NFT art: fake or a serious competitor to real works

Time to burn – why destroy art

The famous British artist Damien Hirst burns. Your paintings in the fireplace. Over the course of several months, the infamous artist destroyed thousands of works, having previously created an NFT version of each canvas worth $2,000. Before embarking on a fiery performance experiment, Hirst offered his fans a choice between digital and physical productions. 4180 preferred to buy a real picture, 5820 – purchased an NFT analogue. It turns out that Hirst in practice confirmed the liquidity of digital art, its popularity and advantages over material works? Then why did the NFT-works of other authors, once sold for fabulous sums, then plummeted in price?

Digital art is increasingly capturing the minds of admirers of beauty and the art market. However, everything is not as clear as it seems, looking at the experience of a man who leads the ranking of the most expensive living artists. Damien Hirst not only knows how to create bright, sharp and controversial works, but also knows how to sell them competently. So, in the summer, the artist launched a powerful PR campaign for his performance-experiment. I chose for him 10 thousand attractive paintings with multi-colored dots, which were created by him back in 2016, that is, tested in the cultural space. For the burning ritual, he even built a special open fireplace in his workshop, which is visible through and through, which makes the burning process look especially impressive. In addition, Hurst bought a spectacular shiny fireproof suit for the performance, reminiscent of the outfit of astronauts, and dyed his gray hair blue. If you had a couple thousand dollars to spare, wouldn’t you want to be a part of such a performance? The fire show was really spectacular. Damien started destroying his paintings at the beginning of autumn and it burns and burns. He regularly posts bright photos on social networks, conducts online broadcasts, in a word, the public has something to marvel at. The action was called “Currency”.

“Many people think that I burn millions of dollars worth of art, but this is not true. I am completing the conversion of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the material versions. The value of art, which is difficult to determine at the best of times, will not be lost,” the artist comments.

Millionaire Martin Mobarak decided to pull off a similar “fiery trick”. He threw a party at his home in Miami, where he burned Frida Kahlo’s “Sinister Ghosts” drawing. Mobarak stated that he bought it in 2015 for $10 million, now made 10 thousand tokens, and destroyed the original to leave the great Frida in virtual eternity. Each of the NFT versions of the Mexican artist’s work sells for $4,000, which means the entrepreneur hopes to earn $40 million. But it doesn’t look like his experiment will be successful. Most of the organizations to which the millionaire promised to donate part of the proceeds have already abandoned the gesture. The National Institute of Fine Arts and Letters (INBAL) initiated an investigation that happened at the request of the artist’s heirs – the millionaire faces a trial. With such “advertising” you will not go far, but for vandalism a term can fly.

Against the backdrop of fire shows, it is reasonable to turn to the history of NFT sales. There are many, to put it mildly, dubious cases and outright failures. Take, for example, the scandal surrounding the collection of anime avatars released by a certain entity acting under the pseudonym Azuki Zagabond. This friend sold $3 million worth of NFT avatars, and then easily and naturally said: “I screwed up, I’m sorry.” Now he is suspected of fraud, and the sold NFTs are worth nothing. Or blogger Paul Logan bought a bumblebee token for $623,000 in 2021, and now the red price of this NFT is ten dollars. It was recently revealed that the NFT portrait of former US First Lady Melania Trump in a spectacular white hat, which she wore during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron in 2018, she herself bought at an auction for 185 thousand dollars. In order not to lose credibility. And there are many such cases.

However, the token is different from the token. Liquidity depends not only on the format, but also on the name of its creator, and on the quality of the work itself. It is unlikely that the cost of a Damien Hirst painting will drop sharply in price, and it does not matter whether it is digital or real. He is still an authority, and not some anonymous under a pseudonym. But do not forget: the value of art is tested by time. Many works that cost a lot of money a hundred years ago are forgotten today. Conversely, works that were once not bought at all are today recognized masterpieces. A good example is the story of Van Gogh, during whose lifetime only one of his paintings was sold, and even then for a small amount. Also, history will dot the “i” with a new trend – NFT.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28893 dated October 19, 2022

Newspaper headline:
Time to burn: why destroy art