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$TRSH art series 1/3 – Is $TRSH art the most important NFT movement? Interview with Eric Paul Rhodes

$TRSH art series 1/3 – Is $TRSH art the most important NFT movement? Interview with Eric Paul Rhodes

Floor is Rising NFT Podcast

Published on:September 2, 2021

$TRSH art series 1/3 – Is $TRSH art the most important NFT movement? Interview with Eric Paul Rhodes

Episode interview with Eric Paul Rhodes, find his twitter Second Realm and his blog at The Outer Realm

Time Stamps

[1:03 – 1:53] Eric fell down the NFT crypto art rabbit hole on twitter and was introduced to artists such as X Copy , Coldy, Robness, maxosiris, Jay Delay.

[2:10 – 4:12] Wanted to become a TRSH art historian because he saw the narrative was being shifted after the fact, he wanted to give an unbiased 5000 foot overview of the movement

https://www.theouterrealm.io/blog/a-short-history-of-nft-trash-art 

https://www.theouterrealm.io/blog/the-origins-of-trash-art 

Darren Kleine first wrote about it.

https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2020/03/24/immutable-trash-crypto-art-censorship-meaning 

[4:26 – 9:31] TRSH art movement came about because the whales of SuperRare specifically led by Whaleshark were determining what was eligible to be on the platform. A lot of artists that didn’t meet a certain aesthetic criteria was pushed off the platform. Eric felt that Superrare sided with the whales and not the artists. j1mmyeth was the one who coined the term $TRSH Art. Eric led a mass exodus of artists to the Rarible platform, having it gain in popularity.

[10:0813:04] Trash art is a decentralised movement which has evolved and shaped the current NFT space. The idea of limited or no gatekeeping on platforms today is heavily because of trash artists pushed back and meme’d their way to victory. Comprises 3 main areas today, the idea of openness and onboarding as many people as possible into the NFT space, the meme of the trash can, and the aesthetics of glitchy appropriation art.

[13:1916:43] Trash art movement’s fight against gatekeeping will go into the history books alongside the impressionists movement and the dadaists movement. The similarities are that the terms Trash artist and Impressionist were both derogatory terms that were reclaimed. Even though the artists were only together for a short time, their impact were felt long after they had gone their separate ways. Case in point, today, SuperRare is full of trash art.

[17:1719:51] Eric started out as an anon but chose to doxx himself as an artist because he didn’t want to pretend to be a persona. The NFT space has opened to him a lot more since he became doxxed.

[20:1123:56] Eric thinks artists always reveal what they want about themselves and that anonymity that is common in NFTs allows a certain performance aspect of the artist persona that is somewhat unique. he thinks Pak is a team of people, and doesn’t respect them as an artist in the NFT space. Xcopy is an example of the anonymity as adding a performance quality to the art. Thinks in some ways that this has always been the case, cites Leonardo Da Vinci as someone who has been credited with a lot of inventions that might not be invented by him but merely documented.

[24:2823:38]

Loves the attention that profile picture NFT projects bring to the NFT space. Didn’t see the big deal about cryptopunks, had many chances to collect them but didn’t see it blowing up. Didn’t see that cryptopunks turning into clout chasing decentralised social media.

Thinks that art is being pushed to the outskirts a bit with all the attention on collectibles.

The next big innovation will be the merger between collectability and utility.

[28:4633:04]

Launched his own unofficial punks because he was priced out of the cryptopunks excitement. It was natural to make his own unofficial punk that took 5minutes to make but blew up and went viral. Eric is an appropriation artist. So he started making more and made a collection of 100 pieces. Stopped doing it because he felt he wasn’t doing it to express himself but to make things that people wanted to buy. Unofficial punks movement gave people permission to make their own unofficial punks.

[33:2038:28] Feels like multiple artists that have been attributed with a “certain” signature style may not be the case on a closer examination such as Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. Doesn’t feel the need to conform to a signature style because his through thread for his work is his personal experience. Another similar artist is Kevin Abosch. Feels that people who say you must have a signature style in order to succeed are painting a narrative not based on fact.

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