This will age really well ➡️ This is aging really well ➡️ This aged really well ➡️ This will age really well
Brief overview of the 3rd Chapter of the first Romanian NFT group show „This will age really well”, developed and implemented by Leilei gallery.
What kind of gallery welcomes its visitors with free NFTs at its openings? And why so?
Who writes a curatorial statement and then comes to dismiss it in that very exhibition?
In what context do physical works overlap with their video versions, creating mesmerizing multilayered works?
Leilei Gallery presented, throughout July & August, a multilayered exhibition, the first NFT group show in Romania, organized in 4 chapters in which time, both an empowering and a weakening force, is the arch-concept to interrogate the becomings of art works: in their materiality and digitality.
For each chapter, artists were invited to intervene in a technique of their choice upon the works, to explore the potential performative evolution of the pieces. To befriend our public with the NFT paradigm and to inspire them to start collecting digital art, 10 of the invited artists offered free NFTs at the openings and enjoyed observing the guests interacting with the wallets and showing each other what they had collected.
Ioana Marșic, Leilei Gallery Executive Director, shared some insights:
It wasn’t an easy project to work on and to be totally honest it did seem quite scary in the beginning. But, as difficult as it was at its outset, as many pleasant surprises and satisfactions it offered us. It was fascinating to watch it grow Chapter by Chapter and I am super pleased to seethe visual outcome of it, which I couldn’t imagine in the very beginning. I was and I am thrilled to collaborate with each and every artist, they all had amazing ideas, different but somehow unitary within the curatorial concept. So, I am grateful to have been part of it!
For the 3rd chapter – “This aged really well | Forge those sidechains” , physical works intertwined with their video counterparts creating bewildering palimpsest pieces.
Alexandru Zaharia /ZafGod’s “Dream states of a mortal mind” fragmented into dissolution, IIOANA’s “Exit Wound” fragmented, overlapped, broken and recomposed in a pop, psychanalytic kitsch vibe, while the Bernard Joisten’s “Final Approach” sent viewers to a Madmax, apocalyptic realm.
Laurian Bardoș / Syntax minimalist dripping sounds were the audio landscape that unified the whole viewing experience, while Albert Kaan’s "Looking back to look Forward" hints towards a magical-realism (if Giordano Bruno would be doing digital contemporary art).
Marina Oprea continues her “Self-Archeology” journey with a gripping piece in which a tiny shadow of the artist herself digs in a cradle of sand towards self-rediscovery, while Lucian Hrisav’s intervention on his piece 𝟲𝟲𝟵𝟳-𝟰𝟰𝟮𝟯-𝟵𝟯𝟳𝟭 functions as an anchor into the fast discard - reality, possibly reminding one of a napkin by the side of the bed, or a wrapping on the side of the road.
Moreover, Ra (Raluca Țurcanașu, part of the curatorial& project team) brings in a video work to counter-talk the very curatorial concept. Feeling there's something fishy & wasteful about NFTs (and even more so for those based on Proof of Work blockchains), she decided to blend this counter-concept into the exhibition. Ra’s work is a video poem developed in a digital discomfort aesthetic, a mere walk in the forest that turns into a critical debate.
The forth and final chapter “This will age really well |Final proof” opens on Thursday, at 6 PM, and will wrap up the entire conceptualcircle. Guests will be able to collect a free NFT piece created by LeiLeiGallery together with the invited artists and also a print of one of the artworks.
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Extended project group at the opening of the 3rd chapter, from left to right:
