The Rise and Rise of NFT Artworks
If the pandemic has been good for anything at all, it’s the fuelling of online shopping, interaction and creativity. Case in point: the recent prominence of artists (and their less-obvious collaborators) pushing non-fungible tokens, or NFTs—digital collector cards that accompany an artwork, providing bonus material. An idiosyncratic Easter Egg, if you will.
If you’ve heard of them, chances are you hadn’t just a few months ago. This doesn’t make you uncool or unaware. While it’s true they’ve been knocking around since 2014 (see Decentraland or CryptoPunks), they didn’t hit the mainstream until early 2021, with many high-profile and unexpected collaborators wanting a slice of the crypto pie.
For example, Liam Payne of One Direction teamed up with Grammy-winner Zedd and audio-reactive artist Sillygabe to create the Lonely Bug Collection, launched a month ago. This was a product of lockdown boredom (plus a somewhat stalling solo career and lots of money to play with) and allowed Liam’s fans to bid on NFTs to gain special prizes, such as a place at the table next to the singer himself at an immersive dinner party in Las Vegas.
How successful this has been for Payne has not been announced; he’s gone quiet on the subject since it launched, and his following consists largely of teenage girls (albeit in their millions) who likely don’t have the disposable income to throw around on digital art bidding. Nonetheless, Payne’s popularity and reach will have opened NFTs up to vast group who might normally be uninterested.
Another artiste tossing his hat into the NFT ring is two-time Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins. The Hollywood star (who famously skipped Skyping into the Academy Awards to accept his gong for The Father this year because he thought he wouldn’t win) appears in Zero Contact, a movie shot mostly on Zoom and the first film released on VUELE, the world’s debut NFT viewing platform.
Meanwhile, in March, Christie’s sold American digital artist Beeple’s work Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69.3m. The auction house made further NFT history in May when it offered traditional paintings by women alongside tokens by the anonymous digital feminist collective Rewind.
Having honoured women, Rewind has now focused on LGBTQ+ youth, teaming up with fashion house Givenchy, specialised sales platform Veve, and art space Amar Singh Gallery. More history has been made by this collaboration. Not only did they sell the world’s first NFT for a beauty brand, they did it in two seconds, making $128k. Gallery owner Singh told V.F.: “Rewind created the work using original photography, editing the images digitally, utilising animation to create this burst of movement that was in celebration of LGBTQ+ rights.
“If you look throughout the artwork there’s the pride flag, the trans flag, two women, two men—it’s very powerful. It was sold in 1,952 editions and they all sold out. That’s monumental. And it’s the first time we’ve seen one of the largest companies in the world embracing digital artwork. And rather than doing this for profit, they’re doing it for good.”
Amar Singh
The artwork is titled “Pride” and draws inspiration from Givenchy’s hallmarks in a series of animated portraits symbolising diversity, the assertion of identity and the fight for equal rights. The message: a universal kind of beauty.
Givenchy Parfums have donated the money raised to Le MAG Jeunes (Movement for the Assertion of Young Gay, Lesbian, Bi & Trans people), a French initiative founded in 1985 in Paris, which raises awareness and delivers support at schools by lobbying international institutions and promoting the implementation of more inclusive public policies.
“It was an honour to partner with Givenchy, Amar Singh Gallery and Veve to raise this money for such an important cause,” says Rewind. “As artists, our mission remains committed to highlighting the underrepresented and marginalised.”
Amar Singh
And they’re up for more. “Rewind Collective want to collaborate again alongside me for further LGBTQ+ causes,” Singh says. “We are looking at other digital artworks and artists as a new frontier to help solve global issues around women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.”
So are NFTs the way of the future, now that auction houses, perfumers, Silence of the Lambs fans and Directioners are all clubbing together to get involved?
“There will always be physical art, but digital art opens the gate to millions of collectors,” Singh weighs in. “Gen Z, millions of young people, will continue to buy this type of art, I’m certain.”
What the biggest names in NFTs think the market’s future holds
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Fortune is dropping its latest cover as NFTs
When we at Fortune were discussing the possibility of publishing a crypto-themed issue, there was no doubt about who should design the cover: pplpleasr, the graphic artist whose work has defined the look of the “decentralized finance” movement. (She ranked No. 5 on Fortune’s inaugural NFTy 50 list of the industry’s top influencers.)
For the August/September 2021 issue, titled “Crypto vs. Wall Street,” pplpleasr depicted the down-the-rabbit-hole world of so-called DeFi in all its playful vitality. Mascots of popular projects—like Uniswap (the unicorn), Aave (ghost), and MetaMask (fox)—are partying on the cover alongside various crypto influencers. An Alice-in-Wonderland-like crypto-portal towers above the legacy financial system, dwarfing silhouettes of banks, skyscrapers, and the iconic stock market bull. It’s a stunning—and statement-making—piece.
The message? Crypto is here, whether or not Wall Street is prepared for it.
True to her nom de pixel, pplpleasr pleas’d the ppl. Based on the cover’s ecstatic reception, we decided to mint 256 limited editions of pplpleasr’s animated art as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The number is a nod to the 256 bits that make up the cryptographic keys associated with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether. The NFTs will sell at a fixed price of 1 Ether (ETH) each, rather than auctioning off a single, one-of-a-kind NFT for a large sum, and thereby giving more people access to the series.
In addition to supporting democratization, we believe in the power of open markets, cutting edge tech, and fun—so, as an added perk, we worked with the tech wizards at Manifold on custom smart contracts to enhance the bidding experience for three additional, rarer NFTs. These bonus versions feature more in-depth graphics, and they are programmed to react to a certain list of “buyer” Ethereum addresses.
Here’s how it works. If a bid comes from one of the listed buyer’s addresses, the NFT will update to a special edition artwork designed specifically for the target buyer. If a non-targeted buyer out-bids a targeted one, then the NFT reverts to its original artwork. In case you find that confusing, pplpleasr has a lucid video explanation here.
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Bottom line: This is a crazy experiment and even we don’t know what’s going to happen.
What is clear to us is, however, that decentralization and digitization are profound forces that are fundamentally reshaping the world of business—and beyond. We believe the technology behind NFTs could shift power away from an oligopoly of corporate giants and back into the hands of creators and fans alike. It has the potential to be a great equalizer.
If you want to join Fortune for the journey, we are dropping our first-ever NFTs on the marketplace OpenSea on Friday starting at 12 p.m. ET. The auction is set to last through Monday at 12 p.m. ET. You can place a bid, or watch the action, here. (Update: An earlier version of this article said the auction will end at 9 p.m. et. The auction will now end at noon ET on Monday due to the way the smart contracts were set.)
At Fortune, home of the Fortune 500 list, we don’t just chronicle big industrial transformations. We live them.
Robert Hackett
@rhhackett
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com