NFTs back to Earth – ArtReview

NFTs could easily become the cornerstone of a cultural explosion that appears, for now, to have fizzled

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It is absurd and appropriate that a book that purports to document the history of NFT culture – an extreme manifestation of contemporary society’s shift to digital – materializes with 650 pages, measures 36 × 50 cm and weighs more than 10kg. And that comes in two levels of collectability: a collector’s edition of 1,500 copies and an even rarer ‘Hard Code’ edition (just 600 copies), which comes in a stainless steel case, perhaps appealing to crypto-NFT OGs with one save £1.5k by burning through their e-wallets.

However, while On NFTs delves into the fetishism of printed objects, reflecting something of the exuberant, anti-elitist vulgarity of the recent NFT boom, artist and curator Robert Alice puts together a careful and informative record of the decade in which growing interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies they crossed paths with artists of all types, catalyzing an eruption of creativity that the conventional art world struggled to comprehend. Mixed in with the glossy profile pages of 101 important NFT artists are helpful essays by artists and critics that address the key debates and innovations that have defined the NFT space. As Alice says in her introduction, “it is a story that celebrated art at all levels and for all audiences; focused less on the art world elite, but on themes of democratization, disintermediation and decentralization.”

Alice and her collaborators do an accessible job of defining the conceptual parameters of this story; In her own discussion of Kevin McCoy’s proto-NFT Quantum (2014), Alice notes how it was digital artists who found common cause with blockchain enthusiasts’ interest in scarce virtual assets and decentralized currency. ‘Blockchain made possible a process that artists of all mediums have been trying to implement for decades: a process in which the provenance of even the most immaterial conceptual and digital works could be tracked and verified, and the sales of future works controlled.’

Two cultures, both in tension with the established art world, come together in NFTs; In Rhea Myers’ discussion of the blockchain “smart contract,” avant-garde and conceptualist art long anticipated debates about art object authenticity and certification. Alongside this history of critical art is a history of excluded or marginalized cultural production; Discussing the ‘Rare Pepe Wallet’ (a playful fanbase exchange for self-produced ‘Pepe’ digital trading cards), Jason Bailey and Alex Estorick note that what gives the project its ‘particular cultural legitimacy is that his memes were the product of everyday people – rather than an isolated elite – whose community engagement conjured a viral form of popular art.”

NFTs could easily become the cornerstone of a cultural explosion that appears, for now, to have fizzled out as it misses a more skeptical analysis of the shortcomings of blockchain utopianism and crypto fraud. Aaron Wright and Serena Tabacchi’s examination of DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) maintains the techno-utopian view that technology will give humans the tools for more democratic, non-hierarchical forms of organization. However, a recurring theme in the essays is the reaffirmation of centralization by NFT markets and legacy players; in fact, Bailey and Estorick note that the legendary 2021 Beeple auction, while turbocharging the NFT craze, “dealt a death blow to crypto art as an anti-realistic art alternative to the traditional art world.” Real-world economics and politics have not yet been replaced by cryptography and blockchain, and art has not yet dematerialized. As On NFTs solidly attests, materiality is where the value still resides.

About NFTs, edited by Robert Alice. Taschen£750 / £1,500 (hardcover)

JJ CharlesworthBook reviewsApril 29, 2024ArtReview

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