Art and NFTs - RIZZOLI
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, exploded into the art space last year,
no doubt because Beeple (a digital artist) sold his NFT at Christie’s
auction house for a staggering $69 million. Yet the story of NFTs is
much more interesting, significant, and subtle than that sale. This book
explains NFTs in the art world—and the ways they might not only
democratize the arts but enliven our larger democracy.
Since
the NFT phenomenon took over the art world, useful information that
isn’t too reductive is in short supply. Artists, collectors, arts
professionals, art lovers, and museum goers are still trying to
understand what NFTs are, how to benefit from or engage with them, and
what they mean for the art world in the future. This book is precisely
for this audience.
The authors take the reader through the basic
concepts of NFTs and the underlying technology of blockchain, including
their origins, their surprising connections to the history of art making
and art collecting, and their potential to radically reshape the art
world. The book invites the reader to engage with this new technology,
to understand its connections to the longer arc of art history, and to
help shape its future.
The volume is structured around four
key chapters: Origin Stories (where NFTs come from), Artists + Making
(how artists are currently engaging with the technology and minting NFTs
logistically and conceptually), Collectors + Buying (what does it mean
to collect an NFT and other advice for current and soon-to-be
collectors), and Future States (how NFTs will upend and democratize the
arts). In addition to the authors’ extensive knowledge, the book draws
on a wide range of interviews with leading contributors to the NFT
story.
The Story of NFTs is an inventive, elegant, and not
insufferable book on a topic that matters more than most people think,
in ways that are surprising and at odds with the one-dimensional
cryptocurrency story. The many intersecting stories of NFTs in this
book—knowledge stories, artist stories, democracy stories—center how we
know what is true in an age of digital records and how we build
collaborative and equitable structures for the future.