Robert Alice makes art, exhibitions and books that investigate blockchains and their histories. Alice's work is collected in public collections internationally, including the Centre Pompidou, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bibliothèque Kandinsky and the Monnaie de Paris, with further announcements forthcoming.
Alice’s work has been subject to reviews by leading curators such as Hans Ulrich Obrist and published in the New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, Forbes, Fortune, Art Review, Artnet, Art News, The Art Newspaper and more. The first artist to sell an NFT at a major auction house, the landmark work Portraits of a Mind (2019 -) has been widely credited as one of the early catalysts behind the subsequent rapid growth in the blockchain art space. The project is now part of the National Collection of France at the Centre Pompidou.
Exhibitions of their work have been held internationally, including shows at Monnaie de Paris, Paris; Ullens Center of Contemporary Art, Beijing; Christie’s, New York; Sotheby’s, London and Hong Kong; Palazzo Lolin, Venice; Francisco Carolinum, Linz; Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg; the JinArt Center, Shanghai; and Le Freeport in Singapore among others. In 2021, Alice curated 'Natively Digital' at Sotheby's, bringing historic works to market, including Kevin McCoy's Quantum (2014) - the first NFT ever made. The sale raised $17.1 million, setting records for several artists. A majority of funds flowed directly to artists.
In 2022, Alice edited, produced and co-wrote one of the first major art histories of NFTs, commissioned by TASCHEN (On NFTs, 2024). A trained art historian, Alice has lectured internationally on blockchain-based art, most notably co-producing the first academic conference on NFTs at the University of Oxford in 2022, entitled 0xBAT, where they opened the conference with a keynote on a theory of NFTs. Alice has been a guest lecturer on blockchain culture at Central Saint Martins; Columbia University, Christie’s Education, Kings College London and Oxford University.
STUDIO ROBERT ALICE
Robert Alice
CURRENT
Oliver Sepsik
Karim Guettache
Jesser Kench
FORMER
Cosmo Lindsay
Sophia Thorpe
Gabrielle Schwarz
Mia Stern
Camille Beckmann
Jack Spurrier
Robbie Cleave
Billy Stanley
INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTIONS
Centre Pompidou, Paris (1)
Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris (1)
Monnaie de Paris, Paris (4)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1)
Further Announcements Forthcoming
ON PUBLIC VIEW
Arab Bank, Geneva
Monnaie de Paris, Paris
New York University, New York
Pantera Capital, New York
SELECTED EXHIBITION HISTORY
BABEL, Monnaie de Paris, Paris, France, 2023 (Solo)
Subconscious Bloom, NFT Museum, Seattle, USA, 2023 (Group)
Ipotesi Metaverso, Palazzo Cipolla, Rome, Italy, 2023 (Group)
Portraits of a Mind: Block 34, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 2022 (Solo)
Decentral Art Pavilion, Venice, Italy, 2022 (Group)
0,14, Palazzo Lolin, Venice, Italy, 2022 (Group)
51.895167° N, 1.4805° E, Principality of Sealand, 2021(Solo)
Proof of Art (Curated by Jesse Damiani), Francisco Carolinum, Linz, Austria, 2021 (Group)
Right, Click + Save, Le Freeport, Singapore, 2021 (Group)
PROOF OF STAKE ... (Curated by Simon Denny), Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany, 2021( Group)
Natively Digital, Sotheby's, Global, 2021(Group)
Virtual Niche — Have you ever seen memes in the mirror?, UCCA, Beijing, China, 2021 (Group)
Portraits of a Mind: Block 21, Christie's, New York, USA, 2020 (Group)
SELECTED PRESS
Outland, Painting the Blockchain into History, Greg Allen, 2022
Bloomberg, Crypto-Art Event Mixes Beeple, Warhol in Singapore Vault, Joanna Ossinger, 2021
Right Click Save, Can We Build A Better NFT Ecosystem, Mimi Nguyen, 2022
The Financial Times, How London became a crypto-art capital, Alex Estorick, 2021
The New York Times Style Magazine, The Art World Returns to a New Normal, M.H. Miller, 2021
The Financial Times, NFTs in Beijing — ‘Who gets to decide the value of art?’, Yuan Yang, 2021
The New York Times, What Are NFTs, Anyway? One Just Sold for $69 Million., Josie Thaddeus-Johns, 2021
Widewalls, Robert Alice — Artist in Focus, Elena Martinique, 2021
Artnet News, The World’s First ‘Major’ NFT Art Exhibition Is About to Take Place in Beijing..., Sarah Cascone, 2021
SO-FAR, A Portrait of Privacy, Krister Olsson, 2021
CNN, Bitcoin’s 12.8 million-digit code transformed into surreal paintings, Oscar Holland, 2020
SELECTED TALKS & LECTURES
DASL, Cork Street, London, United Kingdom, 2023 (Live)
Columbia University, New York, USA, 2023 (Online)
0xBAT, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, 2022 (Live)
NFTs in Europe, Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell, Paris, France, 2022 (Live)
NFTs – A Complete Guide, Christie's Education, Global, 2022, (Online)
Blockchain in Art and Fashion, Central Saint Martins, London, United Kingdom, 2022 (Live)
CONTACT
STUDIO
CURRENT
By Appointment Only
51.490XX N, -0.070XX E
FORMER
51.50715 N, -0.093601 E
(2022-2023)
51.52752 N, -0.056907 E
(2021-2022)
51.50831 N, -0.112110 E
(2021-2021)
51.43841 N, -0.191978 E
(2020-2021)
51.49623 N, -0.051653 E
(2019-2020)
51.48356 N, -0.054787 E
(2018-2019)
Many thanks to Artist Studio Company, Set Space, Proposition, Sandbox Workspace and Tannery Arts for your critical support.
Website designed & developed
by Patrick Urwyler, Bern (CH)
