Apres Christmas - Flipbook - Page 20
ART
NFT
Indulge this point of view. Excuse
the lack of depth, ignore the mental
leaps. Just hover over this one. Give
it the same leeway that you do that
drunk uncle at a Christmas dinner.
NFTs were all the rage a few years
ago. Cashing in on the mystery and
hype of the blockchain. The spiking
cryptocurrencies lend credibility to
the idea that a piece of code can be
attached to a digital piece of art to
show ultimate ownership, despite
the possibility of a user adding the
said piece of ‘art’ to your hard drive
through a simple screenshot. You
can do it. But you don’t own it.There
were some seriously high-pro昀椀le
NFTs that went for millions of dollars.
Beeple’s, EVERYDAY: THE FIRST
5000 DAYS, 2021, On March 11,
2021, sold at a Christie’s auction
for $69.3million. No small amount.
Unless you are a Russian oligarch.
This drew incredulous commentary
from a thick layer of the population
asking ‘Where does the value in a
NFT lie?’ Scof昀椀ng and muttering
- This is not real art how can it be
held in the same regard?’. Take a
step back minus the noise.
The traditional 昀椀ne art market
existed almost exactly as the NFT
market does. The only difference
is that when a piece is appraised
the price is written into it by a
collective sentiment of ‘critics’ and
a previous selling price. The auction
house works in the same sense as
a crypto wallet. Administrating the
exchange of funds for a piece of art
which if you think about it...could be
considered just a beautifully crafted
receipt of the transaction. There
is money out there. A lot. And this
accelerated way of pumping funds
into artworks arti昀椀cially in昀氀ating their
No
F#$%*ing
Tjance?
Artistic skills form a
platform of currency
exchange beholden to what?
Sentiment. Faith in the
system? Faith in the bubble?
prices to set up the next sale to be
even higher is, and let’s be honest - a
bubble. But it is a market, supported
by human sentiment and stitched
together my masterful strokes of an
artistic genius. Artistic skills form
a platform of currency exchange
beholden to what? Sentiment. Faith
in the system? Faith in the bubble?
When you buy your next Kandinsky.
Buy it for what it is. Not what it will
fetch and the world will be a better
place. Amen.
YESTERDAY’S NEWS TOMORROW
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