First Edition: NFTs, but Mostly Digital Art
March Newsletter
What a wild ride this past month has been for the art world. The third highest price achieved by a living artist was reached and by a complete newcomer - the digital-first artist, Beeple. (This record-breaking sale follows works by Jeff Koons, then David Hockney, and sits ahead of Damien Hirst and Gerhard Richter.) To much fanfare Beeple’s work, EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, sold for $69M through one of the most traditional auction venues out there - Christie’s. The buyer was soon revealed to be Vignesh Sundaresan, Singapore-based blockchain entrepreneur, coder, and angel investor who identified himself as ‘Metakovan.’
I have some thoughts.
This sale highlights the incredibly problematic effect of listening to buzz instead of looking at the work. This is a common trap when it comes to investing in art in particular. I am not anti-technology or anti-digital art - on the contrary, I am actually happy that there is a newfound interest in digital art. However, with Beeple’s example specifically, is it the best-of-the-best, record-breaking-worthy piece of digital art? I don’t think so. Aside from the really insensitive and off-putting imagery embedded in the piece (darkness and discomfort can be part of art, but this work comes off as amateur sketches from the disturbing corners of Reddit, rather than a carefully considered statement), the competing bidders wanted to make a monetary statement, not a cultural statement. In ironic fashion, this sale will nonetheless end up as a point in history books, but as a result of fanfare rather than artistic merit. It also goes to show the tricky aspect of auction being the only public-facing indicator of value, leading many to believe that high auction price = important art. More on this later.
🌊 Deep Dive: Digital Art (+ NFTs)
The Basics of NFTs
Below is my super brief understanding of a few key and necessary elements of the digital art frenzy. (Feedback more than welcome but be gentle with me, I am an art gal, not a crypto expert. 😅)
Blockchain, on the whole, is essentially an enormous, decentralized (ie. independent) spreadsheet of who owns what and how much they paid for it.
NFT (non-fungible token), is a token exclusively linked to a digital asset, and securitized by cryptocurrency. NFTs can be stored on the blockchain as digital goods, and displayed in your digital wallet. Buying an NFT means purchasing a hacker-resistant, public proof of ownership over a specific digital asset.
Recent notable sales: anything by Beeple, a video clip of LeBron James which sold for over $200,000, the decade-old "Nyan Cat" GIF which went for $600,000, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's first tweet, which sold for $2.9 million.
What are the motivations behind buying digital assets? The most relatable explanation is the following; think about your online profiles, you list your characteristics and pictures and people get a sense of who you are, with a digital wallet, people can get an even more in-depth sense of what you like by being able to see what you buy and keep in your wallet. (Let’s throw it back to something I think a lot of us on here can relate to; The Sims, buying NFTs would be like buying an outfit or piece of furniture for your character for clout, but this time, instead of your character its for you; such as these $12 Gucci digital sneakers.)
From the cryptocurrency perspective, the interest in buying digital assets would be for bragging rights and clout, like above. An interesting motivation for those heavily invested in digital currencies is the potential to inflate their crypto holdings, as the more people purchasing digital goods on the blockchain, the more valuable their currency becomes.
But how do you own and display it? You can think of “owning” these works just as you would a photo you took on your iPhone and then uploaded on Instagram. You are the owner of the original file, which you can move to your computer, iPad, TV screen etc., to display or just keep it in your camera roll. Other people can also look at your photo and/or share/repost it, but you are the only one who can prove ownership.
Finally, if you are pulling your hair out like I was over this, SNL also did a nice parody-piece here. Or, if Podcasts are your preferred learning style, sharing a few that have been super helpful/interesting.
So, How Does This Relate to Art, and What is my Take?
NFTs are not new, nor is digital art. A Super Quick Art History Lesson:
Digital art as a medium has been around for a very long time; the term digital art was actually coined in the 1980s. In the 1990s, thanks to improvements in digital technology, it was possible to create digital works with video components.
Today, many digital artists incorporate a participatory element - wherein the viewers interact with elements of the piece, knowingly or unknowingly, in order to create an even greater, and more immediate connection to our current times.
But again, digital art is not a new concept, in 1985 Andy Warhol created digital works on his Amiga home computer and stored them on floppy disks.
Really Great Things About Increased Interest in NFTs x Art.
I think this movement has been incredibly eye-opening for the art world on the whole. Particularly making waves in a few key areas that the more traditional art world has been hesitant to embrace.
Transparency - the blockchain, NFTs, and technology finally make prices for these digital artworks visible. Less intimidating. No longer are you sheepishly walking up to a person at a gallery desk and asking for prices, you can find them yourself.
Ease of Resale + Royalties - these marketplaces allow for the discoverability of available artworks and allow collectors to exchange these works freely, without the worry of authenticity (because often the chain of ownership starts with the artist). Additionally, when the works change hands, the artist is in most cases, receives a percentage of the sale or “royalty.”
Increased interest from new and old collectors alike in new art forms. I am particularly excited about this - once you get the collecting bug, digital or otherwise, I think there is a slippery slope to finding physical art even more interesting.
The Future of NFTs + Digital Art
I think NFTs can be a great tool for artists, but the technology is not the product. The benefits of this new method of exchange will enable artists to earn a greater income on their works (via automatic royalty payouts) and serve as a place for experimentation with the new method of sharing work. Overall, there are some exciting things bound to happen with digital art and I am most excited about a major disruption of the concept of access to the more traditional art world.
I predict there will be increasing scholarship and preservation methods for digital art, validating digital art. With it comes a new wave of art collectors, spilling into other interests and collecting of physical works in parallel.
However, I do want to add in here somewhere, that there is a major caveat - the environmental impact of NFTs. Investigation still needs to be done but it is worth mentioning. (The negative impact derives mainly from NFTs connection to ethereum, which relies heavily on computer computation power and energy - check out more details here or here.)
Future Preservation + Authority on Digital Art
These two sources and there are many more, would be interesting places to continue to look for critical dialogue on digital art and its advancement.
Rhizome is one of the foremost authorities on digital art and its preservation.
World on a Wire is a virtual exhibition space brought to you via a partnership between Hyundai Motor Company and Rhizome with the New Museum in order to support innovative digital art endeavors and exhibitions through 2022.
JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION is one of the world’s most comprehensive private collections of time-based art, they have also supported open access digital collection platform in order to encourage access to the medium.
💸 Advisory Picks
A few digital artists making an impact long before Beeple. (Digital art actually encompasses a huge umbrella from video art to AR, other art-history terms include Net Artists, Post-Internet artists, Video art, etc.)
Corey Arcangel - most famous for altering a Nintendo game cartridge to make his seminal Super Mario Clouds, 2002 (video below). His works are incredibly reflective of our current society. A piece I encountered pre-pandemic at Frieze, Los Angeles in 2020, was called Risks in Business/The King Checked by the Queen (2019) and it was composed of two screens showing two bots playing a virtual chess match by posting their moves “at” one another in the comment section of prominent Instagram feeds (“@__kxd._7881 Bxc6+” and so on). Wondering what a digital work by an established digital artist might sell for? This one was sold for $70,000.
Jon Rafman - best known for his work around Google Street View, which he captures images from google, highlighting the strange relationship between humans and digitization… “celebrating and critiquing modern experience, the technological tools themselves show how they can estrange us from ourselves.”
Hito Steyerl - most of her works begin with the premise that ‘“power’’ [literally and figuratively] is the necessary condition for any digital technology.’ Through her works, she considers the multiple meanings of the word, including electrical currents, the ecological powers of plants or natural elements, and the complex networks of authority that shape our environments.
Dara Birnbaum - I would consider Birnbaum one of my favorites of the old school/original digital artists as she uses technology to manipulate video in order to highlight stereotypes, particularly against women, within the greater pop-culture narrative. One of her most famous works is the interception of Wonder Woman.
Raphael Rozendal - uses websites as his medium. A personal favorite of his works: https://www.jellotime.com/
Petra Cortright - a digital painter, Cortright uses images from the internet and creates layer upon layer of stretched, cut-up, and manipulated forms into landscape-like compositions which are often printed and mounted on metal. She has also released an NFT with SuperRare (above).
Alex McLeod - I’ve mentioned his prints and photos in previous newsletters, but this Toronto-based digital-first artist creates really interesting alternative realities and sculptural landscapes.
Two artists that I think are worth taking a second look at, operating in the NFT certified space.
Rulton Fyder - clever art historical references in NFT form.
Kenny Schachter - art critical but also digital-first artist, Schachter makes parodies as art.
Marketplaces for digital art NFTs.
Marketplaces for pre-NFT digital-first artworks.
Also, if you are wondering how Peggy (where I work) is dealing with this - we will not be working with digital artworks yet, but we will be promoting transparency, enabling resale and royalties, and lots of other good things to get great original contemporary art on your walls, so stay tuned!
👋 Parting Words…
If you still don’t “get it.” That’s ok.
A little aside, my first memory of a piece of video art was in 12th grade, visiting the Whitney Biennial with my high school art history class. I remember stepping into one of those stark, secluded rooms they make in museum galleries to present video pieces and it was essentially a recording of children banging on all sorts of things making terrible, ear-plug-inducing noises. I hated it and walked out very quickly.
It has taken me a while to understand and appreciate video art but today I can pretty proudly say that I actually enjoy a lot of it even if I don’t always understand every piece I experience. I am constantly learning and improving my understanding. The same is true for artworks tied to NFTs - time and retrospection will help.
Until next time…
XX, B