SuperRare’s New York City Pop-Up with AI artist Claire Silver

Curated NFT marketplace SuperRare takes over the 0x.17 gallery in New York for a two-month exhibition, emphasizing the importance of bringing non-fungible token (NFT) artwork into immersive, physical spaces.

The pop-up at 0x.17, a community-focused NFT gallery in the historic South Street Seaport neighborhood, will feature a curated program of works from over 20 SuperRare artists. The gallery opens on June 1 with a solo show from AI artist Claire Silver entitled “Artifacts”.

“The exhibition showcases seven artworks based on different philosophies and questions about our future with AI in the form of seven different media: video, generative, still image, poetry, music, 3D and an avatar with an AI voice,” SuperRare said in a press release . release.

Silver told CoinDesk that AI art is carving out its own space in the evolving world of NFT art.

“There are whole movements happening in this space and within crypto art,” she explained. “They have their own formative artists and they live in the digital world. And we’re only going to spend more time in the digital worlds, in our lives and in the next generations to come, and AI will accelerate that.”

SuperRare debuted its first pop-up gallery in May 2022 in the SoHo area of ​​New York. Founder John Crain told CoinDesk that bringing NFT art into shared physical spaces helps “humanize” the experience.

“As exciting as digital art is – and NFTs have facilitated this kind of revolution and resurgence in art – art is really about human connection and storytelling at the end of the day,” he said. “You just can’t replicate that yet in a digital environment.”

The upcoming exhibition will be an evolution of last year’s more traditional, minimalist gallery event, and will be designed to encourage conversation and interaction between attendees.

“This time we thought more about ‘where should we facilitate conversation?’ and “what should people do?” and just make it a little more comfortable place to hang out,” he said. “A gallery or museum can feel a bit academic and sterile, and it’s not necessarily where you have a deep conversation.”

Crain emphasized the importance of bringing digital art out of the confines of a computer and into physical spaces, where people from across the traditional and crypto space can come together.

“We’re still educating people about why this is interesting and a legitimate medium for art,” he said. “These are people in real life, and the context for art is super important.”

Since Silver began working with artificial intelligence, she has often combined physical art with digital media. Some of her previous work involved creating abstract acrylic paintings and collecting the “skins” or dried paint that was not on a canvas, and collaging it onto AI portraits. A piece titled “a feeling I can’t put my finger on,” embossed on request for pseudonymous art collector Cozomo de’ Mediciwas created this way and was recently donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

“Art is an emotional experience, but it’s also a sensory experience, right? So many people struggle with the concept of digital art without a physical counterpart,” she said.

Silver’s work, along with the work of many other NFT artists, has been brought to life through museum exhibitions, gallery screenings and live multimedia experiences. And as NFT art continues to find its way into more traditional spaces, Silver hopes that dismissive attitudes toward crypto art will continue to change.

“I hope that the traditional collectors in the traditional art world who maybe don’t see the value proposition in digital art and NFTs — I hope that they think of them as artifacts, or as cave paintings of a digital age that we’re going to. to come in ,” she said. “And they can think of themselves as collectors of history as well as art history.”