How We Brought Sotheby’s All-Male Glitch-ism Art Show To Its Knees
For journalists to get the story right
Our work is not done even though we were able to bring Sotheby’s to its knees yesterday, which is, a major victory, one which surprises me. Sotheby’s is a goliath and they could have just ignored our collective rage, but I suspect our voices are becoming too big to ignore at this point.
The reason I’m writing this is to provide accurate facts for journalists and the media, which we really cannot trust to get the story right.
The one article I found so far by decrypt, already has completely neglected the women who initially spoke up and who influenced Patrick Amadon to pull out of the Sotheby’s sale.
So for all of you in the media, here’s what happened yesterday, and why a community of non-males spoke out, screamed for change in a world that largely ignores we exist. The fact is, Davis Brown of Sotheby’s didn’t do his research, exploited a prominent non-male Glitch artist, and excluded non-males in their sale, even though the Glitch Art movement is a massively diverse community.
By the way, I am not a Glitch artist, but I am a cryptoartist and have been making cryptoart, building cryptoart communities since 2017. This article only reflects my perspective of what happened yesterday. So let’s get to it, this is the order of events I saw unfold on Twitter:
First, when I logged into Twitter on March 26, I saw a tweet by OONA that exposed the fact that Sotheby’s had an all-male artist lineup for their Glitch Art show:
Later on, I asked Patrick Amadon on Twitter what influenced his decision to withdraw from the Sotheby’s sale (this happened much later, but it’s important for the timeline). Here’s his response:
After this, I was quite horrified to discover the tweet by well-known Glitch artist Dawnia Darkstone aka Letsglitchit:
In this tweet, we learn that Davis Brown, the Glitch Art curator from Sotheby’s has been communicating with Dawnia via email, attempting to get her expertise and research on Glitch Art, but without including her Glitch art in the Sotheby’s sale. She went on further to explain she asked to be part of the sale, but he writes, “Unfortunately we are closed for consignment…”
Keep in mind, Dawnia Darkstone aka Letsglitchit is a prominent Glitch artist, and well-known in the cryptoart scene. She also mentioned to Davis Brown of Sotheby’s she would be open to having Sotheby’s pay her for her time and research but that also was declined. No, Sotheby’s wants to just exploit artists, use them for their expertise but not pay any women. What a joke.
This next part that involves Rosa Menkman, the art theorist, curator and Glitch artist did send me over the edge. It was after I read Rosa Menkman’s tweet that I realized I had to organize a Twitter Spaces and get this all exposed:
For those who don’t know, Rosa Menkman is a “Dutch art theorist, curator, and visual artist specialising in glitch art and resolution theory. She investigates video compression, feedback, and glitches, using her exploration to generate art works.” Source: Wikipedia
Sotheby’s used Rosa Menkman’s art in their Glitch-ism show description but failed to include Rosa Menkman’s art in their Glitch Art sale, failed to add the date 2009 in her credits, never even communicated with her about using her art and info in their description, and failed to mention that Rosa’s art they published in the show description is housed in a museum. To me, this is the second instance of exploiting women artists but not including them in the economic activity. It’s the old tired way of exploitating women’s knowledge, expertise and research but ultimately only men are allowed to profit and monetize this knowledge and art.
At this point of discovering all this, my rage was beginning to turn into a massive fire. But let’s continue on, learning about how a group of us collectively said, “This has gone too fucking far.”
I saw Empress Trash’s tweet next:
There may be more tweets of this nature, but it was after this that I decided to make a video that purged myself of this virus, the virus of men discriminating against us, ignoring the vast humanity all around them that creates and builds movements. Basically, in a nutshell, fuck you Davis Brown and fuck you Sotheby’s for occupying my mind like a virus. But for one day, I and a large community of people who you ignore and neglect brought you to your knees and made you think about what you’re doing.
Here’s a piece of my mind:
And by the way, this moment in history can still be collected, and yes this is a shill:
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1WcVCYve91dsGSaeanXoP9C59aYeHxgFi1/4
After I made my video, I was very happy to see OONA made a glitch remix of mine, with my crazy laughter echoing throughout:
And OONA’s action is now also part of this historic day which you can collect also here: https://objkt.com/asset/KT1WiAf3TM1RJqPwTf7hdErTSMhxDmbyTqvM/2
There were so many other tweets, and if you feel I missed any, please comment and I will add them to this article. This brings us to the 3 hour long Spaces that I organized which is recorded for your convenience:
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1dRKZMbVXaNxB
A lot of the main people involved and their tweets are all contained under my Spaces tweet here:
There is so much knowledge, so many stories of the amazing roots of the Glitch Art movement that was shared in our Twitter Spaces yesterday, and a lot of raw anger too. In many ways, I am done being nice. Those days are over. I thank everyone who spoke and listened in to our Spaces yesterday. It felt historic.
2023 is about taking things into our own hands and not relying on dinosaur institutions and business as usual.
And yes, for one day, we did win.
There is so much more to say and write about, perhaps you will write or make art about the day we brought Sotheby’s to its knees.
We glitched Sotheby’s….there is so much to discover, so many stories, so many awesome artists….and so many perspectives to learn
I’m currently building my dystopian pfp project, Gigatura which launches in May, but after I finish that, I want to help others build a Glitch Art show that includes everyone, and which is launched by us, the community. Let’s make a world where artists don’t even have to be exploited by auction houses. Let’s make Sotheby’s obsolete like Kate the Cursed says:
Stellabelle
March 27, 2023