In 1935, at the dawn of mass media, critical theorist Walter Benjamin wrote an influential essay about the impact of new means of mechanical reproduction on art. He argued that while technologies like print, photography, and radio enable new collective forms of art appreciation, they also rob an artwork of its “aura”—an almost supernatural quality tied to its uniqueness.

Almost a century later, technology has all but collapsed the distance between the audience and art, prying the works from their context in a process that Benjamin found so very destructive to the aura. You can peek at Jerusalem’s Western Wall via a live cam on your morning commute or get up close and personal with the Mona Lisa in an eight-minute VR experience and still have enough lunch break left to browse Twitter.

As Art Basel opens on Dec. 1, we are once again on the cusp of transformative technological change. The floodgates of creativity have opened: major brands are experimenting with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and giving users more power by integrating on blockchains like Polygon PoS. Metalabel, a blockchain project by Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler, is building the infrastructure for collective creation in what they call “creativity in multiplayer mode.” Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), social coins, soulbound tokens (non-transferable NFTs that can help represent a person’s identity and achievements in Web3, as described by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin)—the list of innovations keeps growing.

Artists interested in probing the boundaries of what’s possible are getting into the industry and starting to make things. If the gap between the physical and digital can close, the infinitely reproducible can be unique once more. Casting forward is no easy task, but we’ve found three trends in crypto art that everyone will be buzzing about at the art fair and beyond.

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From Web3 Salon Sessions co-hosted with Polygon at the W South Beach to cocktails fêting a visionary sustainability exhibition by Model No., join Surface and the leading designers in our network for a packed Miami Art Week.

They say “go big or go home,” and for this year’s Miami Art Week, Surface is going bigger and better than ever with immersive art-meets-Web3 programming at the W South Beach. Those planning to be in town for the Art Basel and Design Miami/ VIP days can look forward to joining Surface for a series of thought-provoking, salon-style conversations, a disco-fied lightwave bungalow, and opportunities to fête with our community of artists and designers.

Starting today, check out our Bungalow at the W South Beach, produced in partnership with Polygon, a decentralized scaling platform for developers and creators to build apps and digital collectibles—and get them onto Ethereum. The Surface x Polygon Bungalow will serve as an immersive hub for creative discovery with installations by MokiBaby, OffLimits, Spatial Labs, LNQ, Recur, Prism Collective, and Worthless Studios, and a showcase of furniture and collectible design objects by Kartell, Djivan Schapira, Bert Fernari, Ara Thorose, ABDB Designs, and more. See more for details of the three salon-style discussions we’re hosting around the power of Web3 in sustainability, fashion, and community, with innovators such as Iddris Sandu, Bonin Bough, Neil Hamamoto, Tam Gryn, and more.

Outside of our activation at the W South Beach, we’re sharing details on events from our community of Surface-approved artists and designers, including a panel with homeware designer Tina Frey, a ceramics exhibition presented by SCAD, and a multi-artist furniture launch by Model No.

Starting today, the artist-designer Matthew Fisher has opened the doors to his Soho holiday shop, which will be open through Dec. 20 at 21B Crosby Street in New York. While the practice of the Surface designer of the day is rooted in anthropological study, his trademark glass and honed marble vessels evoke a profound sense of timelessness. Visitors can look forward to a selection of Fisher’s vessels, a monumental incense burner, and coordinating Cinnamon Projects incense, all commissioned for the occasion of the shop’s opening.

“As my art has matured into a business, I have felt a separation grow between myself and those who connect with my work,” Fisher says of his decision to open a brick-and-mortar shop. “I’ve used this opportunity to create a treasure trove of handcrafted objects where I can watch the amazement in someone’s eyes as I introduce them to the variation and natural beauty of stone. These interactions are the reason I left a desk to pursue this passion in the first place.”

An architect by training who grew impatient with the slow pace of projects, Minjae Kim soon found satisfaction in furniture design—a medium in which he could control the idea, process, material, and work at his own pace. Whether wooden chairs or fiberglass floor lamps, the Seoul-born talent’s emotive furnishings are replete with architectural ideas yet playfully transcend them, with results that are at once simple, imperfect, impractical, poetic, and always teeming with personality.

The curator of a powerful Miami Art Week exhibition with Silver Art Projects and Art for Justice addressing the racism imbued within a rarely sung verse of “The Star Spangled Banner,” the New York artist assembled a diverse cohort of creatives to plumb obscured truths and reveal what’s snaking underneath in pursuit of more inclusive dialogue. His own contribution: a stark mixed-media painting whose rows of out-of-focus grayscale figures symbolize millions of incarcerated Americans and were made with soil smuggled from his prison yard.

When: Nov. 28–Dec. 3

Where: Claire Oliver Gallery, Miami

What: Claire Oliver is bringing a lively group exhibition to a spacious gallery in Overtown, a beacon of cultural prosperity for Miami’s Black community. During the day, the showcase presents works by Robert Peterson, Stan Squirewell, and Simone Saunders, among others, before activating an entire block with a performance by MumuFresh at the historic Lyric Theatre, an over-the-top fashion show with BruceGlen, a Photoville showcase, and whiskey tastings by Rabbit Hole. From the culinary partners—Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster among them—to the Overtown locale, “Loop” reflects the gallery’s 30-year-long mission to champion underrepresented talents.

Art for Change, an online platform that empowers collectors to give back to nonprofits with every acquisition, is partnering with artist Donna Huanca to donate a portion of proceeds from her latest print to grantmaker Artadia. Huanca, a 2015 Artadia grant recipient, lives and works in Berlin. Her latest limited-edition print, Karita de Diosa, is pulled from her site-specific multimedia performance at Copenhagen Contemporary called Lengua Llorona (2019), which means “crying tongue” in Spanish. The hand-embellished print is available on artforchange.com, and is on view at Artadia’s booth at NADA Miami from Nov. 30–Dec. 3.

Since winning its bid for the FIFA World Cup a decade ago, Qatar has been eager to bolster its cultural clout with substantial investments leading up to the marquee event, which kicked off this past week. The Persian Gulf country has debuted world-class museums, an ambitious public art program, starchitect-designed stadiums, and five-star hotels, but thousands of migrant worker deaths, dubious sustainability claims, and criminalization of homosexuality are overshadowing the hype.

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