NFT School

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

• Riitta Hakkarainen’s NFT School is a rigorous and at the same time playful reflection on institutionalisation of crypto art in a more traditional art world. For the past two years NFTs have become the new normal of every fair, large exhibition or a contemporary institution. The latest Art Review’s chart Power100 starts with ERC-721, features MetaKovan and James Murdoch as an NFT-investor. The ‘new normal’ at the same time implies learning about NFT technologies, which not too many contemporary art connoisseurs are fully fluent with. In Hakkarainen’s ironic take on crypto education, artists and NFT enthusiasts are put back behind the school desk. In her edgy, absurdist animation, inspired by both Eugen Ionesku’s anti-plays and Soviet animation, learning becomes a dangerous game (some of the students are consumed by their teacher) and a spiritual practice of cognition. One of the teachers is a nun, who becomes Ethereum, and the new masterpiece is born via the divine touch of an algorithmic teacher and a pupil.