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XXI exhibition presented by ARTCELS, thehouseoffineart.com ★★
When New York artist Adam Parker-Smith said “I feel like so many of my ideas start out as jokes, for better or worse”, he may not have anticipated featuring in an exhibition that looks like the mother of all art-world pranks.
Parker-Smith, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Kaws, and Jeff Koons are among the 20 artists included in XXI, advertised as “the world’s first asset-based contemporary art exhibition”, launched online this week by ARTCELS, a new digital broker for blue chip art investments.
By now you might have expected some mention of the work itself, or the narrative thread that ties together this unprepossessing selection of works arranged by artist, on lo-fi virtual walls, and includes three Banksy prints and some tiresome spot-painted skateboard decks of Hirst’s.
Well, they were all made in the 21st century (hence XXI), and by and large they are all vacuous.
The selection is disappointingly familiar, and no wonder – many of the pieces here are multiples made by artists responding to demand, with Jeff Koons’s shiny red Balloon Rabbit, itself a reworking of a much larger original, one of an edition of 999.
Paintings made in collaboration with skateboard manufacturer Supreme serve as uninspiring vehicles for George Condo and Robert Longo, artists long past their best, and while Los Ne El Barrio (2019), by street artist Retna is an original work, it still looks ubiquitous.
Above all, XXI is an investment portfolio of artists selected not for their originality, or brilliance, but for their potential to yield huge returns. ARTCELS launched in February, offering 1,000 shares while exhibiting the XXI portfolio at HOFA’s London gallery. With shares priced at $500 (£390), ARTCELS pitches its investments at younger investors attracted by the rocketing value of the contemporary art market.
ARTCELS shares sold quickly enough that a further 400 were released in April. The high demand reflects the state of the art market, with online marketplace Artfinder this week reporting a doubling of online demand since the virus outbreak.
One senses that investors are not primarily interested in art, but even so, the opportunity to bask in your fraction of a Jeff Koons Balloon Rabbit has to come as part of the deal.
Given the trust issues endemic in the art world, the virtual exhibition performs a sort of habeas corpus, the low-resolution rendering making it unsuitable for anyone wanting to look for enjoyment.
For investors, one suspects, the more important object is the digital token issued with each share, each containing the vital proof of ownership and authenticity that make the difference between junk and jewels.
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