Opening Reception: Thursday, June 6, 6-9pm
Exhibition Dates: June 6-June 30, 2019
7 Franklin Place
New York, NY 10003
May 23, 2019
For Immediate Release:
NYA Gallery is thrilled to announce the opening of a solo exhibition featuring over thirty new works by the cryptocurrency entrepreneur and visual artist Joel Dietz. The artist has constructed a narrative exploring interrelated and highly relevant topics about surface, depth, relationships, sexuality, desire, and finding meaningful human connections. Through this new series of prints and paintings, Dietz hopes to encourage audiences to examine their own relationship to media, technology, and others.
Dietz creates highly eroticized imagery, drawing upon disparate subjects and styles ranging from masterworks of the Italian Renaissance to the vibrant aesthetic of the Burning Man festival. He applies acrylic paint to several of his prints in order to add texture and give his works a heightened sense of tactility and sensuality. Overall, the innovator-cum-artist is interested in probing the historic relationships between artist, model, and viewer. What’s more, his art asks spectators to consider the values associated with contemporary forms of love and shifting conceptions of beauty? As such, his highly provocative images might be taken as twenty-first century elaborations on historical meditations of love, from the Greek myths of Hylas and Daphne to the German Romantic operas of Richard Wagner, such as Tannhäuser. A small number of works in the show also take aim at censorship protocols within the tech community, specifically as it pertains to nudity, sexuality, and artistic expression.
Joel Dietz, How Deep is Your Touch, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 29 x 37 inches.
The exhibition will open to the public on Thursday, June 6th with a reception from 6-9pm. The show will remain on view until Sunday, June 30th. Visitors may see works during regular gallery hours: Monday through Sunday, 12-5pm. For more information, please call (917) 472-9015 or email press@newyorkart.com.
About the Artist
Joel Dietz is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, software architect, and visual artist based in Palo Alto, California. He studied computer science and philosophy at Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his studies, he proceeded to offer advisory work on exponential organizations. Dietz was a founding member of Ethereum and founding partner and advisor of Swarm Fund. He has made significant advancements in the fields of artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Among these contributions, he penned the AppCoin Manifesto and built the first decentralized asset and governance platforms on the Bitcoin blockchain. Dietz is widely recognized as re-imagining crypto-investing and has received recognition from both Google and Salesforce for his initiatives. His artistic practice and imagery draw upon his experiences with new technology and its impact on human behavior.