16/09/2022 Mega Collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Enters the NFT Game
Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, a major collector whose holdings run the gamut of Latin American art to conceptual art to video art, is getting into the NFT game. Using 3D scans, works from her collection, which boasts over 2,000 pieces, are going to be made into an NFT tarot card deck, thus the name, NFTarot.
The first fourteen NFTarot cards of a 44-card deck are scheduled to go on sale on LiveArt, a Web3 art platform, on October 6. Half of the cards display works by Gustavo Perez Monzon, a Cuban artist whose geometrical drawings and installations made with wires and thread are credited with bringing conceptual art to his native country. The other seven cards display works of Glenda LeĂłn, a Cuban artist known for her video art.
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A portion of the royalties from the NFT sales will benefit the artists who created the original works, while the majority of the salesâ proceeds will used to support her eponymous foundation, known as CIFO, in its artist commissioning and grant programs.
The sale will inaugurate Cisnerosâs new initiative, eDigital.ART. In a release, eDigital.ART is described as a ânew NFT initiative [that] connects collectors to works by artists represented in the renowned Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection.â
âThe collaboration with eDigital.ART builds on my lifelong mission to advocate for Latin American artists and raise global awareness for their practices,â saidFontanals-Cisneros in an email toARTnews. âNot only can we expand the range of collectors for these artists through the NFT format, but we can also bolster the impact of the critical support that CIFO provides to Latin American artists around the world and directly support artists through the ongoing royalties enabled byNFTs.â
It is a novel way for Fontanals-Cisneros to extract value from her collection without having to actually sell off her prized works, which includes the likes of John Baldessari and Olafur Eliasson alongside the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vik Muniz, as well as Lygia Clark and Luis Camnitzer. In 2018, she announced that she woulddonate some 400 worksfrom her collection to the Spanish state, but that agreement wascanceledafter a change in government. Earlier this year, Fontanals-Cisneros partnered with Ars Electronica tocreate a new grant programto support Latin American artists working with technology.
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