The exhibition DYOR at Kunsthalle Zürich, which ran from 8 October 2022 to 15 January 2023, marked a seminal moment in the intersection of traditional art institutions and the burgeoning world of blockchain and crypto art. Curated by Nina Roehrs, who is also the author of this contribution[1], the exhibition provided a platform to explore the creative and conceptual underpinnings of Web3 technologies[2] — blockchain, NFTs, smart contracts and decentralised networks — through a curatorial approach that embraced the ethos of decentralisation, community and active engagement.

 

Installation view of exhibition DYOR at Kunsthalle Zürich & DYOR logo by Andreas Gysin (aka ertdfgcvb). Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

DYOR (Do Your Own Research) as a New Maxim in the Age of Web3
The dictum “Do Your Own Research” epitomises the ethos of the crypto scene, encouraging individuals to do their own research rather than accepting information at face value. The choice of DYOR as the exhibition title was deliberate, reflecting the multifaceted nature of this phrase. It acknowledges the complexity of blockchain and NFT technology, and therefore the difficulty of accessing art in this context, while inviting viewers to approach this emerging world with curiosity rather than prejudice. When crypto art burst into mainstream consciousness in early 2021, it was met with scepticism, much like the disruptive art of figures like Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol in their time, and even Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian (2019) today. DYOR is both a challenge and an invitation to enter this new field with an open mind, to question and discover its artistic potential.

As J.J. Charlesworth aptly observes in his ArtReview article, “the stylistic range, from academic to self-taught, reminds the more austere artworld of a vast, quotidian culture of imagemaking among amateurs and enthusiasts that was always out there, but that networked culture has, in the last decade or so, magnified and accelerated to an unprecedented degree.”[3] His reflection underscores the exhibition’s openness to embracing the divergences between cultural communities, aligning with the ethos of DYOR. By foregrounding this diversity, the exhibition situates itself within the broader dialogue of how Web3 reshapes traditional hierarchies in the art world.

The title DYOR also emphasises individual responsibility and self-education. Web3's decentralisation places autonomy in the hands of the individual: be your own bank, your own gallery. The curatorial strategy extended this maxim, avoiding reductive didacticism and instead creating a dynamic framework for exploration and dialogue.

 

DYOR—Card from DYOR: Crypto Glossary by Moxarra Gonzales & Adina Glickstein. Developed for the exhibition DYOR in collaboration with Spike Art Magazine.

Curatorial Philosophy—Decentralisation in Practice
The curatorial approach for DYOR was deeply informed by the decentralised ethos of Web3. A key concern was to avoid the pitfalls of institutional colonialism by presenting crypto art as an authentic, grassroots phenomenon rather than assimilating it into traditional art world paradigms. This required a balance between contextualising crypto art for new audiences and respecting its distinct cultural and technological frameworks, while “not engaging in the risky endeavour of raising barriers between art and non-art, amateur and professional,”[4] as Domenico Quaranta commented in Outland.

By foregrounding community-driven practices and enabling visitor agency, the exhibition embodied the principles it sought to explore. As a result, DYOR was not just an exhibition about Web3 but an enactment of its core values; decentralisation, autonomy, and inclusivity.

To curate an exhibition about a world where the principal ideal is decentralisation involves a certain contradiction because curation demands selection, exclusion, and gatekeeping. This tension shaped the curatorial process, necessitating innovative approaches to balance inclusivity and the curatorial need for coherence. Most people would, I think, accept that we need curators who have done their research, and who can identify works and contextualise them thoughtfully. The question is ‘how?’

For DYOR, the solution was to involve multiple artists, platforms, curators, collectors, visitors, and even traditional galleries to ensure diversification, decentralisation, and inclusion. The exhibition was therefore structured around nine sub-sections that were co-curated and created by nine co-curators / creators, featured more than 300 artists, co-issued and distributed 7,818 NFTs, minted on three blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tezos), and had more than 8,000 visitors. There was also a strong emphasis on projects that enabled participation.

The Crypto Art World
DYOR traced the rapid evolution of crypto art, a domain that surged into mainstream consciousness in 2021 with record-breaking auctions, such as Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days at Christie’s.[5] However, crypto art’s origins date back to 2015/2016 with early experiments on the Bitcoin blockchain, and it has since evolved at breakneck speed. To contextualise this evolution, mostly driven by coders, artists and communities, DYOR has taken an investigative curatorial approach, starting with its origins and cultural significance.

Crypto Art History—A Movement of Values over Aesthetics
Commonly known as a wall cloud, the meteorological phenomenon cumulonimbus murus indicates a strong updraft and powerful thunderstorm from which tornados can form — a fitting metaphor for the turbulent and transformative history of crypto art.[6] Cumulonimbus Murus (2022), a multi-media installation by artist and crypto art historian Martin Lukas Ostachowski, highlighted key milestones that informed crypto art, serving as a visual and intellectual exploration of its origins and cultural importance.

 

Installation view of DYOR—Cumulonimbus Murus at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

The installation comprises digital artworks and a detailed essay that contextualised pivotal movements such as cypherpunk ideals, the search for identity within online communities, and the development of platforms that democratised art production and royalties. These milestones were arranged in a manner that mirrors the dynamic and sometimes chaotic growth of the crypto art ecosystem, inviting viewers to trace its evolution from niche innovation to global phenomenon.

Through its layered presentation, Cumulonimbus Murus not only provided an engaging historical narrative but also embodied the DYOR ethos of investigation and discovery. Visitors were encouraged to delve deeper into the connections between the movements represented, fostering an understanding of how digital art emerged as a response to cultural, technological, and economic shifts.

Pepe the Frog—How a viral meme went from outcast to art museum[7]
Another section curated by Fabian Wyss (aka FWD) featured the Pepe community in a cypherpunk, “cannabis-plant strewn ‘living room’ dedicated to perhaps one of the earliest examples of an internet meme becoming an NFT: Pepe the Frog. […] The convivial absurdity of Pepe (not withstanding his brief hijacking as a mascot of the US alt-right) highlights how much the NFT boom has been rooted in online subcultures that have had little to do with the artworld’s more exclusive networks,”[8] as Charlesworth points out in his article for ArtReview.

 

Installation view of DYOR—Pepe the Frog Space at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

This OG[9] community exemplified early NFT practices, originally termed Rare Art. It celebrates the idea that anyone can be an artist and that great artists steal and fake. What started as a physical trading card type asset was soon transferred to the Bitcoin blockchain and is still a very vibrant community today, with numerous and well-known crypto artists such as ROBNESS, Matt Kane, Dimitri Cherniak, Marcus Connor. It is a community that not only creates memetic digital assets, but often works with physical artwork and combinations of both worlds.

Through physical trading cards and later digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain, the Pepe community highlights the interplay between humour, artistic innovation, and decentralised collaboration. Merchandise such as posters, stickers, and T-shirts — hallmarks of conventions and community gatherings — further highlighted the commercial and cultural dimensions of the crypto art ecosystem.

NFTism—Beyond Technology
Elsewhere in the Kunsthalle, Kenny Schachter, a critic, former dealer, and anarchic Artnet columnist, was represented through a wallpapering of article printouts, screengrabs, and even a life-size avatar of himself dancing. As Charlesworth explains in ArtReview, this display highlighted Schachter's role in “cheerleading what he saw as the positive disruption that the NFT boom brought to the conventional artworld.”[10]

Schachter has been an active advocate of NFTs, coining the term NFTism (a trademarked concept) to encapsulate his perspective. He has promoted this ideology through his art, writings, curated exhibitions, fairs, and even a social token launched on SushiSwap in December 2021. Charlesworth observes that “Schachter's provocation needled many in the established artworld (he’s built his reputation on being the ‘insider’s outsider’, after all),”[11] emphasising how the influx of NFTs has challenged traditional gatekeeping and introduced a new cohort of artists and collectors previously sidelined by the art market.

This disruption underscores a broader shift: beyond the technicalities of smart contracts, the essence of NFTs lies in the communities that have emerged around them. These communities transcend the transactional focus of buying and selling digital art, uniting creators and collectors in a shared, humanistic ethos. Here, individuals from diverse backgrounds collaborate and support one another without expectations of direct reciprocity — a stark contrast to the zero-sum and quid-pro-quo dynamics that dominate the conventional art world. Moreover, platforms like Discord have fostered a novel model of discourse, eroding the traditional distance between creators and buyers.

However, Schachter himself acknowledges the darker side of this revolution. Reflecting on the rapid commercialisation and exploitation of the NFT space, he revised his NFTism tattoo to read Post NFTism. As he describes it, the once-promising arena of crypto and collectible art has “quickly and ruthlessly devolved into a free-for-all cash grab characterised by greed and scams.”[12]

Installation view of DYOR—NFTism at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

After a couple of quieter years, with more space and time for art and less money involved, it will be interesting to see what the looming bull run will bring.

DYOR Crypto Glossary—a world with its own jargon
Whether you’re an Original Gangster (OG), a crypto-pilled enthusiast, or a steadfast no-coiner, it is hard to miss the distinctive lexicon of the crypto world. The jargon, both playful and perplexing, reflects the culture’s intersection of cutting-edge technology, speculative finance, and internet-born irreverence.

For the exhibition, a guide was created to demystify some of this terminology, providing an accessible entry point for audiences navigating this brave new world. Taking inspiration from the iconic Garbage Pail Kids trading cards — a nostalgic nod to one of the cultural precursors to NFTs — the guide offered a concise and engaging glossary to empower visitors to Do Their Own Research (DYOR). It was designed as a countermeasure to Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD), equipping readers with the confidence to decode crypto speak.[13]

FUD—Card from DYOR: Crypto Glossary by Moxarra Gonzales & Adina Glickstein. Developed for the exhibition DYOR in collaboration with Spike Art Magazine.

 

The DYOR: Crypto Glossary was a collaborative effort, pairing the vivid illustrations of Moxarra Gonzales with the sharp and witty text by Adina Glickstein. This collaboration brought to life 23 collectible cards, each defining a key concept in crypto culture. These cards were presented in the exhibition as in installation that consisted of an expansive wall installation and some physical collectible cards, bridging the digital and tangible worlds.

 

Installation view of DYOR: Crypto Glossary at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

In true crypto fashion, the glossary was also minted as NFTs and released (dropped) on Nifty, extending its reach into the blockchain realm and making the cards digital collectibles. The collection can be viewed and collected here.

This fusion of art, education and technology underscored the exhibition's exploration of the ways in which crypto is reshaping cultural production and exchange. To date, the collection has generated primary and secondary market sales totalling 46,200 CHF (5 December 2024).

24 SEEDERS—Navigating the Blockchain’s Art Pioneers and Curating Autonomy
At the core of the DYOR exhibition was the installation 24 SEEDERS, a physical and conceptual homage to the 24-word seed phrase used to access blockchain wallets conceived by Armin Blasbichler.

 

Installation view of DYOR—24 SEEDERS at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

This installation merged physical presence and conceptual depth, utilising three rotating wooden turnstiles to showcase the contributions of pivotal artists and platforms that shaped the crypto art movement. Its design encouraged visitors to physically interact with the panels, forging their own pathways through the curated narratives. As Domenico Quaranta, in his review for Outland described, the installation “welcomes viewers into the curatorial process. You can manipulate and rearrange three massive wooden turnstiles with panels featuring artworks, platforms, and collaborative projects that planted influential ideas in the culture of the blockchain.”[14]

 

Installation view of DYOR – 24 SEEDERS at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

The panels highlighted an array of contributors, from acclaimed artists such as Anna Ridler & David Pfau, Botto, Larva Labs, Rhea Myers, Sarah Meyohas, and Simon Denny, to innovative platforms like Art Blocks, Async and MOCA. These participants exemplify the diverse principles of Web3, including royalties, Creative Commons 0 (CC0) licensing, dynamic NFTs, and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).

Initially, each artist or platform was given a dedicated panel to showcase their work. However, as the installation evolved, the number of contributors expanded to an impressive seventy-four through collaborations and the inclusion of additional projects. One notable example was XCOPY’s iconic Right-click and Save As guy (2018), a work that critiques the misconceptions surrounding digital ownership. Right Click Save refers to the possibility to get a copy of any digital image with a right mouse click whereby only the person who owns the NFT owns the original image. XCOPY’s wall not only displayed this seminal piece but also featured derivative works created by seven other artists invited by XCOPY. This act of collective creativity reflected XCOPY’s ethos of open inspiration, bolstered by his adoption of a Creative Commons 0 license to encourage reinterpretation — a fitting strategy for the attention economy.

 

Installation view of DYOR—24 SEEDERS | XCOPY (featuring gremplin, JAKE THE DEGEN, Kristy Glas, Lumps, neurocolor, SHZZM and Zenoyis) at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

Through its structure and intent, 24 SEEDERS blurred the boundaries between traditional curation and decentralised creativity. It is not only a physical manifestation of blockchain principles but a challenge to the traditional hierarchies of the art world. By actively involving the audience, the installation underscored the transformative potential of Web3 in redefining art’s production, distribution, and engagement paradigms.

A Slice of the Pie—Counter-Design to Centralised Curation and Gate-Keeping
For the duration of the exhibition DYOR, a 16 square-metre LED wall displayed a circular pie-like shape divided into six slices. A dedicated website (a-slice-of-the-pie.live) livestreamed the pie 24/7. Via the website, artists were able to purchase (using the cryptocurrency Tezos) one or more slices and fill them with their own artworks, thus becoming full participants in the exhibition. To define the appearance of the whole pie, they had to collaborate or compete or hustle, or simply leave the final composition to chance.

 

Installation view of DYOR – A Slice of the Pie at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

Once per day, at a random time either determined by an algorithm or through a paid option on the website, the current state of the pie was frozen and subsequently minted as an NFT and sold in an auction process on objkt.com. The profits from the sale were shared among the creators of the pie minted and A Slice of the Pie. Every 24 hours the whole process started again, resulting in 100 pies created during the exhibition, even while the physical exhibition space was closed to the public.

A Slice of the Pie derives from Silvio Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg’s ongoing reflection on gatekeeping in the art world and the monetisation of access to it. Focusing on the crypto scene, the artwork updates these themes, which Lorusso and Schmieg first explored in Projected Capital (2018). A Slice of the Pie allows both cooperation and competition, both consensual decision-making and winner-takes-it-all resolutions. The art project is inspired by the dry language of financial charts and dashboards as well as the cutthroat design of ‘battle royale’ games. Launching in a time of backlash towards crypto, A Slice of the Pie puts its promises of participation to the test. More than 125 artists took advantage of this opportunity to show their work at the Kunsthalle Zürich in the context of the DYOR exhibition and, without invitation, to add their names to the list of artists.

The project also served as a microcosm for broader debates in the art world around decentralisation and participation. By enabling uninvited artists to take part in a major institutional exhibition, A Slice of the Pie blurred the boundaries between insider and outsider, raising questions about authorship and curation in the age of Web3.

To date, the collection has generated primary and secondary market sales of 1,360 Tezos (5 December 2024 | 1 Tezos = 1.49 CHF), and all participants — including Kunsthalle Zürich and the two artists behind A Slice of the Pie — will receive royalties from future sales. The 100 pies can be viewed and collected on objkt.com.

playrecordmint—Interactivity and Collectibles
Generative art is uniquely positioned to engage audiences in creative processes, offering interactive and participatory experiences that blur the line between creator and viewer.

playrecordmint exemplifies this potential by involving artists and audiences in interactive experiments that connect physical engagement with the creation of digital collectibles on the blockchain. During the exhibition DYOR, playrecordmint collaborated with artists Leander Herzog, Sasha Stiles and Nathaniel Stern, and Zach Lieberman. Each artist presented generative works over a span of five weeks, creating an interactive platform for visitors to co-create NFTs. A screen and sensor setup enabled the artists to invite the audience to co-author animated sequences or still images, which could then be minted as NFTs on the Tezos blockchain.

 

Installation view of DYOR—playrecordmint featuring Haystacks by Leander Herzog at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

The project resulted in 745 works being minted, with many more co-creations left unclaimed. This discrepancy highlights the challenges of navigating blockchain ownership for newcomers. Such projects and the insights they generate are invaluable for exhibitors, curators, platform providers, artists, and co-creators alike. For many participants, DYOR served as their introduction to blockchain technology, NFTs, and digital wallets, marking their first experience in co-creating, minting, and collecting digital assets.

Initially offered for free to all exhibition visitors, the three collections have since generated primary and secondary market sales totalling 6,180 Tezos (as of 5 December 2024 |1 Tezos = 1.49 CHF). Royalties from sales are distributed among all contributors — the visitor = co-creator, the artists, Kunsthalle Zürich, and playrecordmint — underscoring the collaborative and decentralised nature of the project.

In addition to the NFTs co-created on-site, visitors could collect two other digital assets for free. One was a live-coded artwork — the DYOR logo — created by Andreas Gysin (aka ertdfgcvb) and distributed as a Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP)[15] on Ethereum. The other was one of six artworks by selected Pepe artists, offered as Bitcoin paper wallets in editions of 1,000 each.

 

DYOR logo by Andreas Gysin (aka ertdfgcvb). © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

This integration of collectibles underscores the dual role of crypto art as both an experiential and transactional medium, bridging digital and physical realms. Through exhibitions like DYOR, the potential for generative art and blockchain technology to foster interactive, educational, and artistic opportunities becomes ever more apparent.

Digital Space
The sudden development of the NFT market is closely linked to the Covid crisis, which gave digital exhibition formats and marketplaces pre-eminence in times of physical isolation. Over the past years it has become very clear that while physical works can be presented digitally, digital spaces, whether two or three-dimensional, are not their natural habitat. As a rule, key characteristics, such as texture or materiality, are lost in translation. The situation is quite different for native digital works. These were developed employing hardware and software and visualised on a monitor throughout the creation process, thus already inhabiting their native environment.

 

DYOR—Digital Space at Kunsthalle Zürich | GM RIGHT CLICKERS! by Moxarra Gonzales and Scrollbar Composition by Jan Robert Leegte. © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

Nevertheless, the presentation of digital work, and in particular sculptural works, in physical space brings about significant challenges. On a digital display they remain flat, while often they cannot be brought into the physical space without many of their characteristics being lost, such as movement or overcoming gravity. In this respect spatial technologies such as virtual reality offer advantages by making it possible to experience digital spaces in an immersive manner. Virtual reality architecture seems to be the logical environment for digital art, particularly three-dimensional art.

In this context the physical DYOR exhibition space has been complemented with a digital space — a digital twin of the Kunsthalle Zürich’s third floor gallery as well as the roof of the Löwenbräukunst building. Created by Manuel Rossner, the space showed native digital and largely sculptural works by nine artists and duos.

 

DYOR—Digital Space at Kunsthalle Zürich. Photograph by Julien Gremaud © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

Initially only accessible through a VR (Virtual Reality) headset within the exhibition, since 8 October 2023 the digital space is also available worldwide via web, mobile or VR.[16]

Exhibition DYOR – Impact and Implications
DYOR represents a significant step in bridging the gap between the traditional art world and the crypto art community. It provided a platform for education, dialogue, and experimentation, challenging preconceived notions and encouraging a deeper engagement with blockchain technologies and their artistic applications. More than a showcase, DYOR was an invitation to embrace complexity, take ownership of knowledge, and reimagine the possibilities of curation in the digital age.

As the art world continues to grapple with the implications of Web3, DYOR stands as a testament to the potential of thoughtful, decentralised curation to foster understanding and innovation. To close with the words of Domenico Quaranta, “DYOR renovates curatorial practices in the light of the transformations introduced by this new, more decentralised ecosystem.”[17]

 

Spatial Painting (Kunsthalle Zürich) by Manuel Rossner, 2022. © Kunsthalle Zürich

 

Closing remark: This contribution can only highlight parts of the exhibition. For a detailed documentation please visit https://dyor.kunsthallezurich.ch

 

Dr. Nina Roehrs is an expert on art in the digital age who supports players in the cultural sector in their digital programming and projects. After studying business economics in St. Gallen and St. Andrews, she worked for UBS for 14 years before founding Roehrs & Boetsch in 2016.

For five years as a gallery and today as a hybrid consultancy, Roehrs & Boetsch is dedicated to examining the influence of digitalisation on art and society. This includes actively discussing and developing new forms of exhibiting where conventional methods fail, often involving new technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, applications, networks, websites, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology.

In 2022/2023, Roehrs curated the exhibition DYOR at Kunsthalle Zürich — one of the first comprehensive institutional exhibitions on blockchain and NFTs. Since 2023, she has been developing and curating the Digital Sector for Paris Photo, dedicated to photography and the image in the digital age. For Giga / UNICEF, Roehrs organised and curated the Creating Connections auction hosted by Christie’s 3.0 in January 2024. Since October 2024, she has been curator of the digital art collection and related initiatives at Arab Bank Switzerland.

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