Digital Art Fair Xperience Showcases Beeple, Hirst, and More in Hong Kong

One highlight is the fair's Immersive Zone, which features an AI hologram by Jacky Tsai, DAF's digital artist of the year.

Digital Art Fair (DAF) Xperience returns for its second edition from 20 October to 6 December at Hong Kong's Asia Standard Tower.

Opening in lieu of DAF's regular Asia fair, which was postponed until 2023, the show features over 400 digital artworks worth a combined US $3.8 million.

Artists on display include Beeple, Pak, Victor Wong, Yuga Labs, Wing Shya, Refik Anadol and Damien Hirst, who went viral on Ocula's TikTok account last week after setting fire to 1,000 dot paintings he had also minted as digital art NFTs.

Contemporary art galleries including de Sarthe, Opera, Max Estrella, and Unit London are participating alongside emergent Web 3.0 projects such as Obscura DAO.

'I am excited about the potential tech provides artists and creatives to push their talent into new dimensions,' said DAF Founder and Global Fair Director, Gillian Howard, who once described digital art as 'the language of our time'.

While the Metaverse will become a key space for art exploration and interactions, Howard said, she doesn't think our lives will be entirely dominated by digital technology.

'I believe in elevating the experience of art through technology,' she said.

One of the show's centrepieces is the Immersive Zone, which features physical and digital works including an AI hologram by London-based Chinese artist Jacky Tsai.

Tsai, who DAF named their 2022 Digital Artist of the Year, fuses traditional Eastern Art and Western pop culture in his work. He says this engagement with pop culture helped make his life easier as an Asian kid in a foreign country.

Another highlight of the fair is the Web3.0 project Art X Game: Time Travel in the Metaverse Hong Kong, which can be played in the Virtual Zone alongside other virtual reality and Metaverse experiences.

DAF board member Jehan Chou championed blockchain-based technology's capacity to allow creators 'to connect directly to their collectors and develop communities around their art'.

Celebrities who have promoted NFTs to their fans include Lindsay Lohan, Snoop Dog, Madonna, and Canadian musician Grimes, who collaborated with teamLab on their first NFT, Matter is Void, which debuted in Times Square last week.

Traditional artists are also becoming more involved with NFTs, with painter Loie Hollowell releasing a generative NFT project with Pace Verso and Art Blocks on 28 October.

Commenting on the rapid uptake of NFTs among Asian collectors particularly, Chou said, 'I expect Asia to lead the world in developing world class NFT art collections and establish an anchor for digital culture going forward.'

In tandem with the Xperience show, DAF and Sotheby's are hosting the Xperience Digital Art Auction online from 20 to 27 October. It features works by 21 digital artists, including Wong Ping-Pui, aka anothermountainman, and digital designer Henry Chu —[O]