The Index and After
What the artist made after the inks, on every chain the collector followed. In August 2022, with the year's drawings about to burn, nnxyz announced an open, never-ending collection, published independently on several blockchains and expanded by one work each time the last one sold out, and named it the index collection after Andy Warhol's Index Book. Its first work, a hooded red face called Heaven or Hell, is here four times, on Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum and Tezos: one picture, four chains, which was the point. Twenty-six works, August 2022 to March 2024.
The rest is the artist trying things. Fields of colored noise and a grid of dots sold under a contract the artist named GenAI. A lake, a crowd of dancing skeletons, a rainbow summer and a shrine, made with the generative tools the artist defended in a post of August 2022: why should an artist disclose the tools he uses, since when are artists the slaves of their tools. Two scribbled heads on black that could have come from the board. Seven flat portraits of men in hats and masks called Friends of Country Air. The drawing hand is here once or twice; mostly it is the same mind choosing from a new box of tools.
The collector was there for all of it. He minted Heaven or Hell on Ethereum, Optimism and Arbitrum on the day each opened, bought the lake and the noise fields in the week FTX fell, and kept a Tezos wallet the artist sent work to for two years. The artist wrote in 2024 that the need to create art and the need to make art for its own sake are two different intentions, one to express something and the other to express yourself. This room is where the second kind lives, and the words the artist attached to it are the plainest the record has: an artist's life can be heaven or hell; create, try, hope, die, game over, repeat.
One Picture, Four Chains
August 2022. The first work of the index collection, minted by the collector on Ethereum, Optimism and Arbitrum on August 6, the day each chain opened, and sent to his Tezos wallet by the artist in November and December 2023.
Heaven or Hell #2
A face in a hood of white and pale pink, the face itself a deep red, scrawled over with yellow marks that are the artist's tag, on a near-black ground scattered with color. The picture is an animation of eleven frames; the marks and the hood shift from one to the next. Its title is Heaven or Hell, and the artist's description on the token says an artist's life can be heaven or hell, depending on the circumstances and the current contemporary culture, you can make it or die trying. It is the first work of the index collection, the open-ended series the artist announced on August 2, 2022, priced at five dollars so that, in the artist's words, people would show they wanted it. The collector minted this copy on Ethereum on August 6, the day the artist opened the collection there. A hooded red face with a name written over it, published so it could be bought on any chain: it is the artist's self-portrait as a product, and the title is a shrug with the whole year behind it.
Heaven or Hell #3
The same animation minted on Optimism, number three of the collection there, on the same day, for the same five dollars.
Heaven or Hell #3
The same animation on Arbitrum, the third chain the collector minted it on that day, so that the one picture sat in three wallets on three networks before the week was out.
Heaven or Hell
The same face a fourth time, on Tezos, where the artist had published the index collection in August 2022 in an edition of twenty-five. The artist sent three copies to the collector's Tezos wallet on November 15, 2023, and three more on December 11: six, which is more than anyone needs of one animation and exactly what a collector who had been following the artist across chains for eighteen months was owed. The index collection's description says it was planned completely openly. Four copies of its first work, on four chains, in one collection, is what open looks like when someone takes the artist at their word.
Noise and a Lake
October and November 2022. A scribbled figure on Tezos, a painted lake called oink, five fields of colored noise, a field of stripes, and a grid of dots, the last of them under a contract the artist named GenAI. The collector bought the lake and the noise fields in the week FTX collapsed.
nnxyz untitled #19
A dark figure with a mane of colored strokes standing out from its head, a beam of gold across its eyes, on black: four frames that flicker. It was minted on Tezos on October 3, 2022, the morning the artist drew three crying portraits on the drawing board, and it came to the collector's Tezos wallet from the artist on October 11. It is the drawing hand at work on a new chain: the spiky hair, the beam, the scribble, all from the board, in an animation the board could not make. The collector had opened the Tezos wallet in August 2022 and the artist sent work to it for two years. This was the first.
nnxyz oink #1
A lake under trees, painted soft and wide, the water pale blue, the trees a blur of green and brown, the sky white. There is nothing in the picture with teeth. The artist put it on Optimism under a contract named simply nnxyz, called it oink, and the collector bought it on November 7, 2022, for three hundredths of an ether, the day after the run on FTX began. In the week the collector was buying the artist's frightened portraits on the board, he also bought this, a lake with no one in it, from the same artist on another chain. The title is a pig's noise. The picture is the calmest thing nnxyz ever sold.
nnxyz opticals #268
A square of fine colored noise: thousands of tiny dots in grey, red, blue and yellow, with no shape in them, like a television between channels. It is one of a series the artist called opticals, sold on Optimism for a hundredth of an ether; the collector minted four on November 17, 2022, the week FTX filed for bankruptcy. The Tezos copies of the same series sit under a contract the artist named GenAI. After a year of faces, the artist sold pictures with no face, no figure and no mark of a hand, and gave them a name that means something to look at. Stand back and the noise almost resolves. It does not.
nnxyz opticals #295
A second field of noise, minted the same minute, its dots a little warmer and a faint darker shape near the middle that may be nothing.
nnxyz opticals #264
A third, cooler and greyer, minted in the same transaction.
nnxyz opticals #7
The fourth, pinker, at a larger size, the lowest number of the four and the only one with a tint you could call a color.
nnxyz opticals #71
From the second series two days later: fine vertical black and white stripes across the whole square with a few scattered colored dots, sent by the artist to the collector on November 19, 2022.
nnxyz opticals #1
The Tezos opticals, number one, an animation of twenty-three frames in which a fine black grid on white flickers with dots, minted November 17, 2022 under the GenAI contract and sent to the collector in September 2023.
nnxyz kanji #1
A field of small marks on white, in rows, like characters on a page seen from too far to read, in fifteen frames that change. The title is kanji, and the artist minted it on Tezos on November 21, 2022, in an edition of twelve, under the contract named GenAI. The collector received it in September 2023, in a batch of four pieces the artist sent to his Tezos wallet within five minutes. A page of writing in no language, from an artist whose last drawings on the board were masks covered in words: the words have gone to marks, and the marks keep the rhythm of a page. It is the quietest thing in the room.
The Year After
May to September 2023. A scribbled head on Tezos, two cringe-eez doodles on Polygon, a rainbow summer on video and a bar full of skeletons, the last two under a collection whose rules the artist wrote in capitals.
nnxyz untitled #37
Dark figures in a storm of colored scribble on black, two or three of them, their faces found where the line turns white, their bodies lost in blue and red. It is the scribbled head of the summer of 2022, back on Tezos in May 2023, two months after the drawing board went quiet. The artist sent it to the collector on June 2. In the Faces wing the scribble found friends and then snarls; here it finds a crowd in the dark that has stopped doing either. It is the last work in this collection that looks drawn by the hand that drew the inks.
cringe-eez doodle #99
A head in thin colored line on black, its eyes two rings, its teeth a grille, its hair a scribble of pink and yellow standing up, drawn at four thousand pixels so the line stays thin at any size. The artist called the series cringe-eez doodles and sent the collector two on July 24, 2023, the week after the first numbered mask returned to the drawing board. The title says what it is: a doodle, drawn to be slightly embarrassing, and it is the mask of 2022 drawn with less care on purpose. The artist's bio line on another platform said flawed, imperfect, on purpose. Cringe is the same claim made as a joke.
cringe-eez doodle #11
A second doodle, a skull in green and blue line with a halo of yellow scribble, sent the same day.
i send you summer - 1
A garden under a rainbow sky: trees in blossom, a lawn, a wall of pink and purple cloud, in a tall frame, and it moves, a video of seventy-nine frames in which the light shifts. The artist minted it on Tezos on July 30, 2023, under the GenAI contract, in an edition of twelve, and titled it i send you summer. It came to the collector's wallet in September, with three other pieces in five minutes. The title is a message and the picture is the message: a summer, sent. For an artist who spent a year drawing teeth, it is the least guarded thing in the collection, and the artist used a machine to make it, which the posts of that year say was the point.
GMGL #1
A bar full of skeletons and masked figures dancing in a line, painted in orange, green and blue, a crowd that fills a wide frame. It is the first of a collection called GMGL, minted September 14, 2023, whose description reads, in capitals: walk the line until you reach the happy path. Please have all relevant feelings ready when you get there. Take away is not allowed. Violations will be punished with humanity. The artist sent it to the collector the next day. A dance of death in a bar, with instructions: it is the index collection's heaven or hell, a year on, with the hell made cheerful and the rules posted at the door.
Friends of Country Air
November 11 to 15, 2023. Seven flat portraits of men in hats and masks, sent by the artist to the collector's wallet as they were made, and re-issued on a second contract in December, so the collector holds each twice.
Friends of Country Air #1
A man in a black top hat with a ginger beard and a smiley face for one eye, grinning with white teeth, in a pink shirt, drawn in flat vector shapes against a split ground of blue and green. It is the first Friend of Country Air, a series of seven the artist made in November 2023 and sent to the collector as each was finished. The drawing is clean, flat and cheerful, like the cats of the year before, and the faces are masks again: a smiley over the eye, a grin that is all teeth. Country air is what you take when the city has worn you down. Two years after the drawing board, the artist drew seven men who look like they have taken it.
Friends of Country Air #2
A yellow mask with a pink band across the eyes and a stalk on top, in a black bow tie and dinner jacket, on blue and olive.
Friends of Country Air #5
A grey-haired man in a gold crown and yellow glasses with a single tooth, in a white collar on a split ground of tan and teal.
Friends of Country Air #6
A man in a black hat with hearts for eyes and a stitched mouth, on a split ground of green and blue.
Friends of Country Air #7
A man in a straw hat with spiral eyes and a yellow mask over his mouth, in a dark coat, on green and cream.
Friends of Country Air #8
A purple mask with hash marks for eyes and a mouth of fangs, green hair on top, on a split ground of grey and tan, the one Friend that could bite.
Friends of Country Air #9
An orange hat over green hair that covers the eyes, a moustache and a small mouth, on brown and cream, the last of the seven.
The Shrine
March 19, 2024. The last work in the collection by the artist's own date on any chain: the index collection's fourth piece, a shrine, sent to the collector the hour it was minted.
Shrine of create, try, hope, die
The inside of a church: a tall gold and blue altar at the end of a nave, light falling from high windows, no one in the pews, in a frame taller than it is wide, and it moves, a hundred and one frames in which the light changes. The artist minted it on Tezos on March 19, 2024, as the fourth work of the index collection, in an edition of one hundred and eleven, and sent one to the collector within the hour. Its title is shrine of create, try, hope, die, and the artist's description reads: insert coin, create, try, hope, die, game over, repeat. It is the last dated work in this collection, from any chain. The artist who began the index collection with a hooded face and the words heaven or hell ended it, so far, with an empty church and the words of an arcade machine. The collector has both. Between them is everything in the rooms upstairs.
Closing
The room opens on a face in a hood with the artist's name scrawled over it, published on four chains so it could not be lost, and ends on a shrine with no one in it, titled create, try, hope, die. Between them the artist tried noise, grids, generated light and flat cartoons, and the collector took each one as it came. Heaven or hell, the first title says. The last says game over, repeat, and the shrine is still standing.