Whole Picture — At the intersection of digital and physical art.
Héctor Falcón, the leading conceptual Mexican artist, announces his first NFT project: The Whole Picture, produced by Strata.
Only made possible by blockchain technology, Whole Picture is a collaboration between artist and participants. It will create 1200 unique, multi-layered, interactive artworks: a bridge between digital and physical art.
Launch date: June 2021
Vivid, passionate and expressive: and that is just the artist. Héctor’s artworks are global. He has more than 35 individual and over 140 collective exhibitions to his name; and his work has been shown in leading art fairs such as Frieze, The Armory Show, Art Basel and Volta.
Despite Héctor’s self-evident success over the past two decades, he nevertheless remains beneath many people’s radar. The 48-year-old artist has a wide and loyal following, both in Mexico and in Japan, where he has both lived and studied. But self-promotion is not his thing: you won’t find him posting daily on Twitter.
An insatiably curious, energetic and adventurous conceptual artist, he is a painter, sculptor and illustrator. Héctor is also a filmmaker whose work has appeared in events from the Guggenheim Museum in New York to the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. And, despite his installations that imagine a world without time or space, Héctor is deeply engaged with the present day.
Deeply: this is not just a figure of speech. Héctor literally unpeels layers: his skin has been branded, tattooed with invisible ink, and his bones fused with metal. And in his most famous series of paintings- Constructive Modular Extraction- he slashes through his own canvases to reveal the images that lie deep beneath.
The holes carved out of these multi-layered pieces offer ever-changing glimpses of what would otherwise remain hidden. They reflect on what it means for each of us to be truly seen by others. How do we strip away surfaces and look for truth beyond the stereotypes of beauty that dominate our culture? This is a subject that Héctor returns to again and again with a playful intensity.
It is therefore with deep delight that Strata introduces The Whole Picture, in which Héctor — as much adventurer as artist — is taking his best-known art into the digital realm. This is a collaboration that will give 1200 participants the chance to co-create their own unique, Héctor Falcón artworks.
Each piece will consist of four digital canvases of varying rarity, with a number of opportunities to lock in one’s favoured choices. When complete, these digital works can be manipulated by their owners: the layers can be rearranged, slid in differing directions, and even automated to display themselves from ever-changing perspectives.
But who is Strata?
Strata is a new gallery with a small international team based in Tokyo, London and New York. Strata has watched as NFTs have either been eulogised as revolutionising and democratising the art world, or been dismissed as worthless vapour. There has been an implied slap in the face for those galleries and dealers perceived to have distanced ordinary people from artists. The money, the jargon, the elitism, the rarified environment: there has been a sense that NFTs can gleefully, even nihilistically, upend all of this.
Yes, the sense of anarchy and experimentation has been exhilarating. The best new digital pieces that have emerged do what art always has done: give us an idiosyncratic view of the world, engage our senses, and express beauty and humanity. At the same time, some NFTs have been used to create art that — being tactful — could be described as a somewhat cynical rush for crypto gold.
But Strata is more interested in answering two questions: can intangible and tangible art interact in a mutually enriching way? And how can it best help its artists and audiences not only to benefit from the digital scarcity enabled by blockchain, but to use it to collaborate and connect? Strata’s approach is that NFT artworks are not merely one-and-done transactions. Instead, its projects are designed to evolve, providing long-term value and utility for owners, artists and community members.
NFTs as a medium offer a new way of seeing: a new way to create, experience and own art. They are a mode for aesthetic expression that can sit alongside physical art. The art critic Steinberg said: “All original art seeks its limits.” Blockchain technology is the next evolutionary step in allowing artworks to communicate ideas and to take on a life of their own.
Find out more:
Website: www.strata.gallery
Twitter: www.twitter.com/0x_Strata
Instagram: www.instagram.com/0x_Strata
Telegram: https://t.me/StrataGallery
