Running until January 2024, this NFT exhibition is a pioneering project in Europe, but not without its pitfalls given the turbulence in the digital art world.
Against the backdrop of the turbulence in the world of digital art, the Center Pompidou is currently exhibiting its first collection of non-fungible tokens (NFT), a pioneering project in Europe but not without its pitfalls. Two rooms of the Paris Museum of Modern Art are therefore dedicated until January 2024 to 18 recently acquired digital works presented on screens.
Among them, acryptopunk», hood figure which is one of the emblems of the world of crypto art, or even bitcoinan imaginary representation of a bitcoin (cryptocurrency) created in 2015 by artist Sarah Meyohas. It’s one of the first NFTs, those computer files attached to a digital work of art.
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After several years of speculation frenzy, the market for these tokens collapsed last year as scandals rocked the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Transactions fell 94% from $232.7 million in 2021 to $13.9 million in 2022, according to French analytics firm Artprice.
About half of the works on display in Pompidou were donated by their authors, while others were purchased for as little as tens of euros at the current Ethereum cryptocurrency exchange rate, according to data from NFT marketplace OpenSea.
«For these artists, the idea is to step into the history of art and also ensure the permanence of their works, because the role of a museum is to preserve a legacy and thus ensure the longevity of works‘ Marcella Lista explains to -, chief curator of the new media department of the Center Pompidou and curator of the exhibition.
Digital art creates its own icons
Marrying technology and creation, digital art has very quickly created its own icons and myths without regulation. California artist Robness donated to the museum an imaginary 3D portrait of alleged Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity was never revealed. “I am very grateful to the Center Pompidou. It’s a very moving experience.‘ Robness confided to – during his visit to Paris.
The price of NFTs has plummeted and their reputation has been tarnished by intellectual property controversies, but this artist has no intention of abandoning this medium of expression. “This technology is like email: it’s not going away», Selon Robness. «If you start worrying about market dynamics, you’re wasting your energy. (…) It doesn’t help you to create».
The process has been an arduous one for the promoters of the Center Pompidou, the first European institution to launch its NFT collection. Transactions are usually carried out using cryptocurrencies. However, the Parisian museum cannot invest in this risky universe and a “double counting” underlined Marcella Lista. Purchases were therefore made in euros directly from the artists and a contract was signed for each work under French law.
Like all NFT collectors, the Center Pompidou needed to create an electronic wallet on OpenSea. However, this public account is only a showcase on the Internet, specifies Philippe Bertinelli, one of the other curators of the exhibition. “We have a storage system on multiple servers, on multiple media, which allows us to ensure the permanence of storage in the event of loss, failure, fire, (…).“, he explained.
