NFT Rome

NFT Rome presents itself as the largest Web3 event in Italy, a multi-day programme in the capital that brings together digital art, fashion, luxury, tokenization and parties. Alongside the conference, its organizers run Curated, a series that profiles prominent digital artists; one of its issues was devoted to Federico Clapis, tracing his move from viral video and hidden canvas paintings to crypto art, and works such as Babydrone in Space, Concrete Babydrone and the bronze Crypto Connection on London's South Bank.

The Curated initiative also took physical form at La Rinascente in Rome, the department store chain. One photograph shows the store's dark, steel-framed facade at dusk, under the illuminated RINASCENTE lettering, with a grid of screens alternating the NFT Rome logo, the store's name, a panel with Federico Clapis' name and images of his works, including the drone carrying a heavy bundle. Inside, by the tall windows that look onto a historic building and a garden, an orange totem lists the artists of the initiative, among them Clapis, and its patronage by the City of Rome, while a large vertical screen on a stand shows his portrait, a QR code and a sculpture in which a drone lifts a stone-like bundle in a ruined industrial space.

The installation brought Clapis' Babydrone imagery, born as tokenized animation, into a retail landmark open to a general public, consistent with NFT Rome's attempt to link digital art with the city's fashion and luxury audience.

Sources

• NFT ROME - Curated - Federico Clapis — NFT Rome (Substack)
• NFT ROME - Event Announcement — NFT Rome (Substack)
• NFT Rome — Federico Clapis