Jonas Lund, Futures at Annka Kultys Gallery, East London, January 2024 – Is this one pf the best contemporary art shows since that Fernando Benn’s Images thing in that gallery with the oil-drenched floor out in Leyton? You know the place, that one Ludo Abernarthy was rumoured to be behind, that place GFT moved to, Giles what’s-his-name who suddenly started dressing in nothing but black, you know, the place with that Gallerina, Bethany Mellmoth, she was at No Parking Gallery in Dalston, never would say hello to anyone, anyway, where were we? Back up the Hackney Road for a couple of openings, there was something happening at Sherbet Green that looked rather ‘intriguing’ when I accidentally walked in there the other day whilst doing the Condo thing and while they were still installing something rather big and very round in the middle of the small space, more on that later, tonight it was mostly about seeing what Jonas Lund had to offer at Annka Kulltys after the Cacotopia08 no show last week (not that there was any kind of hinting that there’s anything Ludo Abernarthyish about Annka Kultys gallery beside the playing with concepts of course)
“Jonas Lund is a Swedish artist who creates works that critically reflect on contemporary networked systems and technological innovations”
– I do like Annka Kultys Gallery, you never quite know what you’re going to get, it can be really really (real;ly) good, occasionally brilliant, sometimes really annoying or infuriating, always challenging, questioning, jousting, pushing. Kind of learnt by now that it is best never to read any of the press releases or the invites from Annka Kultys, just note the date and go see. And with that in mind…
Hang on? The gallery at the back of that very 80’s looking industrial estate is empty again! Just white walls and one piece, a piece that measures 100cm x 80cm, just one piece hanging in the middle of the back wall – the size is important. What is going on with this place? Oh for one of those delicious Kate Bickmore paintings. Hang on though, let’s not be too hasty…
With a contemporary art market so geared towards incessant and rapid fire production, it’s easy to forget that the social structure that presaged it—the system of patronage—was always playing the long game. From Michelangelo’s four-year-long Sistine Chapel saga to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, patronage popped off in the Renaissance, leading to some of the art historical canon’s most celebrated works of art.
Of course, this model also has a dark side: by controlling the final output, including its style and content, patrons—royalty, popes, empires, dictators, wealthy families—twisted art into a form of soft capital and propaganda. And yet, in an increasingly turbulent global economy, where the artist creates ceaselessly with no guarantee of making a sale, it is tempting to reconsider the collector-as-patron model and the support structure it can offer.
Jonas Lund is a Swedish-born conceptual artist and the concept here, so he says, is time, is it really though? Is it far more than just him buying time, or you/us buying his time? He says this model is a means of securing precious moments with his new baby: to “buy time right now with time from the future.” We’re told that by “leveraging the power of blockchain technologies alongside an ingenious “future proof” financial model that offers collectors the opportunity to acquire a tokenized series of works that comes with voting shares, Lund is offering his new collection of works as an investment in his future practice”. Now don’t get me started on blockchains and NFTs or pubs that don’t take cash and looms that run on electricity again, wasn’t it Turner who grumped that photography would be the death of us all? Hasn’t the NFT market crashed already? Aren’t 97% of them now deemed worthless? Hasn’t the emperor been declared totally utterly naked? Haven’t the fish gone off?
Never mind the Blockchains, the long and short of things here is Jonas wants to spend time with his new born baby (don’t we artists have more control over our time than most already, I get plenty of time with the pigeons here, just take the kid to the studio, give him some paint!), Jonas apparently hasn’t got time to make art, he needs to make a living though so he’s (cleverly?) selling you some of his future time and what we have on the wall in the gallery, in a frame that measures 100x80cm, is essentially a contract allowing you to buy a piece of art that will be in a frame like the one of the wall, a piece of art that will eventually measure 100x80cm when he gets around to making it. You get to buy it now, at 2024 prices and he and the gallery get to deliver the yet to be made art in the frame at the size specified in 2028 (who knows where his prices will be at by then? Ludo Abernarthy, if he gets wind, will buy them all and store the idea in his warehouse, leak the news that they’d all sold while he watches the price inflate, once they hear the price everyone will want one). So Jonas will do the work and put in the time in the future, you are buying his future (no questions about the uncertainly of tomorrow right now please, how many minutes to midnight?)
Termed “Jonas Lund Token (JLT) Futures”, this project builds on the Jonas Lund Token (JLT) project initiated in 2018 by the artist, which serves as a distributed and decentralized stewardship of Lund’s creative practice. JLT Futures launches at Annka Kultys Gallery in London with Lund’s solo exhibition, FUTURES, and the group show, Close Reading at Office Impart in Berlin. Set across Annka Kultys Gallery’s physical space and Annka Kultys Phygital HYGITAL, the gallery’s virtual reality outpost, the exhibition is the first in the gallery’s history to blend both realms. Honouring his new commitment to his son, the artist will not be physically present at the opening; instead, he will appear in the gallery space as an interactive avatar who can be approached by visitors and collectors.
At Annka Kultys Gallery. London, a singular JLT Futures contract is presented, hovering over a square painted internet blue. In the gallery’s virtual space, each of Lund’s Futures presents itself initially as a printed document, gilded in a modern white box frame, effectively blurring the line between artwork and contract. With an unbounded series number, the first roster of JLT Futures on show at Annka Kultys Gallery and Annka Kultys Phygital will take the form of painting, but future players in the series may take the form of sculpture, video, editioned prints, NFTs, and websites.
Closer inspection of the contracts-cum-artworks exhibited within Futures will yield a deeper understanding of this model’s architecture. Each document indexes a unique agreement between artist and collector; details including the materials, dimensions, and uniqueness of the edition are clearly delineated. Most interesting is the contract’s expiry date: a kind of alchemical moment where each JLT Future transforms into into a physical Jonas Lund artwork.
“JLT means that I have more time now, and less time in the future, essentially I’m buying time from my future self,” the artist explains. “It also means that my future self might be quite annoyed by my current self, giving the future me more work,” he adds, semi-jokingly.
Brilliant, love it, I think I do? Don’t I? And the fact that it is being presented in physical form on the wall of a formal white cube of a gallery makes it even better, that I walked there in the cold wind of January, walked into a physical art gallery, all that makes it even better – that was my time spent Jonas, you owe me and everyone else who tuned up an art exhibition don’t you? or maybe not, maybe this was one one of the best art shows in ages? Yes there’s the virtual reality bit and people with headsets on and all that ‘physical’ bit but I’m not buying in to electric looms yet. The important bit is that in the main body of the space there in nothing but the one contact/piece of art (framed in “internet blue” so we’re told) – and yes, it is a piece of art in itself, before we even consider the nerve of the concept, I kind of like the look of the actual thing hanging on the wall (full stop) – Does liking the actually thing on the wall defeat the object? Will the contact be the actual piece of art rather that whatever is delivered in the future? Do we actually get an actual contract that size in that glue frame? Probably not, we really should! (Hang on, got an idea for a show, didn’t Fernando Benn clean up with that show of photos of other people’s photos before he fell out with No Parking? How about a limited edition still life print of a painting of the Jonas contract anyone? You can’t help but smile to yourself as you leave the empty gallery, brilliant show, love it! Pretty sure I love it? (will there eventually be as many people here as there was for the Pistols at the Hundred Club or the Free Trade Hall? Now then now then…)
While adopting the future-leaning model of patronage, this system has clear contemporary updates. Firstly, the deliverable date is set in stone, literally written into the work’s contract. Secondly, bucking the one-to-one relationship between artist and patron, or even artist and collector, the JLT Futures ecosystem is heralded over by the JLT board, who appraises the value of each JLT Future work when it manifests as a physical artwork. Thirdly, the artist has more autonomy over each JLT Future’s final output: the collector knows the medium, dimensions, and delivery date, but that’s all the stats they’re privy to until the work is handed over. There is an element of surprise, a playful ambiguity, in what the artist will eventually receive.
So what happens if he and his have another baby pop out and more time is needed? Can’t give the first kid all that time and not the next in line can you? What if… Oh there’s loads of what ifs, what if its and ands were pots and pans? Are we really “working in the long game”, he is effectively selling a future work in the present, it is all speculations? Is it all just a game? is that all art is now? A big monopoly board? Who did actually buy those dreadful Hirst cum paintings that allegedly all sold Frieze? has someone like Ludo got them all in locked up over by Heathrow just to keep the prices up and the game flowing in the right way? Can;t have the bottom drop out of the Hirst market now, what will all the collectors do if that happens? The big art game? Or is there actually merit in the art (and not just the concepts, there;s certainly merit in the concept) of Jonas Lund? Is there something actually there in his future time, will what he finally paints be worth it all? And do we like conceptual artworks that interrogate the socio-economic relationship between artist and collector through the medium of contracts anyway? To quote the, Oozes, blah blah blah… (has he ruined the colour blue for us?)
And now Annka Kultys (or her gallerina) get to sit in an almost empty gallery for a month(for that is how long the show is billed to go on for), do hope they faithfully stick to the opening times, surely that has to be part of the concept? Sutrely they have to give the London art scene their time now? I’m not sure, even if I could afford it (I didn’t ask the price), would I want a Jonas Lund painting (is the actual painting of any worth, does that bit matter?), maybe I wouldn’t mind the piece that’s in the gallery now, is that just the speculator in me, or do I really like it? As a concept this Jonas Lund show is probably brilliant, I think it is? Maybe? It did make me smile as I left the gallery, am I quietly laughing with the artist? Am I laughing at the art? Or at art? Maybe a Fernando Benn photo of the contract? But then Fernando doesn’t take photos does he? No, he’s a lens based artist. Brilliant show love it, no, really, I did… The artist wasn’t present, his avatar was. (sw)
The Annka Kultys Gallery is at 472 Hackney Road, Unit 9, London, E2 9EQ. No longer up those stairs above that shop on the main street, you now need to go around the back through the red gates to the small industrial estate behind the shop space, the gallery is to your left at the back in the darkness far corner. The Jonus Lund exhibition goes on until February 24th
THE ORGAN 