Artist and crypto enthusiast, Any Bauch is working entirely with LEGO blocks (over 100,000 pieces in this body of work) to create portraits and abstracts. In his newest body of work called "New Money," on view in Los Angeles March 23 - 25 at Castelli Art Space. Bauch’s works are BITCOIN. That is, they are not only about the cryptocurrency phenomenon (of which he was an early adopter), but the abstract patterns they render are actually Bitcoin wallet codes. These two series are related in that they are both about how the world is changing. And in fact, the Best Buy triptych “Cog” contains a Bitcoin wallet code worth $13.07 embedded in the picture, referring to the average to retail wage. It dissolves into the ether along with the figure.

Each one of these robo-abstractions is extrapolated from usable cryptocurrency codes based on individual online wallets, each containing an initial investment that corresponds to the amount of its title -- $20, $30, $40, etc. Since they are all worth more than their initial investments, each has a different relationship to the price of the artwork, which is uniform across the series.

“What is the value of art? And for that matter, what is the value of money?”

FB invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/354276618386554/