Concept:Dexhibition
Dexhibition
A Dexhibition (short for Decurated Exhibition or Decentralized Exhibition) is a form of artistic intervention that dismantles traditional curatorial authority, redistributes creative power, and floods cultural channels with spontaneous, often absurdist artistic expression. Emerging from the Spamart movement, dexhibitions are characterized by their refusal to seek permission and their joyous exploitation of both digital and physical spaces.
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 Characteristics
🎛️ 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
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.
🖼️ Voxels Invasions
Dexhibitions have frequently appeared in Voxels, where artists collectively spam-build on open parcels, hijacking the visual and narrative space of the metaverse with layers of absurd spam, immersive absurdity, and layered glitch stacks.
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
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SpamTV sneak-streamed into a Dexhibition zone
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Spamart occupying the #ArtBasel hashtag
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Physical spam art mailing kits sent to institutions
