Concept:Dexhibition

Dexhibition

Dexhibition is a portmanteau of Decentralized Exhibition and Decurated Exhibition. Coined in the early 2020s by artists embedded in the SpamArt movement, dexhibitions offer an emergent framework for presenting art in the absence of traditional gatekeeping, institutional curation, or centralized authority. It represents a fundamental shift in both the presentation and power structures of art distribution and reception in the web3 era.

Etymology and Origins

The term “Dexhibition” fuses the words “Decurated” or “Decentralized" with "Exhibition.” It originated informally within Spamart chats during preparations for what would become SPAMiami, when artists began to openly organize social media spam raids aimed at hijacking institutional hashtags.

Dexhibitions are both a critique and a celebration: they critique the gatekeeping mechanisms of traditional art institutions while celebrating the chaotic energy of crowd-sourced creative insurgency.

Core Definitions

There are two primary interpretations of a dexhibition:

🎛️ Decurated

In a decurated context, artists actively undermine the curated narrative of a gallery or fair. This can involve:

• Spamming the official hashtags of an event (e.g., #ArtBasel, #NFTNYC)
• Infiltrating virtual spaces like Voxels or Decentraland with unsolicited artwork
• Mailing unsolicited physical Spamart to museum curators, critics, or attendees

The goal is not merely to be seen, but to **drown out the signal** of commercial curation with a new noise: radical, unfiltered, pink-tinted and glitch-corrupted.

🌐 Decentralized

A decentralized exhibition is organized across distributed platforms (social media, VR, web3 marketplaces, mailing lists, and blockchain), with no single authority dictating the parameters or participant list. It is coordinated via open calls, hashtags, public tools, or shared wallets. Often ephemeral or modular in structure, these exhibitions may not have a single physical or digital location.

In a decentralized dexhibition, there is no organizer. Anyone can participate. A dexhibition might start with a meme, a challenge, or a half-formed idea in a group chat — and blossom into a full-scale public aesthetic takeover. No hierarchy, no central platform, no approval process.

Instead of walls, dexhibitions build their context on feeds, walls, sidewalks, back alleys, VR landscapes, and NFT marketplaces.

Notable Dexhibitions

SPAMiami (2023)

The most infamous example of a dexhibition was SPAMiami, a parallel intervention during Art Basel Miami Beach 2023. Instead of reserving booths, Spamartists spammed #ArtBasel and #MiamiArtWeek hashtags with an overwhelming volume of AI-video loops, glitch paintings, and meat-themed propaganda. They also deployed AR spam sculptures in public and mailed physical Spamart to fair attendees and galleries.

Spamming the Pompidou

An international spam campaign during the NFT Factory's Paris exhibitions where institutional hashtags and event threads were flooded by glitchy meat-pink art.

Spamming Sotheby's

Spam artists launched surprise spamdrops to prominent collectors' wallets during a high-profile Sotheby's auction, accompanied by parallel gallery threads on Twitter with parody pieces.

#TezQuakeAid (2023)

While initially organized for earthquake relief, this initiative evolved into a dexhibition of spontaneous visual chaos with over 1,000 participating wallets.

Spam Flag AirDrops

Anonymous spam of themed art to hundreds of wallets using tools like Tool:savethetrash.xyz, resulting in unpredictable and collectively-shaped aesthetic outcomes.

Artistic and Cultural Significance

Dexhibitions are acts of **aesthetic insurgency**. They challenge the gatekeeping power of curators, galleries, and institutions by unleashing uncurated, hyperpersonal, spam-soaked chaos into controlled spaces. They critique not just what is seen, but **who decides what gets seen**.

They are also decentralizing acts: they operate without budgets, without applications, and without consensus — yet frequently achieve greater visibility and cultural impact than the events they target.

Philosophical Interpretation

From a post-structuralist perspective, the dexhibition can be seen as a **rupture** in the narrative construction of value. The curator is no longer the shaper of history — the spammer is. Meaning is no longer layered through exhibition texts and wall labels but **derailed through overexposure, absurdity, and repetition**.

In a dexhibition, value is not curated — it is **contaminated** into being.

Tools and Tactics

• Spambot takeovers (e.g., Tool:MeatArtBot)
• Social media hashtag hijacking
• Physical mailings to event addresses
• VR/AR spam installations at GPS locations
• Coordinated meme floods

See Also

• Concept:Spamart
• Event:SPAMiami
• Spamject:SpamTV
• Concept:Decentralization in Art
• Concept:Curatorial Critique

Gallery

• SpamTV sneak-streamed into a Dexhibition zone
  SpamTV sneak-streamed into a Dexhibition zone
• Spamart occupying the #ArtBasel hashtag
  Spamart occupying the #ArtBasel hashtag
• Physical spam art mailing kits sent to institutions
  Physical spam art mailing kits sent to institutions