Storming the ‘last bastion’: Angst and anger as NFTs claim high-culture status Holy fuck.
It’s as immutable as a transaction on the blockchain: Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have permanently made their mark on art history. While the movement has some members of the arterati swooning at the notion of unwashed digital hordes laying siege to their domain, the reality is that the two worlds of high art and crypto are fated to become one and the same.
You might not have heard of Mike Winkelmann, but at least one art icon is ready to say he could rank up there with Pablo Picasso. The 39-year-old artist better known as “Beeple” has successfully forced his way into over a half-dozen different encyclopedia entries today after the sale of a career retrospective collage, “The First 5000 Days
Beeple is an artist.
He makes digital art pixels on screens depicting bizarre, hilarious, disturbing, and sometimes grotesque images. He smashes together pop culture, technology, and postapocalyptic terror into blistering commentaries on the way we live. A recent frame depicted Donald Trump wearing a leather mask and stripper’s pasties, taking a whip to the coronavirus bug (title: “Trump Dominating Covid”). On the day Jeff Bezos announced he was kicking himself upstairs, Beeple imagined the Amazon founder as a massive, threatening octopus emerging from the ocean as military helicopters circled above (“Release the Bezos”).
Beeple has 1.8 million Instagram followers. His work has been shown at two Super Bowl halftime shows and at least one Justin Bieber concert, but he has no gallery representation or foothold in the traditional art world.
How to organize an art fair in 2021 - and beyond?
Lessons and best practices from this years successful events.
BUDAPEST
.- It has been a tumultuous year for art fairs: the vast majority of organizers had to cancel or postpone their events. Those who were bold, reflective, and lucky enough won not only experience but important lessons for the long run, too. Now the organizers and prominent participants of one such art fair share their 5 tips for a successful art event in the coming years.
The pandemic posed the biggest ordeal in the history of art fairs - it jolted the art industry more than any other crisis of our time. Although most events had to be canceled, the now ending art fair season hasnt been uneventful, and we can learn crucial lessons from those who could organize despite all circumstances.