25/06/2021 Your NFT Sold for $69 Million—Now What? Beeple Turns to a New Project, and Old Masters.
Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have exploded onto the digital art scene this past year. Proponents say they are a way to make digital assets scarce, and therefore more valuable. WSJ explains how they work, and why skeptics question whether they’re built to last.
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/wsj-glossary/nfts-are-fueling-a-boom-in-digital-art-heres-how-they-work/F5BA93AD-3DCD-4EFA-B064-C9143C81CB88
Digital designer and artist Mike Winkelmann, who goes by Beeple, sparked a global frenzy for non fungible tokens, or NFTs, after Christie’s sold his digital collage for $69 million in March—but since then he’s maintained a relatively low profile, stoking curiosity about his next big move.
Now, Mr. Winkelman is opening up, revealing that he’s had a rocky entrée into the art establishment even though he currently ranks as the world’s third most-expensive living artist after Jeff Koons and David Hockney. Instead of chatting up the world top’s collectors and curators, he’s primarily focused on launching a new NFT venture next month that will seek to transform historic moments into collectible NFTs. He’s planning to start with tennis star Andy Murray’s 2013 Wimbledon win.
“I wouldn’t say the art world has been overly welcoming,” Mr. Winkelman said. “Everyone is taking a cautious approach toward me and NFTs, and I get it because it’s all happened so fast.”
Mr. Winkelman's blistering rise and bumpy aftermath echoes the entire NFT art phenomenon, which started gaining traction last fall as digital artists realized they could attach data already being used to track cryptocurrency onto their own pixelated images and sell one-of-a-kind work the way painters sell original canvases.
Immediately following Christie’s sale of Mr. Winkelman's “Everydays—The First 5000 Days,” a gold-rush atmosphere spread across the art market, with dozens of artists and galleries clamoring to sell NFT art. The early fever appears to have subsided, though pioneering and seminal NFT artworks created by digital artists including Pak, Mad Dog Jones and FEWOCiOUS continue to sell at auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips for record sums.
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/wsj-glossary/nfts-are-fueling-a-boom-in-digital-art-heres-how-they-work/F5BA93AD-3DCD-4EFA-B064-C9143C81CB88
Digital designer and artist Mike Winkelmann, who goes by Beeple, sparked a global frenzy for non fungible tokens, or NFTs, after Christie’s sold his digital collage for $69 million in March—but since then he’s maintained a relatively low profile, stoking curiosity about his next big move.
Now, Mr. Winkelman is opening up, revealing that he’s had a rocky entrée into the art establishment even though he currently ranks as the world’s third most-expensive living artist after Jeff Koons and David Hockney. Instead of chatting up the world top’s collectors and curators, he’s primarily focused on launching a new NFT venture next month that will seek to transform historic moments into collectible NFTs. He’s planning to start with tennis star Andy Murray’s 2013 Wimbledon win.
“I wouldn’t say the art world has been overly welcoming,” Mr. Winkelman said. “Everyone is taking a cautious approach toward me and NFTs, and I get it because it’s all happened so fast.”
Mr. Winkelman's blistering rise and bumpy aftermath echoes the entire NFT art phenomenon, which started gaining traction last fall as digital artists realized they could attach data already being used to track cryptocurrency onto their own pixelated images and sell one-of-a-kind work the way painters sell original canvases.
Immediately following Christie’s sale of Mr. Winkelman's “Everydays—The First 5000 Days,” a gold-rush atmosphere spread across the art market, with dozens of artists and galleries clamoring to sell NFT art. The early fever appears to have subsided, though pioneering and seminal NFT artworks created by digital artists including Pak, Mad Dog Jones and FEWOCiOUS continue to sell at auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips for record sums.
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Interesting NFTs
Fuku-Shiva
The term “Fuku” refers to fortune or good luck. “Shiva” refers to the Hindu deity who represents strongly polar qualities, both severe and delicate.
On a beach inspired by adventures on Phi Phi island in Thailand, three youths cavort. Two are representational figures and the third is psychologically rendered. A dynamic relationship ensues between the triad; a reciprocity of active and passive states. The boy on the right engages in maneuvers of evasion, defense, and is dressed in a speedo which reiterates the colors and symbolism of the caution tape on the left and upper right frame of the composition. In concurrent reaction the psychedelic figure shoots out a rocket powered paper airplane. The nude boy seated in the froth and sand approaches in passive repose, and is met with active attention but equal physical reserve by the psychedelic being.
Perhaps the most naked figure is also the least representational. Looming large, dynamic, and active, it engages its companions playfully. Various symbols interject into the otherwise naturalistic scene, most notably a beach ball and two contaminated barrels nested in the sand. The upright barrel reads “FukuShima” in Kanji. The barrel laying down reads “Dharma”.
To the left the scene is bounded by caution tape, reiterating the danger of the nuclear waste while also hosting alien archetypes, whose presence, as is the nature of these entities, runs up and just behind the consciousness of the psychedelic figure’s eggshell-like skull.
Fidenza #313
Fidenza is by far my most versatile algorithm to date. Although the program stays focused on structured curves and blocks, the varieties of scale, organization, texture, and color usage it can employ create a wide array of generative possibilities.
#88183
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OthersideDeployer
Horns
Oh hi! I'm Horns. I'm a Culinary Sanitation Specialist by day, and I like riverdancing by night. When I'm not siring for status, I'm tricking babies! Let's pawty!
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