The Hole is pleased to present CryptoFIRE Degen, a solo exhibition by Christine Tien Wang, the San Francisco-based artist's first in New York. Working in acrylic and oil on canvas, Wang's practice looks closely at the most era-defining output of the creative public: memes. In CryptoFIRE Degen Wang focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, her paintings toying with both the bizarre culture that has formed around the volatile cryptocurrency market and the unique and fascinating medium of memes that both helps us understand and ridicule it.

Degen as in short for ‘degenerate’: engaging in speculative trading or investment strategies; even the exhibition title is cryptic and part of an insider world with its own nomenclature. While the memes we consume are often fed to us by an algorithm that knows us better than we know ourselves, across thirteen new paintings Wang curates our IRL FYP (in real life for you page). Her selection of scalding-hot takes utilizes imagery from pop culture to politics, from Janet Yellen to Lord of the Rings. Many of them are well-worn meme structures the crypto world has put their twist on, whether you are a doom scroller or accidentally opened Twitter in the past decade you’ve seen this Drake format before, seen the Mean Girls whispering and a monkey puppet looking askance.

Making paintings about Bitcoin is not new for Wang with a 2018 show titled Crypto Rich and in 2019 #cryptomemes, women and Leo DiCaprio. When starting the body of work for this show, Bitcoin was valued at $54,000 for the first time since December 2021 after its not-insignificant plummet, the value today as you read this $59,125 but that information could be very different when the show opens week or when the show closes. In Angelina Jolie Crying screen grabs from the movie Original Sin (2001) are overlayed in graphic all caps with “Bought Bitcoin for $50k and sold for $17k”. This painting updates the 2018 meme, made when Bitcoin fell from $19k in December of 2017 to $8k less than two months later. Updating an old meme of an even older movie shows the speed of meme culture in relationship to pop culture and painting history.

In this latest installment Wang explores the embarrassment and humor of being in too deep, down the rabbit hole not just with crypto but technology addiction or even the avaricious nature of the art world. The speed is not in sync: memes are short in duration and disposable, her paintings are arduous and months-long; crypto changes value dramatically in a single day, the art world raises up talent and drops it within the same year. Our brains have been rewired to have short attention spans and an insatiable appetite for new content: we are supposed to spend hours gazing at an artwork in a museum to slowly chew through the layers of meaning and interest but instead we scroll fast through an auction catalogue and click to bid. Looking at Wang’s paintings of memes is like getting off a treadmill or hitting a sudden speed bump; we have to slow down but it is slightly nauseating.

"Another gallery once wrote about my work that I'm making memes high art like painting but that's wrong: I'm bringing paintings down to memes." Translating this online shared imagery into paint could be considered a pop gesture, where the artist is simply showing us our existing cultural artifacts in paint in a gallery so we can consider them closely. But I think the artist feels more about the content than she lets on, and feels more about painting itself. Both internet trolls and her mom frequently ask her “why are you doing this” and I think the process of making these paintings is how she is figuring that out.

Christine Tien Wang (b. 1985, Washington, D.C.) lives and works in San Francisco. Using meme paintings as an accessible format, Wang creates thought-provoking and hyper-contemporary work that comments on everything from identity to the consequences of capitalist ideology. She received her BFA from the Cooper Union and her MFA from UCLA. Recent solo exhibitions include Screen Time at Night Gallery in Los Angeles Banana Philosophy at PTT Space in Taipei and Fake Stupid, queen of cringe at Galerie Nagel Draxler in Cologne as well as group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan. Wang is currently Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at the California College of Art.