NFT Cryptoart Fair
Curated by NFT Magazine
Abu Dhabi, UAE
The Crypto Art Fair is the exhibition format created by NFT Magazine, the publication founded by Rodni and Xhois Baja. After its launch on a billboard in Times Square, New York, the fair travelled to the United Arab Emirates as part of Blockchain World, a large blockchain festival held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC). According to NFT Magazine's announcement, the works of more than thirty NFT artists ran in a continuous loop on a large LED screen in the exhibition hall for the whole festival, alongside workshops, talks and a conference stage. For the first time, selected works were also offered through auctions and sales on OpenSea, reachable from QR codes displayed at the fair.
Federico Clapis was among the artists named in the line-up, next to digital creators such as Alex Christodoulou, Andreas Wannerstedt, Antoni Tudisco and Marco Mori. The photograph from the hall shows his animation on the main screen, in a dark space under a ring of light: a white baby carried by a drone, as in his sculpture Babydrone, drifts in orbit above the Earth with an astronaut, phones and other objects. A side panel carries the fair's branding, the artist's name and a QR code inviting visitors to scan and bid.
The Abu Dhabi presentation shows the step from sculpture to crypto art in Clapis' practice: a subject first made as a physical object becomes a looping digital work, shown on a screen and sold directly as an NFT.