fx(hash) undercurrents: Lisa Orth

Anna Wolf
3 min readDec 17, 2021

Within a few weeks of fx(hash) going live, we’ve seen incredible waves of hype moving over the platform. Despite their well-deserved success, astronomical secondary sales have unavoidably drawn collectors toward some big names, while ignoring brilliant undercurrents. fx(hash) undercurrents is a series of articles that showcase outstanding artworks that received relatively little attention on fx(hash), but that I believe are particularly noteworthy.

Although women artists are still rarely involved in generative art, when they do, they tend to stand out. In light of this, the three female artists who released generative art projects at fx(hash) in November all deserve special attention. They are Aleksandra Jovanić, Amy Goodchild, and Lisa Orth.

Lisa Orth was the first women artist at fx(hash). She minted her art project on November 11, in the very first days of the Beta mode. First and foremost, Lisa Orth is not an undercurrent artist in fx(hash)! All eight of her collections have been sold out, within hours in November (not unusual these days), and within minutes in December 2021. Fans and the fx(hash) community are always eagerly awaiting her releases. While maintaining an individual signature, her art illustrates a wide range of themes, such as graphic design, architecture, and textiles. Furthermore, she treats the rarity of her work with special care, issuing relatively small editions. In fact, herein lies my reason for including her art project in the undercurrents series. In light of her art’s rarity, I believe her collections have not yet reached their full potential of attention.

It is worthwhile to study all of her works, but I chose one that I particularly value and plan to highlight on another occasion. It is the monochrome piece: A Center Near the Edges. In the artist’s description, the artwork explores constructivism, while the paintings of Ljubov Popova, a Russian avantgarde artist, served as an inspiration.

In A Center Near the Edges, Lisa Orth honors Ljubov Popova and her contribution to constructivism, shedding light on a particular period in art history, which is the Russian avantgarde. While the German avantgarde movement Bauhaus is globally well-known, few are familiar with the corresponding Russian avantgarde movement, Vkhutemas. During the 20s of the last century, Vkhutemas was home to three major movements in art and architecture: constructivism, rationalism, and supremacism. Both schools flourished during a relatively liberal era, but were shut down under increasingly totalitarian German and Russian regimes. While many Bauhaus students and teachers emigrated and significantly influenced design education around the world, Vkhutemas’ founders met tragic ends or suffered under repressions. Until today, this dark chapter in Russian art history has only gradually been brought to light. In her artwork the artist embraces both the shining mood of avantgarde with the sinister forefeeling of the coming era.

A Center Near the Edges, by Lisa Orth

However, even without the historical context, this piece’s monochrome industrial aesthetic speaks for itself. Lisa Orth’s generative projects explore a broad range of themes giving confidence for more thoughtful work to come.

The projects website at fx(hash): https://www.fxhash.xyz/u/Lisa%20Orth

Author’s disclosure: I’m a collector and community member at fx(hash) and have artworks by Lisa Orth in my NFT collection.

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Anna Wolf

Economist turned NFT curator. I am amazed to discover how blockchain links my love of art and economics.