When I first became aware of NFTs in the late spring of 2021, my initial reaction was complete bafflement. Several crypto years later, I see NFTs as a powerful and exciting new force for the arts. My own role in this space is primarily as a creator - an experimental photographer with an active and international social following and a regional presence in the traditional art industry. Despite a modest budget, I am a long-time collector as well. The walls of my home are crowded with art. Why has my point of view regarding NFTs changed? Let me count the benefits I see.

For the Creator

First and foremost, the blockchain ledger provides protection for my intellectual property rights in ways that are more direct, more provable, and more global than any copyright law. Minting my work establishes the provenance permanently, immutably, and publicly. Then there is the ability to declare royalties on secondary sales with the confidence that decentralized, trustless enforcement on chain will ensure that they are honored. This is truly a revolutionary innovation for artists, and an entirely new revenue stream.

Most of my work starts with a physical process using photosensitive paper, light, and chemicals, though digitizing the work to prepare it for printing and sharing has long been a part of my routine. Without knowing it, I was primed and ready for NFTs. The point was brought home when a friend in Wales wanted to acquire a piece of my work and I faced the logistics of international shipping for the first time. Shipping was expensive, customs a pain in the neck, and we both crossed our fingers in hope that the piece would arrive unmangled in a timely manner. NFTs eliminate printing and shipping logistics and geographical barriers while guaranteeing the integrity of the transaction for both parties. I will be paid and the collector will receive the art. Period. My work can be collected by anyone, anywhere, easily, quickly, and securely.

Prior to joining the NFT revolution, my work was sold in galleries, and gallery sales are still an important element of my business as an artist. I often hear stories about my collectors - how thrilled they were with a piece, how they planned to use the piece, what drew them to the piece - but I’ve rarely had the opportunity to meet them or talk directly to them. NFTs offer the possibility of my fans and I having a direct relationship with one another. Some of my NFT collectors are anonymous, known to me only by a wallet address, but I’ve had real interactions with others. I’ve even had the opportunity to build interactive artworks putting the collector and I in a collaborative relationship, both leaving our mark on the work itself.

In my area there was once a well known tapestry artist. References to her and her work appear in newspaper articles and other historical records with some frequency. But, sadly, we cannot locate any of her work. As I grow older, the question of my legacy becomes more important to me. My artist friends and I joke about the kids and the dumpster once we’re gone, but the jokes have a bitter taste. What will I leave behind? How will it be organized, preserved, and shared? What can I do to ensure that my work survives? I am beginning to see NFTs as an answer. By minting and collecting my own work, perhaps I can use blockchain technology and decentralized storage to create a vault of sorts containing my legacy. Then, even if lost to living memory, the work is there to be discovered one day by a scrappy descendent or local history buff. I don’t have all the details of this budding idea sorted out, but it feels like a real possibility.

Finally, participating in NFTs allows me to feel as if I am part of THE 21st century art movement. A child during the heyday of Pop Art, never quite cool enough to feel a part of Post Modern, Conceptual, or Installation Art, I’ve felt a ‘tween’, living my life in art in some slightly pedestrian realm. Suddenly, I am at the very center of an exploding new genre that clearly will make its mark on history. That is a heady feeling. As an artist, NFTs allow me to sell, share, give, grow, and build legacy in whole new ways that I find very exciting.

For the Collector

That blockchain ledger that protects my intellectual property rights also provides assurance to the collector of the authenticity of the work they acquire. It establishes provable ownership, transparently trackable provenance, and a digital signature. Edition size and edition number become verifiable public information, ensuring scarcity and uniqueness. Decentralized permanent storage provides platform independent assurance of the safety and longevity of the digital asset itself, and the NFT ecosystem provides liquidity for the art as an investment.

Likewise, the barriers of geography, logistics, and payment systems that allow my work to be collected by anyone, anywhere work in the opposite direction to allow anyone to become a serious collector with a growing vault of artworks found the world over. Not everyone has the space to house nor the means to care for hundreds of physical paintings, photographs, or sculptures, but the space in our crypto wallets is limitless and the means to enjoy our collected art is expanding everyday through metaverse venues, social media platforms, web3 experiences, digital displays, HD TV apps, and electronic frames. My own abilities to collect and support fellow artists has expanded exponentially.

Collectors are buying a story: of the artist or of the art. Moved by the emotional impact of an artwork, or falling in love with the sheer beauty of a piece, the opportunity to be in community with the artist must be as heady for them as it is for me as a creator. It’s a human connection, a direct line from creator to receiver, making us all part of the story - collector and creator in a powerful collaboration shaping an innovative future at a pivotal moment in art history.

The Curator

Will my physical gallery survive and remain relevant? It’s clear that the traditional art world is experiencing a shakeup, forced to examine the core tenets and practices of the industry. Certainly many within the industry will face uncomfortable adjustments, but the NFT revolution is a benefit to gallerists and curators as well as artists and collectors. As the walls of the insular art world come down and access to art the world over expands, the need for their services will expand as well.

As I’ve brushed off my moribund Twitter account and reluctantly accepted the responsibility to ‘shill’ my work, I have never appreciated my gallerist more. The work the team at the gallery does to market my creations and get them in front of the right buyers is work I have no real talent for, nor do I really want to spend my time doing it. During these months of marketing my NFTs myself, I’ve learned the true value of the commissions I’ve paid. Digging for the undiscovered future star, having the marketing savvy to make sure the spectacular art actually gets seen, ensuring that the talented artist has a showcase for their work, putting the art and the collector together - these things are real work, taking real time, talent, and experience.

We are entering a new era in which creator, collector, and curator live in a symbiotic relationship with one another, engaging one another and supporting one another - with the lines between the roles becoming more fluid. Over the past few months I’ve felt this enriching expansion personally. NFTs hold real promise for all the stakeholders in the art world.

The role of the curator may be the role most impacted by the changing landscape, but the need for the talented curator will not disappear. We who are shaping this new future must realize that fact and actively design a future in which these stakeholders are appreciated and compensated. A world in which artist, collector, and curator are in a mutually beneficial relationship without the artificial barriers the NFT revolution has broken down is a world that I can get behind. The future is bright - I’m wearing my shades and embracing it wholeheartedly.

Notes:

Banner image: Detail from Red Orb, the first NFT I sold.

Originally published on 12/31/2021 by UNDRGRND.io.

When fine art photography adopted the concept of limited editions, the factors that gave clear meaning to the term softened. Film, if managed carefully, could be used indefinitely to produce prints of very high quality. The enlarger allowed prints to be made in virtually any size, and prints could be altered rather substantially during the printing process. However, the sense of value and scarcity attached to the term was attractive.

The arrival of digital photography muddied the water in whole new ways.  A raw digital image could be edited and altered in an infinite number of ways and printed using many different methods.  Exact copies could be made in endless supply, and the image could be disseminated widely and easily.  As digital methods have grown in sophistication and capabilities, the complexities of what defines a given edition of a visual work of art have increased in kind.

Enter NFTs.

State of the Art

A quick search of the internet for the definition of a limited edition reproduction of an artwork returns any number of conflicting statements from reputable institutions and artists. Some take an approach similar to publishing a book. A First Edition will be produced in a given number, at a given time, in a given size, using like materials. Its existence in no way precludes the later publication of a Second or Third Edition, each with its own characteristics. A beautifully produced First Edition hardcover is not confused in any way with a mass-market paperback, though the content of each is the same. Others take a strict view that the given content, once offered in a limited edition, should never be offered again in any form.

These opposing views played out in the courts when collector, Jonathan Sobel, sued photographer, William Eggleston. Mr. Sobel had collected an 11.75" x 17.38” dye transfer limited edition print of Mr. Eggleston’s famous Memphis (Tricycle) photograph, created in the 1980s and sold then in an edition of 20. In 2012, Mr. Eggleston created a 44" x 60" inkjet print from a digital scan of the original negative and sold it in a Christie’s auction. Mr. Sobel argued that the value of the image in his collection had been damaged and brought suit. In 2013, a US District Judge dismissed Mr. Sobel’s claim of fraud and negligent misrepresentation. The judge found the two works to be substantially different and affirmed Mr. Eggleston’s right to continue to use his image in new ways. (Learn more about the case and see the image in question here.)

Substantially different - that seems to me a core concept that we in the NFT space have not examined in sufficient detail, and our failure to do so serves neither the creator nor the collector.

NFT Editions

When minting an NFT, the platform used may require an edition size to be stated. It may leave edition size unstated. A drop may be offered in a limited number, or it may be offered in an open ended way, allowing the number of buyers to determine the edition size. In Clubhouse rooms, on Discord, and in social media, we discuss NFT editions as if the word is well defined. But is it?

The ERC-721 standard defines a globally unique contract address and token ID. It defines ownership, the actions that can be taken on a contract, and how to reference the location of the associated content. It says nothing about the warranties and guarantees the artist is making about that content, nor about licensing conditions or terms of use. There is no mention of editions nor any definition of the characteristics of a digital asset that make one distinguishable from another.

ERC-1155 improves on ERC-721 in several ways, but does not provide any additional information that might allow us to pin down the definition of an “edition”. We are left to consider the same questions debated in that famous 2012 court case. If an image looks the same even if the method of construction and the underlying characteristics of the work are completely different, is it the same thing or something new? Is a small, low resolution jpeg the same thing, edition wise, as an infinitely scalable vector based file? Does the existence of a token for that small jpeg preclude an artist from offering the work in other formats, sizes, and configurations? How different must a new form of the work be from previous forms to warrant acceptance as a new edition?

There seems to be a popular consensus that once minted, the content associated with an NFT edition cannot, in good form, be minted ever again anywhere in the entire blockchain universe. However, I see little, if any, nuanced discussion of these important definitional questions.

Making Edition Decisions

The artist is certainly faced with questions of format, size, scale, and configuration when preparing a digital file to become an NFT. The artist must address the question of edition size when minting the work, and determine a price when listing the work. These decisions significantly affect both the short-term and the lifetime value of a piece. A low edition number and price may lead to a quick sale but provide little return while severely limiting the artist’s future use of their work. That same low entry price may plague the value of the work for years. On the other hand, the artist may make reasonable and fair decisions regarding the value of their work, only to be snubbed by buyers not yet ready to recognize that value.

The decisions are equally important to the collector. How will the size or format of the work affect the collector‘s use of the work? Will the resolution of the work support printing at a useful and interesting size? Is the aspect ratio compatible with the latest displays? How will the chosen characteristics affect the value of the work? The tradeoffs can be difficult to assess and optimize, and the implications may go unseen until their impact rises well after any opportunity to remedy. Furthermore, it is impossible to anticipate the impact of decisions made now on opportunities two, five, or ten years down the road. If the artist has but one chance to get it right for any given piece of work, this cannot serve a world in which we strive for all art to fully and freely manifest, for artists to be fairly compensated, and for artists, collectors, and curators to be in mutually supportive community relationships.

A Call for More Expansive Thinking

Limiting any given content to a single representation also limits innovation in unfortunate ways. The wonderful advantages I see in NFT-based art include the ability for anyone to acquire my work regardless of geographic location, free of the logistical hurdles of international shipping and fiat payment systems, and within a space that assures both parties of the integrity of the transaction. I’d like to extend that statement to include, regardless of the socioeconomic standing of the collector. I’d like to offer my work in several sizes, price points, and edition sizes targeted to different buying audiences. I might want to offer different licensing conditions for each of the edition types or different perks for collectors of each. The list goes on and on. It is easy to imagine this approach in the physical world. Why should it be any different in the NFT world?

New technology will offer possibilities that I cannot today imagine, just as Eggleston had no idea in 1980 what doors digital methods would open. Perhaps I might offer different editions, each with its own set of unlockable content, characteristics, and benefits, and each priced and numbered accordingly. And in some future metaverse the options might expand in exciting new ways. Our industry is young, exciting, and energetic, and the future is bright and wide open. We are all best served if creators are free to reimagine their work, bringing it new life that, rather than being seen as copy minting, is met with open arms. Imagine how impoverished we would be if Andy Warhol had not appropriated a can of soup and his work had not become an icon as it was reimagined again and again. It is said that the devil is in the details, let us start talking about the details glossed over by the careless use of the word, “edition”, and free the art.

Notes:

Banner image: Non-Fungible Soup #0766, https://art101.io/, in the collection of the author.  A reinterpretation of the work of Andy Warhol.

Article originally published by UNDRGRND.io on 12/1/2021.