As gallerists and art professionals, we stand in the unique position of being the filters or the gatekeepers of high art. What makes the cut and what doesn’t? What a humbling and daunting responsibility! However, what makes history is entirely dependent on a variety and a mix of different people - curators, critics, and of course, the very important part, collectors.
The world of NFTs challenges just that. Whilst the traditional model works great for those that passed the gates (and rightly so), it doesn’t always allow all the talent to be viewed or sifted through. Tech in art is looking at solving some of these problems, the two problems specifically - what is art, and is it for everyone? And who dictates that?
With this burgeoning world of NFTs, we see that artists can now be found in gaming designers, graphic designers, advertisers, animators, video creators, people who work with augmented reality or virtual reality... the list is endless.
Suddenly, all these creators have a way of keeping their day jobs, formalising their self-expression on the side, and leaving it in the "ether" for the viewer to decide whether it’s art or not. This sudden surge of scarcity validation has given rise to a whole new vertical of creators and artists. We see marketplaces like Open Sea, Foundation, Nifty Gateway, Terrain.art full of artists who are not from the traditional art world and yet make a compelling case for their art.
So what is it about this world that makes it so attractive and why is it the buzzword? The NFT ecosystem makes a compelling case for democracy and transparency, and takes decision-making to the larger audiences. It allows for trade and doesn’t view money as the evil pillar. In fact, it embraces the idea of art as an investment.
Reports show that the collectibles vertical within the NFT world is exponentially larger than the arts vertical. So whether it’s Grimes, Paris Hilton or Amitabh Bachchan, it’s now the vertical that empowers the famous personalities to mint some more currency!
My children live in the metaverse, once in a while gracing our physical world with their mind space. Their demands, needs and ideas of what they want surrounding them and where, are fairly different from ours. They live in the digital realm and want most of their transcendence and beauty in there. Ask my 16-year-old Minecraft- and Fortnite-loving son to choose between a crypto punk and a traditional sculpture, he will probably choose the former.
NFT sales for the third quarter were at $10.7 billion. To give you perspective, the world art market is at around USD 50 billion. The interesting fact is that most individual sales of NFTs are priced under USD 1,000, 60 per cent of the market currently is of NFTs priced between USD 10-1,000 each.
Which means the NFT market is already inching very close to the size of the global art market. But its buoyancy and growth is not because of the ultra rich, but because of the average salaried person, or teenager who saved up money and decided to buy their cool quotient.
I used to be conflicted; defined known high art or this whole new world of digital and technology-based art... and then I realised who are we to decide for everyone? We only have the privilege of providing platforms after which beauty and intellect lies in the eye and mind of the beholder!
(The writer is founder, Terrain.art, a blockchain-powered online platform and can be contacted at aj@terrain.art)