BCA x IASC “Superposition of Experience – Independent Art Space Chain of Beijing” First Online Exhibition on Cryptovoxels
Exhibition Date: 5.31.2021–6.30.2021
Exhibition Location: cryptovoxels.com
Curator: LIU Bo
Exhibition Executor: FANG Xianchen
Project Planner: LIU Xia
Exhibition Display Design: LU Jiawei, LIANG Hongwei
Support: BCA (BlockCreateArt), IASC (Independent Art Space China)
Parcel Link: https://www.cryptovoxels.com/play?coords=N@397E,64S
From the Post-Internet Era to Internet natives then to screen generation and gaming generation, the virtual world keeps expanding its boundaries while indirectly expanding the survival territory and spiritual space of human beings.
How to further break the dimensional walls between the virtual currency and art, and present a possible imagination for the future contemporary art and art spaces? Initiated by BCA (BlockCreateArt), and IASC (Independent Art Space Chain), the youngest group that focuses on the collection of independent art spaces to jointly launch the first IASC×BCA exhibition project “Superposition of Experience – Independent Art Space Chain of Beijing”. The exhibition is the first to present a collection of independent art spaces on blockchain and crypto art platforms. It is the experimental spirit shared by IASC and BCA for the future artistic creation and occurrence. It is also IASC’s hope to utilize the influence of BCA’s crypto art platform to pay attention to the survival state of the most marginal space in the art field – independent art space.
“Superposition of Experience” curated by Liu Bo, co-founder of IASC, invited 9 independent art spaces, recommended 11+ artists, and exhibited more than 30 original works. The reason why the exhibition takes the independent art space as the starting point is due to art practitioners’ focus on their own industry. This kind of art institution, independent from art museums, galleries, and art districts, focuses more on the current reality of society. It plays an important role in balancing the whole art ecology. Moreover, these “wild” art spaces with civil foundation and self-organization are a collective force of confrontation against the power centered around the operational logic of the existing art industry, which coincides with the spirit of blockchain to some extent. Independent art spaces participate in this exhibition include Telescope Artist Studio, C5CNM, SSENSE SPACE, Three Art Projects, Cai Jin Space, Great World Gallery, Growing Space, WHITE FIELD, Minority Space. Invited artists include Fan Xi, Liu Fujie, Ma Haijiao, Ye Funa, Gao Yan, Mou Yan, Kagawa Kijiri, Liang Hongwei, Yuan Song, Zheng Jiayan, Zhang Yongji, Wang Chunshuai…
The keywords of the exhibition are “survival experience” and “virtual experience”. In order to make each invited space responds better to keywords based on its own experience and give corresponding feedback and realistic representation, each art space will make its own exhibition plan and artist selection according to the exhibition theme on the premise that each invited space agrees with the exhibition plan, framework, and path of development. The curator will not interfere with the selection of artists and exhibition forms. Each space will complete the exhibition plan within the specified time according to the practical experience of its own institution. The complete exhibition will be set up by BCA’s CV (cryptovoxels) engineers. The curator only organizes and makes adjustments. This “decentralized” way is also what independent art spaces and cryptographic art are trying to achieve.
IASC Independent Art Space Chain hopes to bring together independent, niche, and non-profit spaces with experimental nature starting from Beijing then spreading to the whole country, so as to show and promote the comprehensive independent art space as an important part of the context of Chinese contemporary art within the scope of public vision. Compared with traditional offline exhibitions, the cooperation with BCA Cryptographic Art is a choice with more imagination. Since the beginning of the millennial generation, new ways of online social networking, shopping, payment and other virtual online life have gradually spread throughout society. It is also a trend to view, discuss and buy art through crypto art platform. BCA cryptographic art, as the current representative in blockchain crypto industry, is bound to be associated with the Internet, games, virtual reality, and other industries. It will also iterate following the update of Internet technology. The progress of technology also provides more possibilities to art development. The collaboration of the exhibition is unprecedented for both independent art spaces and BCA. Since in virtual reality, virtual space can be free from the limitations imposed on physical space. Combining with technical means to implement more experimental and virtual projects, it also expands crypto art’s discovery of different artistic ecologies. More importantly, people all over the world who participate in the virtual world of blockchain can understand and pay attention to the status quo of Beijing’s independent space.
About BCA
BCA (BlockCreateArt) is the world’s leading decentralized art-tech platform that integrates the creation, trading, collection, and culture & education outputs of crypto art. BCA aims to create a crypto ecosystem in which everyone is empowered to participate. The crypto ecosystem that BCA intends to build includes the primary business segment, MetaOpus (Asia’s leading art decentralized NFT platform), coupled with other business subsidiaries: BCA Studio (crypto art studio) and BCA Gallery (digital curation), BCA Display (screen display) etc. As an industry benchmark in the field of NFT, BCA brings together cross-industry expertise to maximize the potential of blockchain technology in the art world and collectively reimagine the future of crypto art. Since its launch in October 2020, MetaOpus has covered 16 countries and regions, has gathered 498 artists, and the platform serves 50,000 global users. As of February 2021, the total turnover of BCA has reached $5 million.
About IASC
IASC (Independent Art Space Chain) is founded by LIU Bo and FANG Xianchen. “Independent art space” is a “wild” art space with civil foundation and self-organized management, which is independent from art museums, galleries and other institutions. It originated from the current reality. Although they are peripheral, they play important roles in balancing the entire art ecology. It is a kind of existence with multiple facets. The core of the independent space is to insist on independence and freedom, which is different from the current state of mainstream. It counters the marketization and tendency of officialization in contemporary art ecology. It is experimental and offers more places for experimental and exploratory artists to practice art. There are now more independent spaces across the country to make impact by expressing in multiple forms and engaging in open dialogue with local communities. From space in the building of the art district to space in an apartment, from space in an artist’s studio to space in hutong, all of these have built an ecological network of independent spaces from scratch. IASC Independent Art Space Chain hopes to bring together independent, niche and non-profit spaces with experimental nature starting from Beijing then spreading to the whole country, so as to show and promote China’s comprehensive independent art space as an important part of the context of Chinese contemporary art within the scope of public vision. Similarly, IASC plans to invite more independent spaces to participate in different topics, so as to generate a wider range of communication and dialogue with the public both online and offline.
About LIU Bo
Director of Sense Space, co-founder of IASC, independent curator.
Graduated from School of Humanities, Central Academy of Fine Arts. His main field of interest in recent years is: the development of independent art spaces and present study of the relationship between the individual artistic experience and locality. He has participated in or planned more than 30 domestic and international exhibitions, art fairs and important cooperation projects between art institutions and art galleries.
In 2019, he co-founded Sense Space and has curated a series of exhibitions including “Even IF, Even though”, “The Hou Village & The “Hou” People “, “Three Exit Strategies”, “Terme Commun”, “Peach Deep Valley”, “Enrich Life”, etc. With the unique context of the space, he focuses on cooperating with young artists in an exploratory, professional and experimental manner. In 2020, he co-founded IASC Independent Art Space Chain hoping to bring together independent spaces with experimental nature, so as to show and promote China’s comprehensive independent art space as an important part of the context of Chinese contemporary art within the scope of public vision.
