The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Rakuma) has launched a new acquisition fund for digital art by a female artist founded by heir and celebrity Paris Hilton. The museum refused to share the amount received from Hilton, but said the gift was the first of its kind to digital art.Also, the former marks the first acquisition fund Simple life A reality show star has set it up in the museum.
Lacma has a powerful collection of digital art with artists such as Tony Authler, Petra Court Wright and Ryan Trecartin. According to Dhyandra Lawson, assistant curator of Lacma’s photography department, the new fund represents the museum’s approval for the current level of innovation in art and technology.
“This is a very fertile time for digital art,” says Lawson. “We see a lot of artist innovation in various media. [The fund] It really helps to grow and expand your collection in important ways. “
Lacma’s investment in art and technology was founded at least in 1967. Art and Technology Program It created a collaboration between artists and technology companies. The initiative ended in 1971, but was reborn in 2013 as follows: Art + Technology Lab.. The museum has also been collecting digital art for decades, most of these works dating back to the 1990s. This fund provides an opportunity to address historic gaps.
“Sure, we can go faster, especially for female artists, but we also want to keep up with what the artists are doing in a variety of new media,” says Lawson. “As our lives are becoming more and more digital, it’s important to pay attention to what digital artists, especially those who have historically reached their limits, say.”
Shantell Martin, question2022 © Shantell Martin
The museum has already commissioned and acquired one video work with a new fund. question According to a press release, by British artist Shantell Martin (2022), “drawing using digital technology.” Lacma also Continuation: Los Angeles (2022), a 40-minute video received as a gift by its Korean-Canadian artist, Christa Kim. Both works were delivered as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). They will be included in an exhibition examining digital innovation by female artists scheduled to open this fall at Arizona State University.
The acquisition fund is, in many respects, not a surprise move for Hilton, which has become one of NFT’s hottest supporters. Proto-influencers, entrepreneurs and DJs have been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2016, declaration She herself is the “Queen of the Metaverse”. Hilton, the buyer of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, has also invested in Mad Realities, a company looking for a “Web3 version of Netflix,” and the Origin Protocol, an NFT platform that removed its second NFT collection in February.On her last year’s National Pet Day, she Introduced Her new dogs were named Crypto Hilton and Ether Reum. The latter is a double entender of Ethereum, the currency of choice in the NFT market, and her husband Carter Reum.
Venture capitalist Reum has been a member of Lacma’s board of directors since 2017. According to Lawson, the acquisition fund emerged organically through that relationship. “We realized that we were interested in each other,” she says. The fund’s patron has been the most vocal about NFTs, but Lawson emphasizes that the money will be used to purchase a wide range of artwork. “The acquisition fund is for digital art,” she says. “It’s not an NFT fund.”
The fund’s focus on female artists reflects a steady trend in the museum world to address gender inequality in institutional collections. The Baltimore Museum of Art is one example. Acquire only the works of female artists By 2020, we will allocate $ 2.5 million for purchases. However, given the price of works of art and the historical prejudice that men buy art, achieving gender equality will be a challenge for many institutions. 2019 survey Artnet news And in other words I found it Of the 26 museums in the United States, only 11% of acquisitions between 2008 and 2018 were works by female artists.
