NFT for Art – The New Era Analyzing Beeple’s Statement on NFT The next chapter in art history

 Nobody on the planet knows who Cassius Clay is but well… Everyone knows who Muhammad Ali is, and they do not even realize that it is the same person! Similarly, in the world of digital art, Mike Winkelmann would be a completely unknown name but everybody would recognize the name “Beeple.”

Even this name, until February 2021, was completely unknown. Suddenly, everyone in the world of digital art NFTs, and art investments made Beeple a household name.

The reason? His digital art was purchased for a staggering sum of over $69 million by the art collector who goes by the name MetaKovan. MetaKovan, we know now, is the Singapore-based art collector Vignesh Sundaresan.

To add another layer of surprise, it was not just the value of his artwork that made him famous, but the fact that the sale of the NFT was facilitated by one of the biggest auction houses on the planet, Christie’s – people would never have imagined Christie’s to take an NFT art marketplace avatar!

Just for your information, the value of the crypto artwork of Beeple is about 1/12th of the value of the most famous and the most valuable art creation on the planet, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

What does this mean for the world of art? Beeple, by himself, has made a striking statement, explicitly stating “the next chapter in art history will be NFTs!“

This opens up interesting implications and challenging complications. Let us analyze in good detail, what this means for the world of art.

The Love-Hate Relationship

The relationship between art and technology has always been like Tom and Jerry’s. While one cannot exist without the other, they, on the surface, always appear to be at loggerheads.

The introduction of synthetic paints, printing technology, and tools like ProCreate and Adobe Photoshop have been instrumental in transforming the perception of art and creating avenues for more people to participate in creating art.

Technology has also, in addition to facilitating better art creation, increased the magnitude of exposure. If an artist based out of the United States can now sell their art to someone in Singapore, you know that art consumption is global.

It was not the case before the introduction of the Internet where art was just confined to very specific geography, and the knowledge about some unique and creative art even by renowned artists was confined to their little social circle.

With the Internet and other modes of connectivity, exposure has now become truly global for artists and other creators.

A person from some corner of South America is bound to be awe-struck when they look at the mysterious and elegant smile of the Mona Lisa. Such is the power of art: it can transcend all cultural, geographic, and every other boundary that humans can ever Imagine.

If such is the power of art and being universal, why should not the consumption of art be universal? This has been facilitated by technology again. Even simple creations like ShutterStock and Etsy should be given credit for making art universally accessible!

The Challenges

If everything is in place, then why should NFTs exist for the sake of art? This is, literally, a billion-dollar question. We all know that the value of anything creative is subjective. The price of something depends, apart from a few tangible parameters, on a lot of other intangible parameters that cannot be quantized or fit into a pattern.

Among the many factors that influence the price of art, one of them is the uniqueness or the rarity. Irrespective of the art being intrinsic or simple, the fact that it was created by someone like Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali makes it valuable. However, how authentic is that particular piece of information… That the art was created by someone who has a value attached to their name?

Let us assume that the authenticity has been established, and as an art collector, you have bought that particular piece of art. It is a very satisfactory buy for you. Where, however, do you establish the authenticity to people who you would like to impress with the fact that you are the owner of one of the most valuable pieces of art ever to exist on the planet? Here again, authenticity comes into the picture.

Now, let us get into a situation where you will need to sell your piece of art. How are you going to prove to your prospective buyer that they are buying an authentic piece?

If we were to take it a few steps further, we need proper records of who has been in ownership of a particular piece of art all along its history, and if the price that a person is paying for that piece of art at any point in time is valid and justified.

Enter NFTs

To counter all these issues of authenticity and transparent record-keeping, NFTs provide the perfect solution.

NFT, as we all know, is built on the blockchain technology, which is, by nature, immutable, transparent, secure, and is completely digital. All that is required for any person to access this technology is a smartphone that is connected to the Internet.

By virtue of this technology, art becomes universally accessible because every connected device is a potential consumer of this technology, and subsequently, art consumption, enabled by this technology.

Why Does the Future of Art Lie in NFT?

Beeple is, we would say, quite eligible to make this statement considering the fact that the value of his creation skyrocketed from a measly $7 to a staggering $70 million in a span of less than a couple of weeks. To be honest, no other piece of art has witnessed such a steep increase in price in such a short span of time.

Just like any other artist, we are sure Beeple understands the value of authenticity, and the need for the rights of the creator to be preserved all along the part of the art being consumed or even replicated. Today, you will find a lot of replicas/digital copies of what Beeple created and what was sold to MetaKovan.

In all of this, it is, by all means, possible to establish without an iota of doubt that MetaKovan is the authentic owner of the original piece because all of this is recorded on the blockchain. Simply put, no one can ever sell the same art as what Beeple did to anyone else because the authenticity is verifiable beyond question.

Is not this word the world of art needs? What was possible in the non-digital world of art was establishing authenticity. It was very easy to subject the art to certain tests and except for some fictional elements like how it happened in Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock series, art has always been authenticated by experts, and that made art an awesome collectible and a thing of pride to possess.

Art, however, suffered a serious setback when digital technology started to creep into the world of creations. It was impossible to distinguish between the original and the digital copy, and it was increasingly difficult to attribute a creation to a specific creator. To be blunt, if a person could manipulate their digital footprint, they could very well manipulate the attributes of a piece of art.

With this new digital distributed ledger technology, art has been able to preserve its authenticity while at the same time, taking advantage of every attribute of the digital world like universal access, digital payments, and democratizing the entire world of art creation.

The last point holds a lot of value because NFT marketplaces dedicated to art have been attracting a lot of digital creators to showcase their artwork, and it has also attracted buyers/consumers from all corners of the world. NFT marketplaces dedicated to art have been truly instrumental in making the world of art consumption and art creation truly democratic and flat.

Conclusion

It would not be an exaggeration to say that we are witnessing a new era in the world of art, thanks to NFT and the distributed ledger technology called the blockchain. Maybe the world of art has been looking forward to this point of inflection that will flawlessly merge art and technology… Maybe ever since the times of graphic programming languages like LOGO and Microsoft Paint.

NFTs have achieved what was taught to be impossible. It is now opening the floodgates for almost every party involved in the ecosystem. The parties include digital artists, classic artists, art creators, museums, investors, and uncannily, even entrepreneurs who can develop an NFT marketplace for art.

Even if you are not an art creator or an art collector, you can still benefit from this revolution when you develop your own NFT marketplace for trading art. The epoch-making statement by Beeple confirms that the confluence of art and technology is here to stay and they might travel a long way together, forming a double helix like a DNA propagating through space-time!

If you are one of those entrepreneurs who would like to capitalize on this new wave of digital art, all you need to do is get in touch with the company that specializes in NFT art marketplace development. They will take care to understand your requirements and present you with perfect solutions that will launch you into the world of blockchain-enabled digital art verifiable through NFTs.