Art NFTs go mainstream
Art NFTs go mainstream
Non-Fungible Tokens have bewitched the art world. As Meta prepares to launch its own Instagram NFTs, the rest of us are left wondering if NFTs are really art?
Imagine a boorish yet fashionable quick-to make monkey painted on a blue or yellow or matcha-coloured screen, strapped in cheetah prints or adorning a cowboy hat. This may sound like a design for a quirky wrapping paper but when this canvas sold for a whopping $350,000 on OpenSea, art buffs were swift to call it art. Or is it trash art since it uses existing media to create something new?
Ranging from luxurious Birkin Bag to pair of RTFKT-Nike sneakers to world famous Klimt’s painting The Kiss, NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens have taken the world of technology, business, and art by storm.
Powered by a strong influence from the celebrity culture promoting NFTs to the world, high-profile actors, musicians, and socialites like Reese Witherspoon and Alexis Ohanian, Snoop Dogg, Grimes, and Paris Hilton are not only promoting the new trend of these unique cryptographic tokens but are also investing in NFTs like the Bored Apes Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and CryptoPunks and minting their own non-fungible tokens.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is planning to launch NFTs on Instagram later this year, and Twitter has one of the biggest NFT communities of all the social media platforms, approximately- 1.5 Million followers on OpenSea Twitter account, so why is the art world in such a frenzy?
To simply put, NFTs are non-fungible or irreplaceable assets that permit ownership of anything that is unique historically, culturally, individually or socially through online marketplaces — OpenSea, Mintable.
For the chairman of Israel-UAE Business Forum, Samuel Shay, ‘The purpose of NFTs is to take the artist and really let them explore themselves and their art.’ It gives power in the hands of the artist, NFT artists, and a chance to become familiar and make money while they are still alive.
For many, the paradigm shift is a way to gain access to a larger crowd and platform their art, building community and contributing positively to their communities through auctioning their art for social causes like depression or charities; while for others, it is simply disregard for the new art movement, perceiving it as a popular art fad that they hope will fade out soon.
Criticising the cryptocurrency industry, Shay explains that what we know of NFTs today is actually fake NFT. He adds, ‘[these people] have twisted the concept of NFTs and created a completely different monster.’
‘What is happening today on the digital platform is not really art, I mean, somebody can duplicate 10,000 monkeys or 10,000 lions, it's not an art. It's only a tool for bumping up the trade on NFTs.’
But are contemporary artworks, especially digitally curated works not art or is it a matter of an elitist and exclusivist taste which almost denominates conceptual value to a higher standard against the popularly available art?
There is almost an air about how art works like Maurizio Cattelan’s banana taped to a wall or CoolCat NFT collection are not taken seriously by art critics or appreciators of art, yet are sold for millions of dollars and are popular amongst the masses for its simplicity and accessibility.
Any form of art, be it digitally or traditionally produced, takes time. Should we give any one but the artist the control and the freedom to choose what they view as art in the process of creation and doesn’t it reflect something deep about us — how we put value on a piece of art?
To Mel Shapcott, an expressionist digital and NFT artist and a web developer, art speaks for itself.
‘If you've made a mark [on a paper or screen] and you say this is art, that’s art. Not everybody appreciates that [trash art] and particularly those that are coming from traditional art values, can absolutely not agree that that is even an art movement at all. So, I think that definitely exists and it's definitely carried over into the NFT space.’
She adds, ‘I think it really has just disrupted things, you know, disrupted the norm in such a way that has given opportunities, and possibilities and potential realities for people that didn't have them before. So, I think that's the real power behind it.’
With the booming popularity that NFTs have gathered, the discussions around the appeal of art and its value have made rounds on various podcasts, discussion forums, and news outlets. Many like Shapcott have showcased a positive outlook to the new paradigm shift from traditional art to virtual art which is often presented on the Metaverse, some have raised their concerns about the future of NFTs.
Author of Dorian’s Quarterback, artist and NFT explorer, Mary Taylor voices her hopes that NFTs would not be ‘just another strategic channel for corporate marketing and go in the same direction as web 2.0’. Rather, her hope is that it will provide a sustainable economy to artists as NFT is a platform that will help understand the power of the individual artist, without investing a lot of money and relying on third party art curators or art institutions to showcase their art. The autonomy on the piece of art will really be with the artist and appreciation and recognition experienced will be while they are here.
However, one thing is certain, art beyond the timeworn debate of highbrow and lowbrow art, historical artwork of the artist and contemporary work of the viewers, has in its true fashion become democratic. Whether it is an animated hypnotised- cat running across in a Gif format or duplicated Bored Apes in a village hat, fashioning a bored look with a cigar pipe in its mouth, it is definitely a new art movement.
It is for, by and of everyone! It is the genesis of a virtual art renaissance.