Hackatao

Hackatao is the shared name of an Italian artist duo, working under the initials "S" (Sergio Scalet) and "N" (Nadia Squarci), who began collaborating in Milan in 2007. The name fuses "hacker" and "tao," a pairing meant to hold together a technological, exploratory approach with a dual, complementary way of making work between the two artists. Descriptions of their practice note the combination of N's flat, pop-inflected style with S's flowing, black-and-white drawing.

Neither artist has published detailed school records. Nadia has said in interview that she studied at an Institute of Art in a graphic design track, without naming the school or years attended, and later worked in Milan as a copywriter. No source in the available record documents Sergio's formal education.

The duo built an early exhibition record in Italy, including the solo show WAZHACK at ArteA Gallery in Milan in 2016, before moving early into NFTs, minting a first token, Girl Next Door, in 2018. Galleries and crypto-art commentators describe them as having anticipated the wider market surge in NFT art that took hold in 2021. Since then they have shown in group exhibitions in Rome, taken part in an installation paired with Lucio Fontana's work at the Ca la Ghironda Modern Art Museum near Bologna, and participated in a 2023 collaboration between the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing and the Dynamic Art Museum in Milan. They have also worked with Christie's on an NFT project reinterpreting a Leonardo da Vinci drawing; the dossier used for this profile did not confirm the sale channel, location, or exact date for that collaboration.

As of July 2026, Hackatao is documented as living and active. Their own social channels reference participation in NFC Lisbon 2026 and a mid-2026 collaboration with the band Blondie, and no obituary, death notice, or memorial statement has appeared in art press or gallery communications.

Coverage of Hackatao is dominated by gallery and platform framing rather than reviews from named critics at major art publications, and no exact, attributable critical quote could be confirmed for this profile. The consistent theme across that coverage, from Deodato Arte to crypto-art outlets, is that Hackatao anticipated the Crypto Art market rather than following it, minting their first NFT in 2018, three years ahead of the wider boom, and that their subsequent moves into museum-adjacent projects, such as the Fontana pairing in Bologna and the CAFA Art Museum collaboration in Beijing, are read as evidence that a crypto-native practice can cross into conventional institutional space.

Hackatao's best fully documented auction result is Imago, 2k2 a.C., which the artists' own site records as selling for USD 936,000 at a Sotheby's Contemporary Art Day Auction on 15 October 2021. Secondary-market trackers reference higher annual record prices in 2023, 2024, and 2026, most recently for a work titled Podmork Superfluo Birds Drop Dead, but the price, currency, auction house, and exact sale date for those later results are not publicly available as of this profile's data date, so they cannot yet be confirmed to the same standard. Their work also trades actively on NFT marketplaces such as SuperRare, alongside the physical-market channel run through Deodato Arte in Italy.

Hackatao is a two-person collaboration working under a single name, so provenance questions are less about attribution to an individual hand and more about documentation of the studio's own output across two different markets, physical and blockchain-based. There is no catalogue raisonne; physical works rely on studio and gallery paperwork, while NFTs carry their own on-chain provenance. No exclusive representing gallery is confirmed; Deodato Arte in Italy is a documented sales channel, but the artists also sell directly through NFT platforms, which means pricing signals come from two infrastructures that do not always move together. The one auction result that can currently be documented in full is the USD 936,000 sale of Imago, 2k2 a.C. in 2021; collectors should treat any later, higher figures cited by market trackers with caution until the underlying sale details are published. No confirmed museum has yet accessioned a Hackatao work into its permanent collection; institutional exposure to date has come through temporary exhibitions and collaborations rather than acquisitions.