Join us for a discussion with Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, Anika Meier, and Kelani Nichole led by Rail Editor-at-Large Charlotte Kent. We conclude with a poetry reading.
In this talk
Auction houses are curating shows of blockchain art. A museum is set to open a show on June 10. Galleries are presenting exhibitions of new works. Curators are presenting and reinventing how we understand blockchain art after a whirlwind spring of rollercoaster sales.
This panel with curators from varying institutions invites us to understand the role curators play, especially as so much blockchain hype is around circumventing ‘gatekeepers’ and decentralizing the art market. In this liminal moment when blockchain is disrupting many traditionally held concepts in the various art worlds, what role can curators play? How is curating itself changing? In what ways can curators help artists navigate the distributed space of blockchain? What problems are curators noticing and do they want to address how blockchain is entering our art worlds?
Curator and art dealer based in New York City, Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle was recently appointed the title of Director of Online Sales at Pace Gallery—managing the gallery’s digital helm and recent foray into the NFT market. Christiana made her curatorial debut in April with the group exhibition Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm, which featured work by six black female-identifying artists: Caitlin Cherry, Delphine Desane, Emily Manwaring, Kenya (Robinson), Sydney Vernon, and Qualeasha Wood. The exhibition supported a deconstructive discourse around femininity, sexuality, and gender politics through a post-internet lens.
Writer and curator Anika Meier was the author of a column on art and social media for the German art magazine Monopol and now writes a column on digital art for Kunstforum. Her most recent exhibitions include the exhibition series The Artist is Online curated with Johann König at KÖNIG GALERIE / KÖNIG DIGITAL. The first exhibition in this series by Manuel Rossner can be visited via the app KÖNIG GALERIE. Other recent exhibitions include Berlin, Augmented Berlin with Highsnobiety and Link in Bio. Art after Social Media (2019/2020) at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig. Her texts have appeared in Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, Spiegel Online, Kunstforum, Numéro Berlin, der Freitag, Mindstate Malibu, among others.
Technologist and media art specialist based in Los Angeles, Kelani Nichole works with product teams and startups, and founded an experimental media art gallery called TRANSFER which explores simulation and expanded practice. TRANSFER aims to elevate emerging media in contemporary art, with a focus around critical encounters with software. The gallery was founded in Brooklyn in 2013, and launched the international exhibition series TRANSFER Download in 2016. In 2019 the gallery opened a location in Los Angeles. Nichole and the gallery have been featured in publications including Artforum, the New York Times, and Artnews, and placed works with prominent media art collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Thoma Foundation.
Associate professor of visual culture at Montclair State University Charlotte Kent, PhD, has a particular interest in historical frameworks for art practices, with a research focus on contemporary digital culture and the absurd. She writes for assorted magazines and various academic journals. She is an Editor-at-Large for the Brooklyn Rail.
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