Urs Fischer, *CHAOS #22 Simulacrum*, 2021 © Urs Fischer

The Road to Pace's First NFT Platform

Pace has underscored its commitment to digital art with a series of groundbreaking ventures in 2021.

Ahead of the launch of its dedicated NFT platform in November, the gallery is participating in the POAP Hunt ’21, an official NFT.NYC satellite event taking place across New York City from October 31 to November 4. As part of this city-wide NFT treasure hunt, Pace has created a Lucas Samaras POAP viewable via a QR code on-site at 540 West 25th Street.

The gallery’s new NFT platform will launch later this month with an exhibition of a suite of NFTs derived from Lucas Samaras’s XYZ series. Like Samaras’s digital works presented by the gallery earlier this year, these NFTs will be accompanied by corresponding physical prints. Each framed work will include a QR code that links to stream of consciousness texts written by the artist. NFTs in this inaugural presentation on Pace’s platform will be dropped incrementally over the course of several weeks.

The following list details Pace’s recent NFT endeavors, from a presentation of Urs Fischer’s digital sculptures to the inclusion of an NFT by Simon Denny in the group exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight.

John Gerrard x Foundation

John Gerrard, Western Flag, 2017, simulation © John Gerrard

Token ID: 10922
Contract ID: 0x3B3ee1931Dc30C1957379FAc9aba94D1C48a5405

New media artist John Gerrard released his first-ever NFT on the (opens in a new window) Foundation platform in March 2021. The digital work, Western Flag (NFT), was derived from the artist’s solar simulation Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017, which was commissioned by Channel4 UK for Earth Day in 2017 and focused on climate change. Through sales of his NFTs, Gerrard aims to support soil restoration and post petroleum agricultural practices in Ireland, his home country.

Urs Fischer Chaos Series NFTs

Urs Fischer, CHAOS #22 Simulacrum, 2021, non-fungible token © Urs Fischer

Token Name: MakersTokenV2, ID: #66711
Contract ID: 0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756

Pace presented 12 original digital sculptures from Urs Fischer’s CHAOS series in July 2021. Works from this body of work feature unexpected, lively pairings of multifarious foods and objects. Created using 3D modeling and 3D scanning, Fischer’s CHAOS series comprises 501 works in total. “Each pair is made of two distinct objects that stay in continuous connection. The two objects are relative in scale to one another. Each object is unique,” Fischer once wrote of the project.

Simon Denny's Backdated Cryptokitty in Hiding in Plain Sight

Simon Denny, *Backdated NFT/ Cryptokitty Display Hardware Wallet Replica (Celestial Cyber Dimension)*, 2018, 2019, 2021, Non-fungible token ERC-721, jpeg, Cardboard, UV print on cardboard
Token ID: 27005433718751699368447260805922346391603114239126140863833717362317147543738
Contract ID:0x7c523c42AD255E5b270B12fEE2Ecc1103e88a9dC

As part of the 2021 group exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight at Pace in New York, the gallery spotlighted Simon Denny’s Backdated NFT/ Cryptokitty Display Hardware Wallet Replica (Celestial Cyber Dimension) (2018/2019/2021) NFT. Through this new digital work, Denny explores connections between Conceptual art, Duchampian gestures, and the crypto and cyber spheres. Referencing an earlier work by Denny that included a cardboard replica of the cyber wallet, this new NFT was accompanied by a physical component.

Lucas Samaras x Known Origin XYZ NFT drop

XYZ 0879 (Chinoiserie) by Lucas Samaras — Lucas Samaras, *XYZ 0879 (Chinoiserie)*, 2012/2021, non-fungible token
Token ID: 1726000
Contract ID:0x36cf31019816e9490959f75ba9164edd304de01d

In September 2021, Pace presented two newly minted NFTs derived from Lucas Samaras’s XYZ series via the platform (opens in a new window) Known Origin and in the online iteration of the group exhibition Convergent Evolutions: The Conscious of Body Work. These works— XYZ 0862 (Chinoiserie) and XYZ 0879 (Chinoiserie)—comprise digital components and physical prints. They feature psychedelic, vibrantly colored abstractions and reflect Samaras’s boundary-pushing experiments in image-making.