Adrian Pocobelli

'Oftentimes when you see digital art, it feels unrooted. It feels like it’s hard to place, especially if you’re coming out of the tradition. And what I always say is—if you want to be a part of the tradition, you have to have a conversation with the tradition. And the most simplest way of having a conversation with the tradition is actually bringing up some of those works.'

—Adrian Pocobelli

For the 21st episode of Dutch Art & Design Today, I spoke with Adrian Pocobelli, a Berlin-based artist, editor, and curator whose work straddles the borders between digital art, art history, visual culture, and blockchain art experimentation. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and shaped by years spent in Montreal, Toronto, and now Berlin, Adrian’s trajectory moves from stamp collecting, from comics and trading cards, to Tezos, and bitcoin, and the evolving pixelated poetics of web3. With a background in English literature and studio art, and an early encounter with Italian painting in the Vatican, Adrian’s work charts a long arc across visual language, medium, and memory. Most importantly for this show, one of Adrian’s works from 2022 repurposes Raphael’s portrait of Castiglone. The work was sketched by Rembrandt while it was up for auction in 1639, in Amsterdam.

In this sweeping and layered conversation, we trace Adrian’s evolution from painting with inkjet printers and screen prints in Berlin to finding expressive liberation through his phone, his finger, and the emergence of blockchain-based platforms for digital art. We discuss his long-standing influence from figures as J.G. Ballard and William Burroughs; and his methodological use of randomness, repetition, and philosophical appropriation. Adrian recounts the development of his major series, including Screen Memories, The Peloponnesian War, Dante’s Inferno, and AI Girlfriend, each offering a different lens through which to view art history, contemporary systems, and visual culture.

We also dive into the world of art on the blockchain: Tezos, Ethereum, and Bitcoin as ecosystems for distribution, experimentation, and visual curation. Adrian offers a deeply articulate and practical framework for understanding these platforms, and reflects on his creation of The Artist Journal, his long-running YouTube series that blends curation, commentary, and community into what he calls a “newspaper of the imagination.” From glitch aesthetics to the spiritual politics of pixel art, and from contemporary appropriation to classical citation, this conversation unpacks the logic and poetics of digital art’s second generation—one rooted in tradition but carried on-chain.

You can find Adrian on X ⁠@pocobelli⁠ and at his website ⁠pocobelli.net.

You can find John on X ⁠@johnbezold⁠ and at his website ⁠johnbezold.com⁠.

'Dutch Art & Design Today' is published by ⁠Semicolon-Press⁠.

ISSN: 3050-6662