Digital painting created with AI (Stable Diffusion) and Procreate. This is the first painting I used AI in my painting.

Halo

Hafftka

An interpretation of the Decal by Hafftka. A symbol of permissionless creativity. Series Twenty Seven.

Decal by Hafftka #0

This work is based on various works I have made throughout my 50 years as an artist, all of which are major in themselves. It is a work I feel very deeply about and its subject matter I take very seriously. I called it “Current Affairs” because it speaks about today as much as about the history of mankind. This piece is the story of human struggles and triumphs throughout the ages.

I took 5 IRL paintings and strung them digitally, like a story, a scroll, a giant mural, that unites their meaning into a poignant message.

The paintings in order of appearance:
The Selecting Hand, 1986, 78"x224" oil on canvas
The Hill, Jerusalem, 1985, collection of the Yeshiva UniversityMuseum, The Center for Jewish History NY, 78"x224" oil on canvas
Cripples, 1984, in private collection, 78"x100" oil on canvas
Extension, 1987, 78"x200" oil on canvas
Deposition, 1987, 78"x200" oil on canvas

Music by Feeding Goats, I play guitar and my wife Yonat the theremin

Current Affairs

We start life with the fountain of youth and love sustains us throughout our lives, nourishment for body and soul.  
Based on a physical painting I created in 2016, 11" x 8.5", watercolor, ink & crayon on Fabriano Tiepolo paper. Animated with Photoshop.

Fountain of Youth

Punks are legends in the Web3 ecosystem so I had to create my own

April Punk

Embrace Love is a digital work 10200px X 8400Px using the traditional technique of chiaroscuro to express my strong feelings of love. I made this painting in Procreate on an IPad Pro using an Apple Pencil 2

Embrace Love

 The Shores of Acheron  
Myths are the original memes  
Hafftka Pepe Fake Rare for the culture will return soon

Hafftka Pepe Fake Rare

An edition of 14. Based on an oil painting I made in 2022.

Young Artist

Watercolor, ink and crayons on handmade paper 2023, 8.75" x 11"  
This NFT is gifted to the owner of the physical

Punk Infinite #2/2

The title is taken from the Walt Whitman poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry". That poem is engraved on a building by the Brooklyn Bridge which I pass often and I find it very inspiring.  
An encaustic painting on panel, 24"x19".

I Am With You #1/2

The environment around my studio is bricks and cobblestones. Many times I have used both to depict emotional and political realities. Paintings, like dreams, synthesize elements from daily life, like birds in our back yard and the bricks that make up our studios, into potent metaphors of existential reality.

Based on an oil painting I created in 1998 measuring 78"x100". Digitized and animated in Photoshop.

Backyard Politics

This is the 12th and final piece of my DOI collection. It was created with AI (Scenario), Procreate and Photoshop. It marks 2 full years of declaring my artistic independence with the help and support of the awesome web3 community. I cherish this independence and intend to continue as a free spirit in all worlds of art. Hence why this is called Break On Through...

Break On Through To The Other Side

Hafftka Declaration of Independence

This piece was commissioned by a collector friend. The subject of this piece is depression, and it was created on iPad with Procreate, it is fully digital.
The following excerpt from the Sylvia Plath poem "Lady Lazarus" fits the feelings in this work:

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair   
And I eat men like air.

Noonday Demon

There is the legal definition for this term and this is the emotional definition as was my personal experience.
An animation based on one of my paintings.

An Arm's Length Transaction

The Hafftka Mine

An homage to XCOPY, my own variation of his “Some Asshole”.  
There are 21 variations of this work, each in edition of only 2.  
100% digital.

Some Asshole 10

Some Asshole 12

Hafftka Homage

Here is the Bear in the Market help him out ! 

Bear Market 

Mickey Mouse 

Hafftkas Heros

One of my first works of art was a sculpture of a burnt dial telephone and headset. The same telephone is depicted in the painting this NFT is based on. The man on the telephone is transformed by repeating and animation.

Man On Telephone

My debut here on Foundation with 2 works. These works are created with analog paintings that are digitally disassembled and reassembled to create new stories. The music is composed for each piece by Michael & Yonat Hafftka with guitar and theremin. The deconstruction of the paintings and the construction of the videos is by Yonat Hafftka.
For the past 45 years my work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums.
My work is represented in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, New York Public Library, Housatonic Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Yeshiva University Museum and other museums.

A dramatization of an early gouache work from 1975 brings to life the fantasies of a young artist.

Man With Car

Car and Phone

This is the GN piece by @GrantYun2 (Grant Riven Yun) with my NFT Playground on the billboard. Created with permission from Grant Riven Yun.

GN and NFT Playground Derivative

An edition of 14 for my collectors. An animation of a painting I created in 2022.

Hafftka NFT Playground

14 Karat by Hafftka

An animation based on an a photo of an encaustic painting on wood. Created with Photoshop and Procreate.

Don't Shoot

Hafftka Art

Pepe is full of love, for you, for himself, for everyone! One of the most beautiful aspects of web3 has been the takeover of Pepe to express love for all and the possibility of cancelling hate and prejudice with art. LFG

Pepe Dear

I got a DM from this dude today, he said he is coming back and wants to buy my Pepe, sounds legit, right?

Pepe Moto

Hafftka Fake Rare

Based on etchings created in 1981 and digitized in 2022.

These prints were my break through in the art world. Back then I didn’t even realize being accepted by the permanent collection of MoMA NY was a big thing.

The story involves Steve Schlesinger’s gallery on Madison Avenue who was a dealer of Picasso, Chagall and other fine artists and Dr. Issac Shenkin, a world famous collector of Egon Schiele and Max Beckman who bought several editions.

It was Shenkin who showed my work to the MoMA and the rest is history!

Let me tell you about these pieces:

INCISIONS, 1981
Ten etchings, several with hand coloring, printed by the artist. Held in a cloth covered box with a title page and a colophon page etchings.
Plate size: 12 x 9 in. (or 9 x 12) - 30.4 x 22.8 cm (or 22.8 x 30.4).
Sheet size: 13 x 10 in. (or 10 x 13) - 34.7 x 26.7 cm (or 26.7 x 34.7).
Edition of 26, 4 artist’s proofs, 1 state proof, 1 bon à tirer proof. Each sheet signed (l.r.), dated, and numbered (l.l.).
Paper: Fabriano Tiepolo.
Plates processed and printed by the artist in his studio, New York.
Published by Mark Baron, New York.

In 1981 I bought my first etching press. It was the smallest Charles Brand. I bought it from the artist Hannelore Baron for $300. Hannelore was unhappy with the gallery she was in. I liked her work very much and I suggested her art to another art dealer, Steve Schlesinger, who started representing her and was successful in placing her works in several museums and good collections. I met Hannelore through her son Mark who used to hang out with the kids in my neighborhood. We were the same age. Hannelore was a survivor and a refugee of WW2,  as were my parents. We were both interested in art and music. One day Hannelore mentioned she wanted to sell her etching press. After her mastectomy she no longer had the strength to turn the press. I bought it right there and then. From then on I have had a life long love affair with the intaglio medium. 

I learned the techniques of making etching fairly quickly. It came naturally to me. At some point Mark, Hannelore’s son, offered to publish my first major project. Mark was studying bass with David Izenzon. Izenzon was the bass player for Ornette Coleman and other Jazz luminaries. For a living Mark sold Persian rugs but he wanted to become and art dealer.  

My first project with Mark was “Incisions”. I had a great time printing it. With this set I developed my preference for monotypes rather than strictly repeating a bon a tier print for the whole edition. Mark assisted me by placing the paper on the plate when my hands were dirty with ink. Although Mark had already given up playing the bass he was keen on introducing me to Jazz, he was an avid Jazz fan. Until then I only listened to Classical and Rock and Roll so Jazz was very foreign to me. Mark brought over a milk crate full of records and we listened to a wide array of avant-guard improvised Jazz along with classics like Lester Young and Duke Ellington. After all the plates were printed I designed a box to hold each set. 

Mark took a few sets to Steve Schlesinger’s gallery on Madison Avenue, NY. Schlesinger was a dealer of Picasso, Chagall, Max Beckman and other fine artists and the gallery was well known in the New York Art World. The very next day Dr. Issac Shenkin, a world famous collector of Egon Schiele and Max Beckman, came into the gallery and saw my prints. He bought several editions. I met Dr. Shenkin a week later and he told me that he went straight to MOMA and showed it to the curator Riva Castelman. She immediately suggested that it would be the next acquisition of the Museum and proposed to show them all. It is quite hilarious looking back on it now and realizing that I didn’t know it was a big deal. When the show went up I didn’t attend the opening. That’s how naive I was about the art scene.

Incisions 8 (1/1)

Incisions 10 (1/1)

Hafftka Museum Works

A gif in an edition of three based on a watercolor exegesis of the Zohar.  
30"x22.5" ink, watercolors & pencil on paper 2009  
In the: The Escalette Permanent Collection of Art | Chapman University, CA

“As He verged on creating the world, all the letters presented themselves  
before Him, from last to first.”

Haqdamat Sefer ha-Zohar #3/3

Haqdamat Sefer ha-Zohar #2/3

Hafftka - Zohar Works

The Making of An Accessory to Absurdity

This painting is a milestone for me. It is the first encaustic painting I have done since the late 1980’s. What I always loved about encaustics is that the colors don’t age. So one can look at encaustic paintings, like the Egyptian Fayum portraits from the 3rd century, and the colors are exactly the same as they were the day they were painted. My encaustics from the 1980’s are now in the Arizona State University Art Museum. I haven’t done more since because it was too dangerous when my kids were around, hot plates, a burning industrial air blower, etc.

In this painting I was able to achieve some effects you can’t usually get with wax. Like throwing paint, which is very hard with wax because it cools so fast. I also let the wax drip in some places creating a varied texture throughout.

Unlike my early encaustics this one is very bright. It has references to my recent involvement with web3, the dense and dank, the tungsten cube, the green of Pepe, etc. It is hard for me to describe the meaning of this painting in more words than the title. In the animation of it I tried to highlight the parts’ meaning by giving them the appropriate movement and speed. One might think of the fluttering winged creature as a symbol for needing to constantly work at staying afloat. One might see the flopping fish as a struggle to breath in an unsuitable environment. One might see the swinging humanoid as the on and off of inspiration. One might see the face in the rock and the tiny creatures as hidden life in small things. And then one may see all of this differently which is the beauty of paintings, there is not one way to see them. The absurdities in this painting remind me of the meme “fuck around and find out”, which is also about the logic of absurdity. 

There are six elements in motion, each moves at a different rate. To achieve that I had to create 26 layers. So each moving part remains in the same position for one or more frames depending on how fast it needs to move. To make the winged creature hover I made his wings move fast, so they actually change in every frame. I wanted the fish to flutter a little slower, so I made it hold each position for 2 frames. The swing moves through four stages in order to make the movement more realistic. So each position of the swing lasts through 3 frames except at the extreme positions which are 4 frames each. The swing also has a little bounce when it comes back where it goes to the second position for only 2 frames and returns to the forward most position. The figure on the swing becomes smaller as it swings back. The face in the rock and the mice/creatures next to it move less frequently, every 6 frames, but when they move they hold the new position for just one frame and immediately return to their original position in the next frame. The man’s leg moves the slowest of all the parts and goes through 3 positions to make it look more natural. Each position lasts for 6 frames.

An Accessory to Absurdity

The demons we have to conquer throughout our lives.

Grip

Dreams and Revolutions

A digital animation of a physical painting.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Inna is a dear friend who modeled for me for many years. She often slept in my studio dreaming as I painted her. Here is what I saw.
Made with seven oil paintings made between 1982 and 1999 and digitally animated. Music by Feeding Goats Michael Hafftka guitar, Yonat Hafftka theremin.

Inna Dreaming

Hafftka Stories

Based on etchings created in 1981 and digitized in 2022.

These prints were my break through in the art world. Back then I didn’t even realize being accepted by the permanent collection of MoMA NY was a big thing.

The story involves Steve Schlesinger’s gallery on Madison Avenue who was a dealer of Picasso, Chagall and other fine artists and Dr. Issac Shenkin, a world famous collector of Egon Schiele and Max Beckman who bought several editions.

It was Shenkin who showed my work to the MoMA and the rest is history!

About these pieces:

INCISIONS, 1981  
Ten etchings, several with hand coloring, printed by the artist. Held in a cloth covered box with a title page and a colophon page etchings.  
Plate size: 12 x 9 in. (or 9 x 12) - 30.4 x 22.8 cm (or 22.8 x 30.4).  
Sheet size: 13 x 10 in. (or 10 x 13) - 34.7 x 26.7 cm (or 26.7 x 34.7).  
Edition of 26, 4 artist’s proofs, 1 state proof, 1 bon à tirer proof. Each sheet signed (l.r.), dated, and numbered (l.l.).  
Paper: Fabriano Tiepolo  
Plates processed and printed by the artist in his studio, New York.  
Published by Mark Baron, New York.

In 1981 I bought my first etching press. It was the smallest Charles Brand. I bought it from the artist Hannelore Baron for $300. Hannelore was unhappy with the gallery she was in. I liked her work very much and I suggested her art to another art dealer, Steve Schlesinger, who started representing her and was successful in placing her works in several museums and good collections. I met Hannelore through her son Mark who used to hang out with the kids in my neighborhood. We were the same age. Hannelore was a survivor and a refugee of WW2, as were my parents. We were both interested in art and music. One day Hannelore mentioned she wanted to sell her etching press. After her mastectomy she no longer had the strength to turn the press. I bought it right there and then. From then on I have had a life long love affair with the intaglio medium.

I learned the techniques of making etching fairly quickly. It came naturally to me. At some point Mark, Hannelore’s son, offered to publish my first major project. Mark was studying bass with David Izenzon. Izenzon was the bass player for Ornette Coleman and other Jazz luminaries. For a living Mark sold Persian rugs but he wanted to become and art dealer.

My first project with Mark was “Incisions”. I had a great time printing it. With this set I developed my preference for monotypes rather than strictly repeating a bon a tier print for the whole edition. Mark assisted me by placing the paper on the plate when my hands were dirty with ink. Although Mark had already given up playing the bass he was keen on introducing me to Jazz, he was an avid Jazz fan. Until then I only listened to Classical and Rock and Roll so Jazz was very foreign to me. Mark brought over a milk crate full of records and we listened to a wide array of avant-guard improvised Jazz along with classics like Lester Young and Duke Ellington. After all the plates were printed I designed a box to hold each set.

Mark took a few sets to Steve Schlesinger’s gallery on Madison Avenue, NY. Schlesinger was a dealer of Picasso, Chagall, Max Beckman and other fine artists and the gallery was well known in the New York Art World. The very next day Dr. Issac Shenkin, a world famous collector of Egon Schiele and Max Beckman, came into the gallery and saw my prints. He bought several editions. I met Dr. Shenkin a week later and he told me that he went straight to MOMA and showed it to the curator Riva Castelman. She immediately suggested that it would be the next acquisition of the Museum and proposed to show them all. It is quite hilarious looking back on it now and realizing that I didn’t know it was a big deal. When the show went up I didn’t attend the opening. That’s how naive I was about the art scene.

Incisions 8

These 10 animations are based on a series of etchings that is in the collections of the MOMA in NY and the British Museum in London. The etchings are monotypes (each of the 10 etchings is printed differently in each series). They are meant to be kept together.

Incisions 6

Incisions by Hafftka

Breaking of the Vessels

If you thought all Mfers sit at a computer, you were wrong!

Biking Mfer

Hafftka's Bullpen

Buddies

My goal in this collection is to create an ongoing flow of new works for the Foundation.app community. I use traditional materials digitally deconstructed and then reformed to create a new “Hafftka experience”.
My work of the past 47 years, both in analog and digital media, has been shown in galleries and museums all over the world. My work is represented in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, New York Public Library, Housatonic Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Yeshiva University Museum and other museums.

This work is made of 16 paintings of mine from 1991-92 all of one model who is the monk’s daughter. Music by @feedingoats @hafftka - guitar @yhafftka - theremin animation by @yhafftka

Politics of Spirit

Hafftka World

This work is a home to Constantin Brâncuși's sculpture The Prayer. It is a purely digital work done with Procreate on iPad.

The Prayer

A group of works honoring the Romanian Sculpture Constantin Brâncuși

This work is a homage to Constantin Brâncuși's sculpture Sleeping Muse. It is a purely digital work done with Procreate on iPad.

Sleeping Muse

Hafftka Homage to Brancusi

A salute to crypto art history with 8 digital paintings done in Procreate and Photoshop and then combined into a looped video with music by Yonat and me, me playing guitar and Yonat theremin. The piece includes two snippets of code. The first is Python emergency stop for the action of a drone, the second is machine learning code for State-of-the-art diffusion models for image and audio generation in PyTorch. The reason for the code is the statement in Eric Hughes 1993 Cypherpunk Manifesto “Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and ... we're going to write it." The first relates to defying authority and I chose the machine learning code because it relates to using AI in web3. 

Cypherpunk

This is a collaboration between Claire Silver and me. We mixed her work with my work using the AI app Midjourney when she visited my studio on May 17, 2024.

The Interior Outside #1/2

1/1s by Hafftka

Decal by Hafftka #92

An interpretation of the Decal by Hafftka. A symbol of permissionless creativity. Series Twenty-Seven.

Decal by Hafftka #74

Decal by Hafftka

"The Bigger Picture" is an oil painting by Michael Hafftka on stretched linen from 2022 and it is signed on the back.
The image is of two figures nested one inside the other and confined by wireframe structures.

The Bigger Picture

Hafftka at TransientLabs

Painting requires of me a state of intentional open-mindedness that often brings with it doubts and insecurities (similar to what John Keats called "negative capability”)…

This is a statement I made years ago that is true to this day

Hafftka on Deca

Pepe Lifts BTC

This series of Hafftka Rare cards is on both BTC XCP and on ETH.  
The total supply of Card #1 on both chains together is 69

PEPELIFTSBTC

A collection of RARE Hafftka cards that are on both ETH and BTC.

HAFFTKARARE

This will be available for bidding starting on Jan 22nd, 3:00 pm EST.  I will accept the highest offer on Jan 28th at 4:20 pm EST. 

This work is based on various works I have made throughout my 50 years as an artist, all of which are major in themselves. It is a work I feel very deeply about and its subject matter I take very seriously. I called it “Current Affairs” because it speaks about today as much as about the history of mankind. This piece is the story of human struggles and triumphs throughout the ages.

I took 5 IRL paintings and strung them digitally, like a story, a scroll, a giant mural, that unites their meaning into a poignant message.

The paintings in order of appearance:
The Selecting Hand, 1986, 78"x224" oil on canvas
The Hill, Jerusalem, 1985, collection of the Yeshiva UniversityMuseum, The Center for Jewish History NY, 78"x224" oil on canvas
Cripples, 1984, in private collection, 78"x100" oil on canvas
Extension, 1987, 78"x200" oil on canvas
Deposition, 1987, 78"x200" oil on canvas

Music by Feeding Goats, I play guitar and my wife Yonat the theremin

I also have the pleasure of having these incredible artists working with me on this project:
https://deca.art/DianeeLindo
https://deca.art/doct___
https://deca.art/DolcePaganne
https://deca.art/Elispri
https://deca.art/Gavinmeeler
https://deca.art/kingxerox
https://deca.art/scobel
https://deca.art/skife
https://deca.art/Xkiss

Digital posters by the above artists will be available to mint for 10 days from when the 1/1 is minted

Sound on when viewing the work on Deca

LFG!

Hafftka (hafftka)

Hafftka (hafftka)

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