art world for everyone.

Artists:

Ana María Caballero, beisik, Burka Bayram, Carla Gannis, Connie Bakshi, Henrique Cartaxo, Huw Messie, Lee Mullican, LUREX, Mario Klingemann, Micah Alhadeff, Nygilia, Quilla Nina, Rodell Warner, Violet Bond

mowna seeks to create an ever changing, fun, thoughtful, beautifully designed space to encourage awareness and mindfulness through the exhibition and experience of art and serves the public's need for art for the highest good of all. By addressing the current needs of not only the artist but also museums, collectors, and galleries, mowna is breaking barriers within the global art community.

mowna offers the preservation of artworks through an online collection that is an educational resource and archive for its members and its artists, and aims to find, display, and support wild and newfangled art through the incorporation of innovative new technologies and ways.

mowna provides artists with financial compensation for their art and expands awareness of their talents via a sustainable platform where they can flourish.

Members of the museum enjoy benefits such as free entry to exhibitions, access to the museum's digital art collection, and other perks. Support for mowna via membership can be found at https://www.mowna.org/members

To experience mowna please visit https://www.mowna.org

To experience objkt.one please visit https://objkt.one


The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art is open to working with press that places the interests of humanity among its priorities.

Images, video, and interviews available upon request.

For press pass and inquiries please send a message to info@mowna.org