Like many others, I received an email announcing the upcoming “Historical NFT Sale” of “fRiEND SiES” by “Friends With You” at Christie’s. This wasn’t new. Today, historic NFT events arrive daily. I saw a cartoon-style digital figure “fRiEND SiES” in bright rainbow colors. One resembles a blue mouse with pink cheeks in an acid yellow dungaree, and the other looks like a colorful lampshade. Artists Samuel Borxon and Arturo Sandoval III have announced that “this is the future of art.” They see this project as a “wave of hope and optimism” trying to create a “garden of friendship.”
Even if the NFT looked scary, do you hope it doesn’t ruin this garden of friendship?
It’s a difficult time for art fans. NFTs are always said to be the future of art, if not the present. Damien Hirst, Daniel Arsham, who announced his own sale last year, and the British, which co-organized an NFT sale related to the recent JMW Turner and Hokusai exhibitions with La Collection, to the recent flood of enthusiastic fans. Includes a museum. There are many more. The art market is positively freaky for the non-substitutable. But apart from the dizzying economic speculation, questions remain. This work seems to lack artistic ambition. The lowest possible point is the recently announced sale of NFTs. Orgasm to hell Image by Hitler’s ejaculation, by Pictorroy. Ten NFTs are expected to reach $ 50 million.
JMW Turner’s Johannisberg (1817) was recently cast and sold as an NFT by the British Museum and La Collection. © British Museum Council, 2022. Bequeathed to Robert Wily Lloyd.
“Now I’m browsing the website and I think’Oh, God’,” says Sibylle Rochat, an art advisor who runs Rochat Art Consultancy and is a mentor for the Sarabande Foundation. “It’s terrible for an art lover like me!” She’s not alone. Talk to many art insiders. Personally alone, they clearly express fear of popular products. Even the younger generation of artists spoke to embarrass their work. “If it’s not that bad, I’m probably interested,” says an artist in his late twenties who screened in several contemporary London galleries. “The work looks like that of a strange store in Camden or Soho that sells only magnets.”
Rochat is a little more subtle. Thanks to her customers, she was drawn into the world of NFTs and helped some collectors buy some, but she remains cautious. “I think NFTs make sense as a collection,” she says. “In art, we aren’t there yet.”
She, like many, is an artist (one-time edition) trying to offer a “collection” (a series of sports card styles that includes boring monkeys, lobsters, etc.) and something more artistic. , Specific works) are clearly distinguished. .. But the lines look blurry. “Looking at art NFTs, they all have the same kind of aesthetics,” she says. “It’s all neon-like, purple, pink, blue-like, and the same kind of subject. They feel like they need to catch up with art history.” She went by many of these NFT creators. He adds that being is “amazing” at the technical level. “But it’s not that interesting to us. It’s like a soccer player talking for two hours about how to turn his foot.”
For old-fashioned collectors, there seem to be three ways to understand NFTs as desirable beyond their ability to make money. First, there is a way to reproduce historical images. Check out the La Collection works at the British Museum. Here, we have expanded the Turner and Hokusai shows by offering NFTs as a type of limited edition digital print. Easy to access, affordable, and available all year round, these art archives are open to more people. Jean-Sébastien Beaucamps, co-founder of the La Collection, will help you “extend and complete” your exhibition experience, giving you access to things that exhibitions and museums can only partially exhibit. He agrees that the general provision of NFTs was inadequate, but argues that this is a good way to get more people to understand NFTs. (Another arguably “soft” way is to sell NFTs along with physical artwork. This is what many people do, but it’s for selling physical artwork. Isn’t it a sexy new way?)
British Nigerian artist Zina Saro-Wiwa sells (from left) NFTs linked to limited edition gin such as Sarogua Spirit Guinea Corn Leaf, Green Orange and Akogbara (Oil Bean) © The Illicit Gin Institute and Montague Contemporary
Sarowiwa describes her NFT as a “conceptual intervention.” .. .. Is this the idea of what value is? What is a currency? Gin has historically been a kind of currency in colonial Nigeria. “© Bernd G Mueller
Second, we can admire NFT as a kind of conceptual art prosperity, a virtual contract between the artist and the audience. Taking the Swedish artist Jonas Lund, who sold NFTs, as an example, anyone who buys an NFT must donate 5% of their annual income for a legitimate purpose. If the buyer turns out to agree to this, the NFT has been programmed to self-destruct. Meanwhile, British Nigerian artist Gina Salowiwa sells a limited edition gin-linked NFT for $ 2,000 each. She says NFTs are “conceptual interventions.” “I offered it as an NFT because it’s this idea of what value is. What is a currency? Gin has historically been a kind of currency in colonial Nigeria. So leaning on it. “She admits she still knows everything — and yes, things like Bored Apes are’terrible’ — but I feel it’s more important to dive in. I did. “I don’t want to be a bystander.”
Third, and most obvious, it’s ultimately a way to understand digital art. For a long time, this genre has been recognized, but it has never been loved by the art market. This is mainly due to the inability to properly monetize. Before the advent of NFTs, it was difficult to sell because digital files could not be easily duplicated, but now NFTs can be certified. But still, art has to be scratch. Joe Kennedy, co-founder and director of the Unit London Gallery and the Online Art Platform Institute, says artists who are trying to create NFTs for old paintings will not be too far away. “It’s about using technology as a form of expression,” he says. “You know, as opposed to animating a cat.”
In Unit London, a shiny cave-like space right next to the Oxford Circus, Kennedy patiently claims that NFTs are a serious proposal. He agrees that the market will fluctuate, but he is there to change it. “Our main goal is to create some kind of quality and express a refined taste in the space, especially through curation. It’s so new that it’s widespread now that it happens. . “
The unit London Gallery show features a limited edition digital print of classic paintings such as portraits of Da Vinci musicians © Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Milan) and courtesy of Cinello
Currently, there is a show in Unit London. Eternal art historyThis includes replicating limited edition digital prints of classic paintings on the screen (NFT guarantees that they have certain non-reproducible digital signatures). For example, Leonardo’s “Portrait of a Musician” is adorned in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, shining brightly from the screen of a unit in London and surrounded by an exact ornate replica of the original frame. So. It’s great enough — it’s creepy — it’s certainly also a very high-end replica.
Downstairs on a laptop, Kennedy shows more innovative work by artists such as Maxim Zestkov, Tyler Hobbes, and IX Shell. Kennedy explains that Zestkov is a “generative artist who uses code as a visual language.” His work comes across as a vast ominous swirl. Think of a dark and chic apocalyptic screensaver. “It’s so beautiful, and it has such science,” says Kennedy. “All these things in action are all code.” Others clearly agree: His last piece was sold as one NFT at the Institute and earned $ 330,000.
Provided by Elektroanima 0.9 © Tyler Hobbs / institut.co by generative artist Tyler Hobbs
There is a clear reason why many NFT visual stylings often look graphic, hypercolor, childish and crude. They are an early form of art. And those who are crazy about them are just those who are alienated or uninterested in the traditional market. After all, the biggest NFT artist is Beeple, who sold the NFT for his work last year. Daily: First 5,000 days According to the auction house, Christie’s for $ 69.3 million has made him one of the top three most valuable living artists. Kennedy points out that when Beeple recently held a show of painting and drawing works in Jack Hanley, New York, he told Artnet (shock, horror) that he had never been to an art opening.
Hanging Ocean Chunk (pulled into the surface of a cliff, stretched over a canyon, hung from a canyon in the forest) 1,2022, Ashley Bickerton on the Highline Collect AR, Lehman Mopin’s new AR platform © Provided by: Artist and Lehman Mopin New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, London
However, this does change. Traditional artists, gallerists and curators are working hard. The Lehmann Maupin Gallery has launched CollectAR, a “new platform designed to present and collect NFTs in augmented reality.” The first three NFT artworks offered were created by artist Ashley Bickerton in the collections of MoMA, MOCA Los Angeles and Tate Britain. These NFTs (sold March 29th in six editions for $ 10,000 each) will give users access to Bickerton’s version. Ocean chunk An AR-style New York City-wide series.
Floating Ocean Chunk (South Pacific of the North Atlantic) 1, 2022 Ashley Bickerton on the Hudson River © Artist and Lehman Mopin’s Courtesy New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, London
It all sounds very radical, but even Vickerton is skeptical. a The future of art? Yes. The The future of art? No, it’s not near. far cry. I have already lived the imminent end of painting, how many times now? Still, he is cautiously intrigued. The Ocean chunk The series uses shimmering CGI to explore the brilliant visual properties of water. “There are many aspects that can be changed with NFTs .. .. You can change the water in the time of day — its texture, its surface dynamics, ripples and waves.
“It’s not that interesting if it’s just that the whole idea is a unique private property,” continues Bickerton. “But it’s interesting if it becomes a kind of thing in itself and the unique technology uses its own words. And more so.”
Rochat seems to think he needs more NFTs. “The eyes and brain are muscles,” she says. “The more you train them, the more you see, they get bored. I can draw the most beautiful pictures in the house — after years, my brain I want something else. “Therefore, something interesting happens when the execution of NFTs matches the flashy concept. Look at the Impressionists, she says as an example. Only when she found a technique that fits her idea did her work transcend. “Maybe NFTs will be like that,” she suggests. Is Maxim Zhestkov a new Monet? I leave you to bet all your Ethereum.
