Artist Edgar Plans And Curatible Announce Collaboration With Exile Content Studio To Launch ‘Lil’ Heroes’

Exile Content Studio, a leading Latinx-led Hollywood production company, has teamed up to collaborate with Spanish contemporary visual artist Edgar Plans and Curatible to create a collection of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) inspired by Plans’ past work. The “Lil’ Heroes” will become a new entertainment franchise with its own animated children’s television series based on the NFT collection.

Curatible is a team of art collectors who hope to transform the way art is obtained and collected. Working with international artists, Curatible selects NFT collections allowing the artists involved the opportunity to make their mark in the digital world and providing collectors with unique work that has a real market value.

Plans is a Madrid-born artist whose work has been featured in the Almine Rech in Paris, Brussels and Shanghai. He has also been featured in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Galeria Miquel Alzueta in Barcelona. His expressive and colorful mouse-eared characters are known as the Animal Heroes. Plans uses these big-eyed cartoons in contrast to urban backdrops using mixed media. These images are meant to be social commentaries on racism and gender equality.

“We are creating a bridge between traditional art and the digital world and are happy to collaborate with a contemporary artist like Edgar Plans to help him in the transition into NFT,” said Massine Benoukaci, CEO and co-Founder of Curatible. “It’s a real pleasure to collaborate with Exile and mix our expertise to build a real community, franchise and project around Edgar.”

I spoke to Plans about what excites him the most about this partnership. We also discussed what this experience has been like for a traditional artist entering the digital realm and how much he knew about NFTs before starting this project.

Risa Sarachan: What is most exciting to you about this project? 

Edgar Plans: What most excites me about this project is the opportunity to bring my characters into the animated world. My paintings are narrative-driven. They tell stories. And animation allows us to take that one step further. 

Our lives are becoming increasingly digital thanks to social media and the ability to connect and communicate with millions of people daily. By bringing my art to the NFT space and the Metaverse, it opens infinite creative possibilities. The launch of the NFTs is the beginning of a larger project that we expect to grow over time. 

Sarachan: How has it challenged you as an artist?

Plans: I’m a traditional artist. I like to create oil paintings, draw on paper and work on a canvas. But as I’ve entered the digital realm, I’ve learned that art can be interactive, alive, and can take on a life of its own. 

Sarachan: How much did you know about the world of NFTs before signing on to this project?

Plans: Honestly, very little. Some collectors tried explaining it to me, but I didn’t fully understand the idea of creating a digital collection. I am an art collector myself and have been collecting paintings and sculptures. But seeing the impact of NFTs in the art world, it became clear to me that I needed to expand and learn. And I’m lucky to have great partners and colleagues to support me in that process. They each have a lot of experience in their fields, and we complement each other to create something special. 

Interview excerpts have been edited and condensed for clarity.