Presenting the Art Blocks x Pace Verso Spring 2023 Program

Pace Verso, the Web3 hub of Pace Gallery, and the leading generative art platform Art Blocks announce details of three new Web3 projects produced as part of the multifaceted Art Blocks x Pace Verso partnership. Upcoming releases by Art Blocks x Pace Verso include Genesis NFTs by Trevor Paglen and Maya Lin as well as a new Web3 project by John Gerrard. Together, these three projects—which put the expansive possibilities of generative art on full view—reaffirm Pace’s commitment to supporting its artists as they enter the evolving field of Web3. These artists’ varied approaches herald a new era for the medium, which has its roots in 20th century experimentations with technology.

Established in 2022, the partnership between Art Blocks and Pace Verso encompasses NFT releases, exhibitions, and community programming. In its first year, Art Blocks x Pace Verso has produced projects by artists working across traditional and digital mediums, including Robert Whitman, Loie Hollowell, Tara Donovan, A.A. Murakami, and Gerrard. Through their unique Web3 works, these artists have harnessed the imaginative potential of generative art.

As part of this collaboration, Pace Verso has featured NFTs from these projects at Pace Gallery’s global locations in New York, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Seoul, and Geneva as well as international art fairs, including Frieze London, West Bund Art & Design in Shanghai, and ArtSG in Singapore. Art Blocks and Pace Verso have presented artist talks and other digital programming across Twitter Spaces and Discord, cultivating a robust following across their individual channels through direct engagement with Web3 communities. Together, the partners have also hosted special events in New York, London, Los Angeles, and Austin to bring their respective audiences together.

Art Blocks x Pace Verso’s forthcoming projects will be available for purchase on artblocks.io and sold through Dutch auctions, in which price descends until the series is sold out, generally in under one hour. Participating in an Art Blocks Dutch auction requires a crypto wallet, funded with Eth. Prior to each project launch, Pace Verso will hold collector onboarding sessions to support new collectors in setting up crypto wallets, funding them with Ethereum, and preparing to participate in the Dutch auction. In addition, Pace Verso is available for one-on-one consultations with collectors who are interested in participating in a Dutch auction for the first time. Pace Verso can also support collectors in sourcing screens to display generative artworks. For more information, please contact verso@pacegallery.com.

Art Blocks x Pace Verso’s spring 2023 program follows below.

Trevor Paglen

PRELUDES

Release date: April 5, 2023

The first Web3 project by Trevor Paglen—who investigates a wide range of technological, scientific, socio-political, and historical subjects in his work across photography, sculpture, video, and installation—will comprise several interconnected elements focusing on the history of disinformation and PsyOps in America. One of these components is an interactive and experiential NFT series in which Paglen has hidden easter eggs for collectors to uncover, decipher, and utilize in other parts of his project. Collectors who unearth their NFT’s secrets are entitled to a free limited-edition vinyl record LP from Paglen’s related “speculative reality work,” titled CYCLOPS, and a gelatin-silver print created by the artist.

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Maya Lin

The Secret Life of Trees

Planned Release: June 2023

Maya Lin’s first-ever Web3 project—realized by Pace Verso x Art Blocks in conjunction with E.A.T__Works—captures the intricate and organic growth patterns of a living underground network of tree roots, reflecting the artist’s interest in making viewers aware of the complexity, beauty, and fragility of nature. This collection was inspired by and evolved out of Lin’s acclaimed public artwork Ghost Forest, which was presented in New York’s Madison Square Park in 2021. Lin created Ghost Forest as part of her work in environmental activism, bringing 50 towering Atlantic white cedar trees together to examine the Earth’s vulnerability and the outsized impact of climatic calamity. The algorithm the artist has created for the project will generate artworks that capture growth patterns as varied as naturally growing organisms.

John Gerrard

World Flag

Planned Release: June 2023

John Gerrard—who has devoted over 20 years of his practice to developing game engine technology for his public- facing simulations—released his first NFT, Western Flag (NFT), an artwork derived from his simulation Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017, in 2021. Western Flag (NFT) recently became the first NFT to be acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Petro National, a series of NFTs Gerrard released in 2022, was the first Web3 project to be produced as part of the collaboration between Art Blocks and Pace Verso.

The artist’s latest NFT series, titled World Flag, unites the formal and thematic concerns of his past two Web3 projects. Expanding on Petro National’s examination of issues of oil consumption across the world and Western Flag’s visual features, World Flag will include 195 unique NFTs, each of which depicts a different nation’s flag amid a generative desert scene. As with Petro National, World Flag engages the potential of temporal and spatial media online through game engine technology, connecting the world of WebGL with NFTs.

To learn more about Pace Verso, please visit (opens in a new window) www.pacegallery.com/pace-verso.