New York’s MoMA now has works of art in its permanent collection

Generative art is proving Web3's creative anchor in the traditional art world. Last month, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) made headlines by acquiring Rifik Anadolu's “Untraceable — Machine Hallucinations” (2022), along with last year's “3FACE” project by Ian Cheng. These two mark the first time artificial intelligence (AI) and virtualization (NFT) have been introduced to MoMA's collection, which includes artifacts such as Andy Warhol's soup cans and Vincent van Gogh's “Starry Night.”

From 1968's “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age” to this year's “Signals: How Video Changed the World,” MoMA's long-standing legacy of pioneering exhibitions at the intersection of technology and art is enhanced by major acquisitions.

MoMA's announcement comes on the heels of the institution's digital art programs next fall and winter, including video artist Leslie Thornton's latest work, “HANDMADE” (2023), and an online exhibition. year. A few weeks ago, MoMA announced its postcard-on-chain project.

“These new initiatives underscore MoMA's long-standing commitment to helping artists experiment with new technologies to expand their visual vocabulary and creative exploration, increase the impact of their work, and make a difference in the world,” the museum said in a statement surrounding their acquisition. States.

“I'm very proud to be included,” Cheng told Cointelegraph. “MoMA previously acquired my ‘Emissaries' of tokenism in 2017. Their openness and enthusiasm for dynamic digital art is rare for an institution.”

Unsupervised

It's the screensaver heard around the world. With this one-time Google artist-in-residence and immersive machine-learning summaries, whether you're a fan or a skeptic, chances are you've seen it. Anadol designed this specifically with the help of Nvidia. It feeds 138,151 visual metadata from MoMA's collection into an algorithm that generates an AI imagination of art history through Anadol's signature enhancements.

After its release in November 2022, “Untraceable” was reviewed by critics from Vulture, Artforum and others. The time it took to write those reviews speaks volumes for the import of the work. Jerry Saltz's half-baked hot writing doesn't cut the mental toil it requires. Enemies alone did not make Anadolu famous – it has many loyal fans if not collectors. MoMA chose to extend the work's 24-foot-tall display several times. It just went down on October 29, but visitors who generated their Proof of Attendance Protocol, or POAP, from the posted QR code still have a piece of the show.

Renowned NFT collector and founder of the 1 of 1 Club, Ryan Zurer, along with the “RFC Collection” led by Pablo Rodriguez-Frail and Desiree Casoni, made the work accessible.

“I tip my hat to the people at MoMA for understanding the current cultural zeitgeist,” Zurer told ARTnews. “ChatGPT went up unattended two weeks before its official release. AI is a hot topic of the moment, and MoMA has mastered that. I'm excited to give this work to MoMA. But this from me.” I have to admit that it's not just a donation [collector] Pablo Rodriguez-Friil, but from Riffic. It's bringing in servers and screens and other components. The NFT is part of this conceptual artwork now owned by MoMA.

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While the museum could not verify whether Anadolu donated the hardware that enabled the “unsupervised” display, we can only assume that was the case. He said Thornton's “HANDMADE” will be screened in the same Gund Lobby where it was “produced and verified by Refiq Anadolu Studios” on the same screen as “Unsupervised”.

3 faces

Meanwhile, Cheng eschews branding. A lifetime of psychological research with state-of-the-art technologies reveals the process more than any aesthetic. In fact, there are 4,096 unique “3FACE” editions, and none of them were clearly designed by Cheng's hand. Those who work in the generating project at any given time will display visual images of their owners created from data collected from their wallets. MoMA calls it “his most ambitious experimental artwork to date, expanding the artist's interest in humanity's ability to interact with change to explore blockchain technologies and decentralized information.”

In his quest to represent and model the brilliant mind, Chung told RightClickSave last year that he believes “art plays a role in enhancing our unconscious response to complexity.” “3 Faces” celebrates the depth of each person – and their ability to change because they are flexible.

NFT platform Outland Art donated “3FACE” to the MoMA collection. “Jason Lee and Chris Lew advised a lot and helped the team turn the idea into reality,” Cheng told Cointelegraph. “I wouldn't have done ‘3FACE' outside of a foreign country.”

The work's official introduction on MoMA's website does not list what number it is from the entire series or whether it has a wallet. MoMA didn't respond to Cointelegraph's comment, but with the way “3FACE” works, and since MoMA started collecting works of art on chains, this could be the “3FACE” interpretation of a wide-open wallet filled only with Anadol. “Unsupervised”

Another chapter of art history

Carrying the torch from earlier controversial and pioneering works of art such as photography, generative art has forced this generation of artists to reassess what exactly makes art worthwhile.

“The endgame of generative AI tools is a new immediacy between thinking and visual expression,” Cheng said, reflecting on what's next for the art of AI. “We are accustomed to the immediacy between thought and written or verbal expression. A writer, without the help of an intermediary, can construct a novel. Imagine if you, without the help of an intermediary, could make a movie. As with a novel, the filmmaker is only limited by their own imagination, taste, quality of inquiry, courage to pursue the gray truth, and understanding of human nature.

Technology is constantly evolving, but it's the slow evolution of artists' abilities to use it that separates the eye-catching from the damaging. Those two aren't mutually exclusive—although MoMA Anadol's purchase is itself akin to the institution of buying a Louis Vuitton bag, which society calls luxury, it's a story in itself.

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Anadol and Cheng both primarily work with data when making AI art. The spontaneous nature of their process has implications. “Unsupervised” begs the question: What is art history? – A broad topic traditional art historians argue without even violating painting. According to its construction, “3FACE” asks the people who come into contact with it how they think about the messed up human mind. It is one of the few projects that uses accounting as a transaction.

Museums like the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Center Pompidou began collecting NFTs in their heyday. MoMA's decision to give allegiance to such works now marks a new watershed moment.

Cheng said, “Now we pinch our noses at ‘AI art' because the first experiments look like experiments, but after 10 years, they are trivial.” “The ease of producing visually enhanced expression opens up more art agencies to more people, and that's a good thing.”