Kenny Schachter had, shall we say, a difficult relationship with the arts institution. An artist (and Artnet News columnist) operating at the forefront of new media, Schachter has long shunned gallery models and market winds, instead embracing emerging technologies in a way that rubbed shoulders with the mainstream art crowd.
Example: Schachter involvement in NFTs, which debuted in 2019. “Nothing prepared me for the level of conservatism and backwardness in the art world,” he told Artnet News of the response to blockchain companies. “It was very disconcerting.”
Schachter’s new NFT project will not improve these relations, even if it is a clever job. Created in collaboration with the digital gallery Dataa, Principle Pop is a gamified project that opposes two distinct camps. In one corner is a group of traditional art players and in the other, the avant-garde of digital art. And how will the winner be determined? By the number of mints, of course.
On May 18, Schachter will release a series of eight open-edition NFTs, each featuring a player designed in three dimensions. They include artists Yayoi Kusama and David Hockneyand mega-dealer Larry Gagosian on the alumni team, along with digital stars Beeple, Osinachi and Refik Anadol who make up the new media brigade. Curator Hans Ulrich Obrist is considered a “neutral actor” because he is Swiss.
Tokens will drop at Schachter personal exhibition at the NFT Gallery in New YorkAnd sold on Dataa until June 17.
Kenny Schachter, Larry Gagosian [left] and Yayoi Kusama [right] (2023). Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.
four rounds of Principle Pop will be played, with the most hit character in each round being crowned the winner (the “Pop” in the project’s title refers as much to Pop art as it does to popularity). The collector with the most NFTs of the winner will additionally receive a physical sculpt of the character, while other holders can burn their tokens to redeem prizes.
Once the rounds are over, the four winning characters will face off in a final showdown.
For even a fantastically imagined battle royale to rage between the traditional and digital art worlds is “juvenile and stupid”, Schachter admitted, “but it really is.”
“It should just be a happy little universe of people making art with similar goals and intentions,” he continued, “but I’ve created a whole new set of enemies by being a such NFT adherent.”
Kenny Schachter, Osinachi (2023). Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.
Schachter’s vocal support and quasi-evangelism for NFTs – coining the term”NFT-ism,” among other things– are not totally out of place. As a contemporary art practitioner working in mediums ranging from digital art to video, blockchain makes sense as “a way to codify work into a digital certificate of authenticity, to be able to buy and sell these works,” he said.
In Principle Popthis usefulness is folded into the content of the art itself. For Schachter, the participatory and playful element of the project, leveraging the format of open editions, offers a break from existing static art forms.
“Art is about the social, political, economic and technological aspects of our culture and society,” he said. “In that regard, it’s really interesting to have a project where there’s a participatory nature, and it really comments on a new form of art that is transformative and dynamic.”
Kenny Schachter, Refik Anadol [left] And Paris Hilton [right] (2023). Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.
The release of Principle Pop is only the tip of a project in several chapters. Schachter currently has 50-75 other characters in development, hoping to expand his cast to hundreds. The goal is for them to fulfill a real video game in a later phase, in which traditional and digital artists can engage in non-lethal combat, possibly shooting paintballs at each other.
(Schachter plans to “bring to life” this game, along with his other blockchain projects such as open bookat his next solo exhibition at the Francisco Carolinum Linz in Austria.)
Kenny Schachter, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2023). Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.
If all of this sounds funny, even a bit silly, that’s because it is: Schachter is no stranger to the humor of absurd flavor, calling it “a release valve for life”. So while the gap between the traditional art and new media worlds may never go away, that doesn’t mean an artist can’t make art or light in the meantime.
No points, however, for guessing which side Schachter leans in Principle Pop. “It’s an NFT project,” after all, he said.
“For me, NFTs are just a way to find people who would look at my work and potentially collect it when the art world was just a series of closed doors in front of me,” he said. he adds. “It’s just a great way for artists to empower themselves to find other ways.”
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