“Never fear art…At the end of the day, this is just art, people making art, people having a way to communicate their art with the greatest number of people as possible, and that should be embraced with open arms… My point is you can’t write anything off that is—it just is. It’s people taking advantage of the internet in a way that’s never existed before and artists are going to grab their hands around anything, technologically, socially, politically, economically; this is just what art is about.”

— Kenny Schachter,  2021

Larsen Warner is pleased to present the group exhibition Tomorrow & Tomorrow. The exhibition presents the work of 12 international artists utilising digital and NFT technology to pioneer new ways to view the creation of art and subvert traditional expectations of art making. This two part exhibition highlights a cross-section of artists in dialogue with one another, reflecting the diverse artistic expressions that are possible within this digital world.

Digital art is an expansive field that can trace its roots back to the 1950s when artists interests in the rapid evolution of technologies began to be explored in earnest. Throughout the late 1960’s and early 1970’s a small group of artists began to experiment with emerging computer technologies to create new forms of visual expression. Early pioneers such as Frieder Nake, Vera Molnar, and Michael Noll paved the way for digital artists by using algorithms and programming languages to generate art. These collective efforts contributed to shaping today's technologies and their aesthetic qualities. In recent years, digital art has regained popularity due to factors such as increased accessibility to digital tools and platforms and Social media allowing artists to showcase their work directly to a broader audience. 

Creating art has always required technical aids, be it hammer and chisel or paint and brush. In this technological age we can add algorithms, graphics programs and artificial intelligence to the potential ‘toolkit’ of the contemporary artist. The artists in Tomorrow & Tomorrow utilise coding, Artificial Intelligence, 3D-animation, digital painting and code-generation with some creating work that manoeuvres between both the digital and physical realm.  Although the use of these new technologies may feel on the one hand separate from more traditional artistic materials, each artist still wrestles with the age-old artistic concerns of line, shape, texture, form, space and materiality.
 
The emergence of NFTs and the blockchain has revolutionised the art market by allowing artists making work within the digital realm to tokenise and sell their work, providing a new source of revenue and recognition. What is important to remember is that NFT’s are not the artwork itself, but merely bits of code providing a unique ID to a digital artwork to help facilitate its sale and clear provenance for that work. The NFT space therefore becomes a community of like-minded artists and collectors, linked by a pioneer attitude of being part of something that acts as an alternative to the more traditional contemporary art world; a space where experimentation with and utilisation of digital tools facilitates the creation of worlds that are textured, expansive and playful.

Over the last year, the collision of art and NFTs has been discussed largely in terms of sales and markets, but what has gradually evolved, and what Tomorrow & Tomorrow aims to do, is offer a more nuanced and in depth look at the art itself. Museums have shown increasing scholarly interest about the possibility of NFTs, with MoMA presenting salons and the Centre Pompidou recently acquiring 18 NFTs to add to its storied collection.
 
Tomorrow & Tomorrow aims to offer our audience the unique opportunity to view not only the relationship between digital art creation, NFTs and the traditional contemporary art world but also how as an audience we perceive and interact with digital art. The exhibition gives a Swedish audience the opportunity to forget the headlines and just experience the art; to embrace the lush experimental worlds created by these 12 pioneering artists.
 

To view Part 1 of the exhibition click here: