The Future Has No Walls
Art Basel Miami presents Zero10 — its new “digital-first studio,” setting aside the longstanding rule that galleries must show a decade of history before entering the fair, a benchmark once treated as proof of quality and trust. Even the name is revealing: Zero10, borrowed from Malevich’s 1915 Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10 — the moment when the Russian avant-garde declared a revolution: the death of representation and the birth of abstraction.
But the reference doesn’t hold up to logic.
Zero-Ten once stood for rupture — for burning down systems and starting again from zero.
What does that have to do with a polished, market-friendly “digital-first studio”?
Are we meant to read this as innovation?
The symbolism collapses under the weight of its own appropriation.
If anything, a name derived from binary code would offer a clearer logic — a digital language for a digital studio. At least that would align with what they claim to be doing. Instead, we get a historical reference detached from its own context — a symbol stretched past relevance.
It feels as if no one actually thought this through — conceptually, culturally, or even strategically.
Is this what passes for avant-garde now?
A digital corner for “innovation,” sanctioned by tradition and sold to the same collectors it once sought to disrupt? A branding device inside the world’s most established art fair — the very arena of preservation, power, and price.
The irony cuts deeper. In the same month Basel borrows a name charged with Russian avant-garde radicalism, Hauser & Wirth faces prosecution in the UK for allegedly breaching sanctions by making a George Condo work available to a collector connected with Russia. It’s the first case of its kind under the UK’s post-Ukraine luxury goods ban — and a stark reminder of how ethics, economics, and geopolitics now intersect in the art market.
That contradiction — between the language of progress and the persistence of power — defines our moment.
What does it mean when the gatekeepers start lowering their gates?
It means the system no longer believes in its own criteria.
Last year, we witnessed a silent collapse: galleries closing, sales drying up, collectors seeking meaning elsewhere. The very structures that once defined the art world’s economy now appear brittle, unable to sustain the next generation of creators.
And yet, instead of building our own systems, we continue trying to fit into theirs.
Yet here lies the contradiction: Web3 was never meant to live inside walls. It was born against them. It promised networks instead of hierarchies, permanence instead of spectacle, context instead of control.
So what does it mean when this so-called avant-garde now finds itself curated, approved, and centrally placed by the same taste-makers who decide what fits the fair and what pleases its collectors?
Is this still innovation — or assimilation disguised as inclusion?
Art Basel didn’t lower its entry barriers to embrace a new ideology; it did so to fill the economic gaps left by the galleries that closed or withdrew last year. The system adapts not out of conviction, but out of necessity.
And the tragedy is that Web3 now celebrates within those very walls, applauding itself for being “accepted.”
Accepted where, and by whom?
If the goal was to fit in, then we’ve already failed the fundamentals of what Web3 set out to do:
to decentralize, to distribute, to remember differently.
The Fair as a Memory
Art Basel Paris, Paris Photo, and soon Miami all echo the same ritual: immaculate walls, calibrated screens, careful lighting. Digital and Web3 projects are increasingly welcomed — “the new nouveaux gallerists” — yet most arrive already subdued, translated into static objects to please the format.
Once you enter the fair, your rebellion becomes a memory. Fairs are not where innovation happens; they are where innovation is — priced, packaged, and archived. What was once a protocol becomes a print. What was once a network becomes décor.
We see digital art sold in photography fairs, generative works displayed on screens beside analog editions, and blockchain-native projects flattened into “digital sections.” The intention is to include — but inclusion through containment always comes at a cost. The cost is context.
Most art fairs transform systems into surfaces. They turn networks into objects and collective authorship into individual ownership. And yet, Web3 was never meant to live inside frames. It was built to challenge them — to distribute authorship, dissolve geography, and make provenance itself the exhibition.
The power of the old system hasn’t vanished; it has simply updated its vocabulary and now speaks in the language of Web3 — and too many missed the memo. Power never truly disappears; it just rebrands its code. The old hierarchies now speak in Web3 syntax, selling the same structures under a decentralized banner.
The real question is: who’s dictating the protocol we call Web3, and who defines what we call Web3 culture?
When the Medium Outgrows the Wall
Trying to fit Web3 art into the architecture of art fairs is like streaming the internet through a picture frame. It might look familiar, but it misses the point. This space was never about display — it was about continuity, about systems that remember when institutions forget.
The future of culture does not depend on what’s shown, but on what’s preserved. And preservation today is not a building; it’s a network. It’s the ledger that holds our collective memory, the protocol that keeps authorship transparent, and the community that keeps meaning alive after the fair lights go out.
Web3 culture is not an object to be archived; it’s a living topology of care, collaboration, and code. It doesn’t need permission to exist. It doesn’t need a booth to prove its worth.
This doesn’t mean we should reject institutions, curators, or new ventures entering the space. Their participation can add depth, visibility, and context. But as we navigate this power changing terrain, we must ensure their presence doesn’t dilute Web3’s core principles. Decentralization must stay at the forefront — and we must resist the slide back into old gatekeeping reflexes.
The lowering of gates by the traditional system marks a profound shift — but it also demands vigilance. We must safeguard the spirit of innovation that thrives in networked environments, challenging the taste-makers who still believe they can dictate what deserves to be seen, collected, or valued.
Curators and institutions are welcome — but only if they enter on Web3’s terms, not make us bend back to theirs.
The future of art and culture doesn’t depend on conforming to conventional formats, but on nurturing new ones — spaces where every voice can contribute, every artist has a chance to be seen and every idea can flourish without fear.
Yet as we build these new frameworks, the old hierarchies persist in subtle ways.
Therefore, this article isn't a critique of the artists or the artworks shown at fairs — quite the opposite. They deserve the spotlight, and many will rightfully find their place in major collections. But digital art still remains sectioned off — a “studio,” a “digital corner,” a “new sector” — as if innovation must continue to sit outside the canon of the contemporary. If we speak of acceptance, then true inclusion means these works belong in the main sectors — even if the art fair itself is no cultural benchmark, but an economic structure built to serve the market.
The challenge ahead is not to ask for entry, but to redefine the arena itself.
Web3 was never a petition to be included — it was an experiment in rewriting how culture circulates, how value is assigned, and how memory is kept. Let us set the example — and remember the roots of our mission: to build systems that preserve meaning, not just display it.
When the protocol becomes the curator, the exhibition becomes continuous.
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Kazimir Malevich, Black Square 1913© State Tretyakov Gallery, MoscowReferences & Further Reading
About Malevich’s “0,10” Exhibition and Its Values
“Malevich Zero 10” refers to Kazimir Malevich’s 0,10: The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings (Petrograd, 1915), the pivotal event that launched the Suprematist movement. The title symbolized a new beginning (“zero”) and the ten intended participants (“ten”) — though fourteen ultimately exhibited.
It marked the end of Cubo-Futurism and the birth of a radically abstract visual language, redefining the purpose of art as spiritual and universal rather than representational.
Significance of the 0,10 Exhibition
Artistic Evolution: Introduced Suprematism — non-objective art built from pure geometric forms.
Symbolic Title:
Zero — the destruction of the old world of art and the start of a new era.
Ten — the originally planned number of artists.
Radical Break: Black Square became the icon of a new visual and philosophical order, signaling art’s liberation from objecthood.
Core Values Introduced at 0,10
Non-Objectivity: Rejection of representation in favor of pure abstraction.
Geometric Purity: Focus on squares, circles, and crosses as universal visual elements.
Spiritual Dimension: Art as a conduit for cosmic, rather than earthly, meaning.
Dynamic Composition: Geometric simplicity infused with kinetic, spatial energy.
Further Reading & Context