Announcing The DaïmAlYad Collection
With 75 pieces highlighting artists from underrepresented communities around the world, The DaïmAlYad Collection redefines the Museum of Crypto Art’s Mission
In February of 2023, the Museum of Crypto Art received the largest single donation in our organization’s history. In partnership with our benefactor, Daïm Aggot-Hönsch, MOCA is proud to announce The DaïmAlYad Collection, the first-ever expansion of our Permanent Collection and one which reorients the Museum’s overall direction. Mr. Aggot-Hönsch is among crypto art’s most persistently progressive and creative figures, and The DaïmAlYad Collection is a sterling representation of his collecting ethos.
“I made a focus to find, collect, and uplift a diverse and global set of artists outside of what can sometimes be the chief focus of crypto twitter,” Mr. Aggot-Hönsch told us. With 75 pieces covering the full aesthetic spectrum, this donation emphasizes artists and artistic styles from global communities which oft go underrepresented in larger crypto art discourse. The pieces in Aggot-Hönsch’s donation run the gamut of mediums and methods, with hand-drawn artworks, photographs, videos, gifs, landscapes, self-portraits, and stencils all housed therein. Mr. Aggot-Hönsch’s donation is highlighted by eight pieces from Sukrit Srisakulchawla, five by Yosnier, two black-and-white looping video pieces from the Ethiopian art collective Yatreda ያጥሬዳ, four works by Idil Mohamed, and six by VintageMozart. Also included in the donation are pieces by AlienQueen, Diana Sinclair, Brittany Pierre, and Jennifer Vahlbruch, among many others. Like with the rest of our Permanent and Community Collections, every piece in The DaïmAlYad Collection is permanently archived thanks to our comprehensive Filecoin integration, thereby safeguarding the contributions of these vital crypto artists forevermore.
Both Mr. Aggot-Hönsch and MOCA itself believe that this donation is only the beginning of a greater collaboration. “I’d like to treat this as a living collection, and I’d like to get together a group of people to shepherd and steward the collection and manage it and find ways of showcasing and highlighting in addition to adding support to what the Museum of Crypto art might do,” Aggot-Hönsch says.
As such, The DaïmAlYad Collection will be furthered — internally and externally — in accordance with Mr. Aggot-Hönsch’s overall vision for “a genuinely global and diverse crypto art collection that reflects the richness of what I think we’ve built over these last couple of years.” As visitors to the Museum come to spend time within The DaïmAlYad Collection, we hope to redirect attention back towards artworks which embody the global and democratic underpinnings of crypto art which have sustained this movement since its inception.
For some time, the broader crypto art narrative has consolidated around a much smaller selection of artists than has historically been minting works on the blockchain. As such The DaïmAlYad Collection is best understood as a radical spark, one which prompts a more egalitarian and accurate approach to crypto art stewardship than many institutions — MOCA included — have demonstrated in the past.
Many of the values espoused in his eponymous collection have been encapsulated in Mr. Aggot-Hönsch’s I AM A CRYPTOARTIST manifesto. There, Aggot-Hönsch writes:
“I believe in the necessity of artists being among the leaders of social evolution.
“I believe in the ability of decentralization and transparency to facilitate fairer, healthier, and wealthier relationships and communities.
“I believe in the importance and justice of supporting and empowering oppressed and mistreated communities towards attaining greater autonomy, security, and prosperity.”
We believe the same. And owing greatly to the The DaïmAlYad Collection, we believe MOCA can further its mission to protect and exalt these notions in concert with, on behalf of, and inspired by Mr. Aggot-Hönsch himself.
