The Foundry, a hybrid contemporary art venue in Downtown Dubai, opened its first exhibition of the year, Business Art by Metastoric, to kick off the art season. Metastatoric is a new venture that connects art objects with NFTs to produce disruptive exhibitions and immersive experiences at the crossroads of contemporary art and cryptocurrency. Business Art dealt with the NFTs as a medium, addressing the entanglements of art, life, and business in the modern world.
The artworks, which ranged from sculptures to movies, paintings, drawings, and found objects, were linked to NFTs created on OpenSea, which went live the night of the opening and were available for the length of the show. Business Art, curated by Prestige Villain, an unknown artist, brought together international artists.
Contributions from Oona Chanel, publisher of Author magazine, Sanaz Askari, founder and curator of The Mine, and Bitcoin historian Elias Ahonen were also included. The NFTs were priced differently, with the most expensive, Sanaz’s Sweat, costing 777 ETH (approximately 2.5 million USD at the time of the event).
The Prestige Villain is an anonymous curator, fragrance connoisseur, and non-digital avatar; Dana Dawud is a visual artist and independent researcher based in Dubai who works in a variety of mediums such as sound production, podcasts, and digital painting; and Elias Ahonen is a Finnish-Canadian author based in Dubai who has lived and worked all over the world while running a blockchain consultancy. Maxime Cramatte is an artist based in Dubai. His style is inspired by the backstreets of old Dubai, where he resides and finds inspiration.