A collaboration between ANDY WARHOL | YACINE AK | NIWIN COLLECTION & Virtual Exhibition made with SPATIAL
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ELYX, NFT and LYON
1111 Gallery opens the year 2022 with its 21nd Carte Blanche: a dialogue between Andy Warhol and ELYX, a character with an incredible history created by the artist Yacine Aït Kaci, aka Yacine AK.
Within its physical and digital walls, 1111 Gallery will be hosting a collection of 1,111 NFTs, of which 111 will be duplicated as single editions prints. A Virtual Exhibition will open in the same time.
Probably nothing.
ELYX by Yacine AK
Working since 2000 with the idea of ‘digital shadows’, Yacine Aït Kaci created ELYX ten years ago as an extraordinary fictitious artistic character. ELYX is mischievous, cheerful and benevolent. Resembling to a contemporary Pinocchio, ELYX literally came to life, firstly by becoming a celebrity followed on social networks and then in 2015, by becoming the first and unique Digital Ambassador for the United Nations. That same year, Yacine Aït Kaci was the guest artist at the COP21 and ELYX was at the negotiating table of the Paris Agreements.
At the dawn of its second decade, the ELYX character is continuing its journey towards autonomy. Having jumped out of his traditional sketchbook, he is now evolving in the metaverse… in the interconnected spaces between augmented and virtual realities and real life.
“ELYX is the simplicity of the line that meets the complexity of the world to reveal its poetry and beauty.” Yacine Aït Kaci
What are NFTs ?
NFTs are clearly the strongest symbol of the art world awakening after two years of pandemic induced numbness. The ArtReview Power 100 List ranks the phenomenon at the very top of its list, as it revolutionizes our relationship to the artwork, the artist and the art collection.
A NFT (non-fungible token) – is a certificate of ownership relating to a digital asset (image, video, music, writing, code), its existence and provenance is recorded through a smart contract on a blockchain. NFTs are created, signed and sold in cryptocurrencies.
In dialogue with Andy Warhol… an obvious exercise
Andy Warhol – Pop Art’s most iconic artist and master of all things ‘hybrid’ – made mass-produced products artistic and popularized the mass-production of art itself. Indeed the minimization of his role in the (re)-production of art was reflected in his claim that he wanted to be “a machine”. The parallel with NFTs is strong because NFTs appeal to a ‘Pop’ universe in the 21st century and are created, in whole or in part, by the use of an autonomous system (‘generative art’).
The exhibition at 1111 Gallery will consist of 1111 portraits of ELYX responding to works by Andy Warhol, 111 of which will also be physically available as single edition prints.
The logical path! Gallery 1111’s tradition of developing a dialogue between Contemporary artists and Grand Masters of Art History will be taken to a new height. ELYX will not only respond to Old Master’s but also to Old Gangsters. The latter are the emblematic and pivotal figures of ‘crypto art’.
Art collector and cryptopunk, Niwin (@niwineth), of DaoZ.eth Collective, has been onboarded to collaborate with this project: his CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, Beeple and other works by Pak will also contribute to the dialogue. If these names are not (yet) familiar to everyone, they are nevertheless some of the key figures in the blossoming world of NFTs and the crypto-space.
A Virtual Exhibition in a NFT Museum
The Exhibition PARALLEL will be shown in the Metaverse, in a Gallery which is a NFT itself and the first NFT space of Spatial. The ELYX Museum was in 2021 the first ever Museum made with Spatial and the collaboration never stopped. Spatial has since became a major NFT actor.
Yacine AIT KACI aka Yacine AK
Born in Paris in 1973, Yacine AIT KACI is a french Artist and pioneer of Digital Art. After Electronic Shadow, in tandem with Naziha Mestaoui, who since 2000 has been paving the way to bridging the gap between reality and virtual, created many innovative installations and live shows and won many international awards, including Ars Electronica (2004), Japan Media Art Festival (2005) and Laval Virtual (2004, 2005)...
Yacine Ait Kaci a.k.a. Yak, created ELYX in 2011 as a digital personnality who became in 2015 the very first United Nations Digital Ambassador.
In 2018, he created with Adeline PILON the ELYX Foundation and ELYX company that bridge the gap between Sustainable Development Goals, Innovation and Art. In its New Decade, ELYX logically enters the Metaverses and the NFT world.
The story continues... Go Check out the Gallery!
