Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE: Successful Launch of the NFT Fundraising Project

The Kunstmuseum Bern's new-style fundraising project got off to a good start. All 120 NFTs in the packages sold out within 48 hours. The INFINITE digital spaces met with lively interest.

'We are glad that our unique Switzerland-wide fundraising project has got off to a good start, and that we can explore new forms of fundraising in the art world with this pilot project,'says Thomas Soraperra, managing director of the Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee. 'We would like to thank our partners furrerhugi and Tokengate for the successful launch of the project.'

20 June at 7.00 pm saw the start of the so-called 'drop', the online sale of the Kunstmuseum Bern's first NFTs. The 10 collectors' packages, each with 12 NFTs by the artist Sasha Stiles, sold out within two days. Some individual NFTs are still available.

The Kunstmuseum Bern presented a Switzerland-wide premiere: as Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE it opened itself up to virtual space and launched a unique fundraising project. INFINITE puts digital art works on sale, with the proceeds going to fund the new building project 'Future Kunstmuseum Bern'. INFINITE is also part of the future Kunstmuseum Bern, which seeks to create the possibility of new artistic experiences, meetings and education at Hodlerstrasse and in virtual space. The first of these was a homage to Johannes Itten made by the American artist Sasha Stiles.

At 6.00 pm on 25 July an artist talk will take place online in Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE: the curator Luba Elliott, a curator specialising in AI art, speaks with Sasha Stiles about her work.

'Johannes Itten's painting, constructed from abstract bars, was particularly well suited to being appropriated by Sasha Stiles, since it follows apparently logical compositional rules that were easily translatable to into algorithms. Also, the twelve-tone music of which Itten was such a fan is systematically readable,'says Nina Zimmer, director of the Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee.

Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE is a virtual extension of the Museum and opens up new spaces for art and new meeting-places (kunstmuseumbern-infi-nite.ch). At the same time the Kunstmuseum Bern is dedicating homages to works in its collection: the first to the Emmental-born painter and art theorist Johannes Itten. US artist and poet Sasha Stiles has transferred his work Horizontal-Vertical (1915) to the digital world and translated it into a 12-part generative poem entitled A EYE, AFTER JOHANNES ITTEN. The work of Johannes Itten is presented as an algorithmic study of colour and code.

Visitors to Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE have the chance to experience art works in digital space and explore virtual spaces. With the purchase of these NFTs, visitors support not only the artists involved, but also the Kunstmuseum Bern's planned building project.

Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE is an innovative example of ways in which cultural institutions can make use of virtual space. The combination of analogue and digital art in Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE opens up new perspectives for artists and art educators. The use of NFTs as a funding method is also an innovative approach towards generating funds for the maintenance and modernisation of the Kunstmuseum Bern and promoting its future development in the digital age.

Programme of Events Artist talk:
Tuesday, 25 July 2023, 6.00 pm

Sasha Stiles, poet and AI researcher in conversation with Luba Elliott, curator specializing in AI art. After an introduction to the project 'Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE' by Marlene Wenger, assistant curator at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Sasha Stiles will read the poem A EYE, followed by an artist talk by Luba Elliott with Sasha Stiles on the question of how AI technology is used in Stiles' artistic practice.
The conversation will be held in English.

Meeting point: online in the virtual room of 'Kunstmuseum Bern INFINITE'