VISION OR ILLUSION?

Is there a true value of things? And is the digital value of a building the same as the physical one?

How the founders of Galerie Kernweine are trying to make the physical gallery their own by selling an NFT of their gallery.

A building in the south of Stuttgart, Germany is currently for sale. This building is also home to 
Galerie Kernweine Foto und Raum. Five million euros are being asked for it. 

Mick Orel and Oliver Kroening, who co-direct the gallery for contemporary photography (2017) and run g—kx mediaHOUSE (2021) together, are no strangers to the field of visual media. In collaboration with the digital artist Nasty Files (nastyfiles.club) they generated the piece „g—k House Flip“ (2021) which represents a digital metaphor of the gallery's physical building.

„g—k House Flip“ is for sale at the same price for which the building is being traded on the Stuttgart real estate market. With the proceeds from the sale of the digital artwork, the founders could purchase the analogue building in Stuttgart - that's the idea.

With this initiative the Galerie Kernweine and artist Nasty Files would like to draw attention not only to the development of the real estate market and the preservation of a diverse cultural landscape, but also to the increasingly merging boundaries between the digital and analogue worlds. Since the recent increase of NFT sales, the hype as well as the accompanying debate around digital art has been in full swing. Will this new digital market in which digital art is traded become established? Is it a mistake to continue to ignore the digital art that has long existed? Or is it all just a bad joke? 

The term "house flipping" is used by real estate investors to describe the process of buying and selling properties for profit. The artwork winks sarcastically at this activity, showing the dark side of “house flipping”. Nasty Files is a Milan based visual artist, his work explores, with sarcasm, the relationship between humans and spaces, their mutual influence and the oddity of contemporary life in general. 

"Galerie Kernweine Foto und Raum” (2017) is a place for contemporary photography, visual media and discourse. We collaborate with (inter-)national artists to develop and curate exhibition projects that challenge classical approaches and expand established formats. Workshops and event formats on the topics of photography and visual media take place on an alternating basis. 

In our g—k online shop we sell limited photo editions, books, magazines and selected products. The g—k café & bar is located in the gallery’s rear courtyard.