“The project involves three frescoes from the school of Raphael Santi” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about “Digital Art,” a joint project of the State Hermitage Museum and the Interros company.

At the VIII Eastern Economic Forum, which is currently taking place in Vladivostok, problems of the economics of culture and art are also discussed.

The State Hermitage Museum and the Interros company have just announced the launch of the Digital Art project. This project is entirely, and this is especially important, based on “white” and exclusively domestic technologies.

It is aimed at using the achievements of blockchain technologies for the restoration and promotion of objects of our country’s cultural heritage, so far from the Hermitage collection, then from other museums.

What is the essence – digital financial assets (DFAs) are created and released into free circulation in the format of non-refundable tokens (the abbreviation NFT is more familiar and familiar to many), which, first of all, will reflect the process of restoration of works of art.

Token owners donate funds for the restoration of works and at the same time become owners of digitized rights to an artistic product created during the process of this very restoration. In addition, they acquire the status of members of the new Hermitage “Digital Patrons Club”.

I’ll say right away that I succumbed to the persuasion of my friends and joined this program (however, my family will learn about this from the Kommersant FM broadcast).

The project, presented in Vladivostok, involves three frescoes from the school of Raphael Santi from the Hermitage collection: “Venus Taking out a Thorn”, “Venus and Adonis” and “Venus and Cupid on Dolphins”. From all the variety of Venuses, I chose, but no, I won’t say which one now. You can guess for now… And then I will reveal this secret to you.

I hope that, within the framework of my new rights, I will be able to show you on the Kommersant FM website my piece of the fresco and in general I will talk about how ownership of a token goes, and I myself will finally figure out what the deep meaning of owning irrevocable tokens is in such a marginal for the big business sphere as art. And, of course, I will share this new knowledge with you.