Physical Art Needs A Democratization Solution. Here’s Why Blockchain May Be The Answer
It’s easier than ever for artists to get credit and control over their digital art.
Sites like Society6 allow artists to upload their work, selling it to people in different mediums and giving artists a cut of the profits. And Artsy is bringing the art market online by working with galleries around the world to cut through some of the more traditional barriers in curation and sales.
But even with advances in the way artists can sell their work online, physical art is still difficult to democratize.
The fine art world is lagging behind when it comes to placing power into artists’ hands. While there are several reasons for that, there are also blockchain solutions that help artists open up access to their work—and get paid for it.
Let’s dive into what those solutions are and why they’re needed:
There’s disparity between physical and digital art democratization today.
Democratization is much easier online.
Crowdfunding efforts and online art auctions are prime examples of the path towards a more open and available digital art space. The internet amplifies the reach of these efforts over and over, giving more people access to a campaign or sale. And companies like the R.A.R.E Digital Art Network are working on behalf of artists by opening up new ways to monetize digital artwork.
The problem is that physical fine art is still offline, which creates a massive gap between the digital and physical art worlds.
There’s no way to apply a royalty or creative commons license to a work of art hanging in someone’s living room. So the artist has no way of knowing about aftermarket sales unless they’re tracked online.
You can market, you can sell, but if the actual entity lives in the physical world, there’s only so much you can do to monitor it offline.
Artists need a better way to sell, share, and prove their physical work.
Other creative economies have found ways to help people share their work.
For writers publishing online, clicks and reads can easily be tracked, and affiliate links are often used to expand the reach and give credit at the same time. Retweets and shares through social media provide some of the same functions. Even art shared on Instagram can go viral if a popular account reposts an artist’s piece and gives them credit.
For physical art, it’s a different story.
Take the case of retailer H&M using a graffiti artist’s work in a marketing campaign. When the retail giant was called out for copyright infringement, they sued the artist, Revok, in federal court. The company’s argument was that the artists had no copyright on the graffiti — and it even described the act as “vandalism.”
Predictable backlash ensued, and H&M recently dropped the case.
It was something of a happy ending, but it also illustrates the larger problem with physical art — artists have more trouble licensing physical works. If the graffiti had been created in the digital world, it would have been much simpler to attach a license, and H&M would have had to play by the rules to use it.
The blockchain has the ability to give artists credit and control.
Blockchain technology provides a crucial missing piece to the democratization puzzle.
We’ve reached the point where a true one-to-one link can be established between a physical piece of artwork and its representation on the blockchain.
This is so important because the blockchain is perfect for trusted automation, record keeping, and transactions. When a piece of artwork is put out into the real world, the physical-digital link ties it back to the artist, establishing provenance and helping to eliminate forgeries.
That link also lets artists lay claim to their work, bring it online, and establish their rights regarding the work.
In the H&M case, the artist would have had more power to push back against the company immediately by showing that the graffiti was a registered work of art that H&M had misappropriated.
Artist resale rights aren’t just important for lawsuits. These rights have long been a topic of discussion, because they allow artists to receive a cut of the profits when their work is sold a second, third, or tenth time.
While keeping a record on the blockchain works so well with automated transactions, it’s also capable of sending an artist payment the moment a sale of one of their pieces is registered on a blockchain. In fact, there are already companies like Monegraph that allow artists to register their artwork on blockchain — and then attach their own terms.
Ultimately, this is going to benefit both artists and collectors.
Artists will finally have more control over their physical artwork, and collectors will have peace of mind knowing they’re paying for the real thing and not a clever forgery.
We’re really just at the beginning of a new ecosystem within the physical art world — one that empower artists and allows them to finally make the most of their work.
Thanks for reading!
Our team is excited to work with artists to digitize their artwork. To try it for yourself, get a starter kit and blockchain-based certificate of authenticity here.
You can also follow us on Instagram @blockchainartcollective.
