In addition to disrupting the traditional financial system, blockchain technology – in recent months – appears to have set its sights on upending the centuries old, and hyper-exclusive, art world. Through, so called, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT’s,) ordinary individuals are able to collect art (an activity, previously exclusive to the upper echelons of society,) and other valuable digital content. The NFT phenomenon – thanks to blockchain – even promises a, previously unheard of, authentication element to digital items, that could reshape digital commerce.
A Living Organism
The classic fine art industry (or analogue art, as it has come to be known) is a traditionally vailed world, with the highest value deals usually taking place behind closed doors , and parties often opting for anonymity. This has made it hard to pin a round figure to the value changing hands in the art world at any given point in time. Couple that with the fact that art buyers are usually high net worth individuals, and you have a large degree of the population locked out of a high value game.
The art industry, as it is known today, began it’s evolution in the 1980’s, when buyer tastes shifted from vintage, classic art, to contemporary art, produced by living artists. The number of artworks produced by living artists greatly outnumbered the number of those generated by artists of bygone eras, and the contemporary pieces tended to capture the energy of the current period more precisely. This made newer artists more popular with the ballooning ranks of nouveau riche, who sought to emphasise their sophistication, or simply flaunt their wealth.
Artists like Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, and today’s Banksy or Herakut enjoy the patronage that they do, due to a phenomenon that transformed the art world into a veritable industry in the decades following the 1980’s. With more wealth being in the hands of an increasing number of people, fine art has become a 21st Century industry – lucrative, and global.
So lucrative, in fact, that consumer brands have – in recent years – done collaborative projects with artists. From high fashion brands, like Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacob, and Alexander McQueen, to cognac brand, Hennesy’s work with Futura, to street wear brands like Obey and The Hundreds releasing clothing and skateboard lines – featuring artwork – exposed younger audiences to James Jean & Keith Haring respectively. The art world has developed like a living organism – from Michelangelo’s day, to now.
A revolution seems to be underway in the art industry, currently. It is predicted that the art industry of the future will be more intertwined with other industries and, due to having to cater to the appetites – as well as habits – of a younger potential market, the art industry may become more digital, and democratized. The age of the art collector being a member of a privileged, overly pretentious club may be coming to an end – for the most part. Art houses, as well, will likely lose much of the influence they have on art buying.
Enter Blockchain
Okay,so the high networth analog art collector may not be going anywhere anytime soon, but they may become a far smaller part of the reshaped art world. Blockchain technology, due to immutability, offers a way to make digital items (which can be reproduced infinitely) unique. Non-Fungible tokens (NFT’s) give the holder a unique code, which is attached to a digital item (image, video, song, game skins, playing cards, the list is near-endless,) guaranteeing the user verifiable ownership of an authentic (as far as digital goes) digital item.
The art world already battles with verifying the authenticity of canvas-based art and sculptures, the digital realm would be a nightmare to protect from counterfeiting, as digital content is copied and distributed, almost, as quickly as it is uploaded. NFT’s, very directly, and efficiently, address that problem. A piece of digital art, encoded with an NFT, becomes – by virtue of the NFT – as a unique, and original piece, like Dali’s The Persistence of Memory, or Goya’s Colossus.
The scene exploded, in 2020, to the point that it closed the year having generated nearly $9 million in sales for the month of December alone, up almost 3 times from the previous month’s volumes. This suggests that the NFT art field is picking up momentum. In so doing, possibly rewriting the rules by which the art world operates.
Through the NFT phenomenon, art houses, and galleries, may – in future – have less say, as to the trends in the art scene, and artists will have more control over their work; selling directly to their audience. At least, from a digital perspective, that’s what the future entails. Though NFT’s are still merely a drop in the pond – sales volume wise – to the regular art industry. They may simply just operate, and develop parrelel to one another.
Whatever the case, NFT’s are proving popular with younger audiences, and speculators alike. The scene is so poular that it has spawned it’s own stars. Beeple is one of the most popular artists in the NFT digital art space. His work attracted the attention of the like of legendary art house, Christie’s which will be auctioning off an NFT piece created by the artist from the 25th of February, to the 11th of March, this year.
“The technology is now at a place with the blockchain to be able to prove ownership and have true scarcity with digital artwork so I think we are going to see an explosion of not only new artwork, but also new collectors and I am very honored to be a part of this movement.”– Beeple told The Observer, 17 Feb 2021.
It seems that Beeple has not erred in his call, as Forbes published a piece on the 12th of February, 2021, reporting that a number of public figures had joined into the mania surrounding NFT’s. A development that is bound to expose a greater number of people to the fledgling NFT art world.
In Closing
NTF trading volume, according to coinranking, currently stands at $9.09 million, indicating sustained interest in the field. It is too soon to tell whether, or not, NFT’s are here to stay, as the NFT craze came on rather suddenly. However, the fact that NFT’s enable anybody to invest in, and profit from art collecting, and has much usage potential in gaming, suggests that they my reshape not just the art industry but gaming, and content consumption as well.
