VAULTED Art Collector Profile #3 - AugustGround
Vaulted is a series where prominent members and collectors in the Tezos ecosystem are interviewed and highlighted.
Vaulted #4 with with AugustGround
“Sincerity is seen. Needs are often met. Humble, yet with a strong foundation I believe Tezos is positioned to be a long-term and undeniable digital powerhouse.”
Merve: Can you tell us how your collecting journey began?
AugustGround: Around three years ago, during a deeply transformative period in my life, I took a long vow of silence and divested myself of assets (and patterns) that felt ethically problematic. Having recently left the lands of the glitterati (L.A., N.Y.C. Nashville etc) I was holed up in a shack in a tiny mountain town with a slowly dying Mother. At the time, my hope was to find a balance between IRL and the digital realms - light and matter - while experimenting with a low-energy consumption and severely ascetic lifestyle. In the monastic traditions (both aesthetic and spiritual) I had been exposed to as a child, there are periods during which “madness” is accommodated, and even encouraged, as one enters the inevitable and perennial dark night of the soul.
This was such a period - an opportunity for transformation. My band and relationship had both fallen apart and I was trading currencies a bit, painting and mucking around in the strange hell of OpenSea while caring for my dementia-riddled mother. Even from my remote locale I still had access to digital worlds and there was something unprecedented and yet familiar (I have a degree in Painting) about what I eventually found on Objkt and TEIA and fx(hash).
Despite the magnetic pull of the art, however, I was still hesitant to engage more deeply - having grown up extremely poor and also disinclined to engage in more computer and online activity. And remember (as we all hear so very, very often) - “but there isn’t anything there” - hahaha!! Anyway, after one particularly long barefoot walk, while mulling over value and liquidity, non-fungibility, rhizomatic philosophy, Spinoza, Ramakrishna and DADA, something fundamental within me shifted and I resolved to respect both the undeniable power of digital art and my compulsion to return to it.
It made perfect (non) sense - this emerging arena of human expression - both a necessary evolution (personally and culturally) and an opportunity for a new global community. This tiny pocket of artists felt like the new artistic underground, both punk and playful - it reminded me of my old anarchist art school community. So, I gave myself free rein to abandon any reservations and explore and collect more deeply within this niche. Set up my first Temple wallet and bought Tez. OFF to the races!! I think one of my first pieces was True Face which absolutely knocked me out. Within a year, I began minting my own work - and here we are now… I’m the shepherd of (I believe) one of the world’s most incredible digital collections and am super excited about my growth as a digital artist as well. It’s a win-win.
Merve: Can you share a story about acquiring one of your favorite pieces or any interesting moment in your collecting journey?
AugustGround: This is hard to answer because I have had so many incredible collecting experiences over the years - there is nothing quite like the feeling when you are able to acquire a piece that hits that special chord. For me personally, I feel art in my gut first -and then I allow my intellect to savor the conceptual underpinning. Off the top of my head - I remember getting hacked (!) (free airdrop anyone?) and a Metamask wallet was compromised - there was malicious software that was draining any currency I put in as fast as I added ETH to try to transfer out assets.
It was a purgatorial hell unfolding before me and I ended up having to destroy the wallet. There was a 1/1 by Violet Bond I had picked up from her very early series Last Night (Burial Rites and Other works) that I was unable to get out and I was totally devastated. It haunted me for months and eventually, I mentioned it to Violet Bond. She offered to burn the piece on ETH and re-mint the work (ON TEZOS) and it’s now one of the gems in my collection. I am so grateful for that feeling of camaraderie and community and, of course, to once again be able to appreciate her fabulous work.
Merve: What sets Tezos apart in your eyes compared to other NFT ecosystems?
AugustGround: Quite simply, Tezos houses some of the most relevant and amazing art being made in the world right now. Tezos has outperformed and outlasted everybody else - artists flirt with numerous platforms and currencies (many of which collapse under their feet) and ultimately return because of the passion and commitment of the global community on the chain.
The diversity, culturally and geographically, is incredible, and the low minting fees allow people from economically challenged communities easy entry into the ecosystem. There are filmmakers and Harvard grads, special effects designers, musicians, illustrators, photographers, artists, poets, musicians, people of every stripe and those simply in need of a place to express themselves freely. It is a place to call Home.
The consistent delivery of quality service through the platforms that have embraced Tezos, especially Objkt, is stellar and the lack of rug pulls and fools gold which characterized so much of Web2 and parts of Web3 is exemplary. It is a real-time work-in-progress - not built on promises of fabulous wealth, actually built on a steady and deeply supportive group of devs, artists and collectors. Sincerity is seen. Needs are often met. Humble, yet with a strong foundation I believe Tezos is positioned to be a long-term and undeniable digital powerhouse, even THE pre-eminent ART chain.
It has become an ideal place for people of all creative inclinations to find and refine their artistic voice and I do believe that ultimately all these qualities will be what define Tezos. I hope the chain ultimately embraces what I see as a glorious inevitability. How’s that for a manifesto? hahaha! And I’m not really even a chain-maxi.
Merve: How would you evaluate the current state of the NFT market, particularly on Tezos?
AugustGround: Mmmm - I think we are in a crucial period of growth in the market. These are uncharted waters with incredible opportunities and challenges. Aside from the rise and use of crypto-currencies, there is an emerging class of curators and gallerists who are openly embracing the digital art market. Museums and film festivals are pivoting rapidly to play catch-up as they try to understand what is happening. A movement that is no longer peripheral is being recognized as the future and an inevitability in terms of cultural relevance.
So much of contemporary experience is filtered through screens and the digital medium that it is criminal to ignore the art being birthed in real time in relation to those realities. Glitch, Pixel minimalism, digital video painting, etc. are new arenas of vibrant aesthetic exploration, even as Trad art markets are flat and losing public interest.
The artists on Tezos have shown consistent sales even through the bear - not astronomical prices -but proof of a backbone and an interest that continues to expand. This has been done through the blood, sweat and equity of the people deeply invested in the ecosystem. New collectors are drifting in from the trenches of Solana and ETH - lured by the art and the low price point. I also think that as youth culture embraces the digital aesthetics it was weened on the market will continue to burgeon. Aesthetics tokenized as modern currency in decentralized markets will shape the new world…we are in uncharted waters as art, finance, and social media shift what is even possible.
Merve: Who are your three favorite artists/artworks on Tezos from your collection, and what makes their work stand out to you?
AugustGround: This is an impossible question to answer frankly. Every time I wander through the thousands of pieces I have collected, different pieces ask me different questions, speak in a new voice and since I collect across so many arenas it depends on my mood on any given day. So that being said let’s see…
Most people who know this ecosystem know why Ex_mortal is so highly regarded. However, I am especially fond of his early early noise study pieces. They are severely minimal, on the edge of chaos, negligible feedback on a screen. Digital detritus captured and offered as art. They propose an entirely new aesthetic arena with what I would argue is a direct line to the great ab-ex painters of late modernity. Through this work (and early Tugkan and Ernesto Ash) I began to understand and reflect on the unique mark making and abstract potential in the digital medium. I believe these are historic pieces in that regard.
Another highly visible artist I love with a well-deserved reputation is RJ. Watching the evolution of RJs work parallels watching the evolution of Tezos itself. His understanding of art history informs the work as he flirts with iconic pieces from the past, group portraits and the history of the computer itself and the software that drives it. Often his portraits feel monumental, totemic even. They evoke an utterly unique sympathy for the human experience within AI and the digital marketplace. I also loved his underappreciated homage to Joseph Beuys, How to explain a dead hare to the internet, minted on ETH. His work is deeply engaging conceptually and aesthetically for me.
Xu0xo is an utterly unique and astonishing artist. Graphic and bold shifting tiles on monochromatic fields - in my mind carrying on specific lineages of art history into the new digital medium. Echoes of synthetic cubism and Op-Art, late Rothko. The themes are often playful, light-hearted even, which is reflected in the color palate and sound design. Xu0xo’s work feels like a midday nap in high summer- an otherworldly and beautiful dream. The piece “Icarus” I commissioned and was featured as the lead in Pocobelli’s artist journal episode #357 — Poco is also a huge fan.
Merve: Which three emerging artists on Tezos do you think are worth keeping an eye on, and why?
AugustGround:
Ras Alhague—powerful 3D body scans in the .glb file format. New form of photogrammetry -provocative body based work born from performances. Where the digital meets flesh. Humanism and fetish in the digital realm.
Skomra has consistent explorations in AI and portraiture. The visible effects of pixelation and filters as an aesthetic medium - on the edge of the abstract but holding on to form. Reconfiguring traditional representational norms - art thieves and computers and trees presented in a familiar yet provocative manner. Bold color and compositions that are immediately recognizable as Skomra’s fingerprint.
Cedar Plank (Sometimes known as Hasdrublewaffles) A vibrant and almost explosive sense of freedom in the exploration of digital mark-making and content. By turns brutal and then delicate, the work makes me feel a sense of joy and echoes of madness. The palpable physicality of the work is unusual and visceral. A contemporary ART BRUT. Waffles in an elusive and unique artist on the chain.
And a few more cause I just HAVE TOO!! Lubitel Bliznih, Daria Rastunina, Tugkan, Demonego and Kylodzi