SHIT HAPPENS! — CRTSHT / Marco Spitzbarth (iBulla), 2021—2026

128 algorithmically generated images, 128 physical originals, 128 wallets. Five years after CRTSHT was minted on Ethereum and produced as Genuine Prints, the works are shown together for the first time — before being dispersed again through a draw.

In 2021, when almost every JPEG on the internet seemed to be getting tokenized, 128 small CryptoShits appeared. The digital images were minted on Ethereum and simultaneously translated back into the physical world as 20 × 20 cm aluminium Genuine Prints. Each work received its own wallet, an NFT and a suitably complicated digital identity. Then, for five years, very little happened. The prints remained packed away. The blockchain kept running.

In 2026 all 128 physical works come together for the first time. What in 2021 appeared to be a movement in the opposite direction — from the real object into the metaverse, from possession to token, from image to hash — can now be read in reverse. The NFT becomes less a promise of the future than the provenance of a past utopia: a digital trace of a moment when blockchain, decentralisation and digital ownership briefly seemed about to change everything.

CRTSHT reconnects that trace with its physical object. Four visible seed words are printed on the back of each work. They lead to a digital Oracle and unlock a personal Fortune Cookie. The complete key remains sealed and forms part of the work. Image, wallet, NFT, seed words, mooncake, packaging and blockchain history together form a small archaeological artefact from 2021 — somewhere between lucky charm, archive, access key and unnecessarily complicated cryptography.

At the centre is the question of how physical and digital worlds influence and overlap with one another, leaving traces in each other. You do not need to understand crypto. You do not even have to like it. It is already history anyway.

At the beginning of the exhibition, all 128 works hang together on one wall. They are then dispersed across three draws — not according to rarity, taste, market value or algorithm. Participants draw a number and with it their CRTSHT. Each selected original is removed from the wall, packed and leaves the exhibition together with its digital past. With every draw, the wall becomes emptier.

SHIT HAPPENS!
25.09—31.10.2026
ENDSAFTER · Hardturmstrasse 307 · Zürich
Draws: 25.09 · 17.10 · 31.10.2026
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