Artists’ Estates, Museums, and Platforms are Cashing In By Minting Traditional Artists’ Work into NFTs – ARTnews.com

Last Valentine’s Day, like it’s booming NFTs The market has suffered an unexpected drop, proving to be a harbinger of a ‘crypto winter’ this summer.Vienna’s Belvedere museum has released its first NFT drop. Gustav Klimt’s 10,000 uniques A collection of swatches. kisscreated by dividing the influential paintings into a 100×100 grid.

Belvedere general director Stella Roerig cast the moment on grand terms.

“What does it mean to own a work of art in the digital age?” Roerig asked in a press release. the beginning of ” NFTshas been driving the art world crazy since 2020, but it has given new impetus to this intriguing question. Transforming digital reproductions into virtual originals opens up new forms of participation that should be taken financially seriously, but can also be played around. ”

Listed at around $2,000 per pop, the NFT aims to generate revenue for “collecting, researching, storing and communicating data.” [museum’s] treasure…”

According to Belvedere spokesperson Irene Jäger, more than 2,400 NFTs have been sold to date, generating revenue of around €4.4 million.

“The project is new for us and somewhat experimental, so we didn’t know what to expect,” said Jäger. art news on mail. “We consider the result to be a huge success. This is his most successful NFT project to date using historical artwork worldwide. However, our goal is still to sell all 10,000 pieces. is to do.”

Belvedere is not the only institution exploring NFTs in traditional arts to build support, protect and preserve works, and engage a new generation of art viewers.

Jan, Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter and great-grandson, Marina and Florian Picasso Announcing auction schedule 1,010 NFTs based on never-before-seen ceramic works by renowned Spanish artists.But Marina and Florian I was forced to give up the relationship soon after. The Picasso Administration (run by other Picasso descendants), as represented by the Spanish painter after his estate, declared the series “forgeries”.

In February, Julian Sander, great-grandson of August Sander, announced plans to cast the legendary German photographer’s entire 10,700-photo archive for free on NFT platform OpenSea. “We want to preserve August Sander’s legacy on the blockchain,” Sander said. All his NFTs in the collection were claimed after the project launched, and within weeks, over 400 of his ETH were traded in a secondary sale on OpenSea. Amid accolades from respected photographers, the collection quickly disappeared from OpenSea after a lawsuit was filed by the German non-profit cultural foundation SK Stiftung Kultur. It turns out that it is Kultur, not Sander’s great-grandson, who owns the copyright to August Sander’s work until 2034.

Perhaps the most successful of these quasi-real estate-driven NFT collections is thecomputer joyis a collection of 15 individual NFTs featuring pioneering work from the 1980s. Lee Mullican When Published in partnership with the Verisart platform last November.

Before Mullikan started making digital art in the ’80s, he became famous 30 years ago for abstract paintings he created using a printer’s knife. These near-mythological abstractions were the first of his two major artistic movements in which Mullikan participated.

“It’s important to recognize that Lee was at the forefront of the art world’s two changing guards,” says Cole Root, head of the Mullican estate. We see Surrealism, and in the 1980s a shift to digital art.It’s extraordinary how open he was to experimental art.It’s hard to find a medium he hasn’t used.”

Later in his career, Mullikan translated these boldly colored abstracts from canvas onto an IBM 5170 computer. The resulting work provided many in Mullikan’s generation with a model for how painters could digitize their art.

Root, along with art writer and researcher Marie Heirich and gallerist Marc Selwyn, selected the “Computer Joy” pieces from Marikan’s over 300 digital works. This was followed by an exhibition of physical and digital works at the Mark Selwyn Gallery in Beverly Hills.

The show helped bring together more conventional art viewers, typically older, with the next generation of digital enthusiasts, Root said. art news.

“The NFT people were really into the painting, and the traditional people were really blown away by the digital work,” Root said. is what we’re trying to do with the whole project — step into each world.”

So far, most NFT collections that digitize the work of traditional artists have been led by artists’ mansions and museums. NFT Platform Click trying to change that. Launched in her 2021 by Alexandra Fairweather, sculptor John Chamberlain’s estate administrator, Click aims to digitize iconic artworks and priceless archives. Crick framed its work as helping to preserve rapidly decaying material. It featured a black-and-white image of the artist’s car in an advanced state of disintegration.

According to Fairweather, the artist mystery behind “(Dis)integration” is part of creating a novel, participatory experience that will attract both novices and die-hard fans alike.

“What we’re really doing with this reduction in (deconstruction) integration is getting people to understand why archiving is important,” Fairweather said. “Are you going on this journey, putting together all the clues, trying to figure out who this is, what this story is about, what this project is about? It will be forgotten.”

Crick co-founder Billy Folchetti said that for Crick, much like many estates and institutions mint their collections, the decision to join the NFT “will give artists and estates a way to generate income in a modern way.” It’s about creating a source,” he said. art news. Proceeds from clicks will be used to protect Chamberlain’s property, along with that of other partner artists. The company will also donate a portion of the proceeds to the nonprofit Art21. Producing educational content related to contemporary art recent features William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible.

Crick said it suspended NFT sales earlier this year due to the crypto market crash and will resume once the market stabilizes.

“These new media can inspire and educate people in more accessible ways,” Fairweather said. art news“So many people are intimidated by the world of traditional art and see it as a symbol of high culture. I hope this removes some of these barriers.”