Blockchain & Provenance
Using blockchain technology to supply provenance
ARTIC is a blockchain-based art gallery platform which uses its own NFT ecosystem to tokenize art masterpieces. ARTIC hopes users will reconsider their perception of art in this new application of the blockchain. ARTIC provides both tangible and intangible services that can lead to the exhibition of domestic and foreign works of art, and further encourage the exchange of art around the globe.
Welcome to ARTIC!
Art investment, which has long been considered a hobby of the upper class, has now developed into value investment for many people. However, trading artwork still requires vast amounts of money. To make sure you don’t buy a fake, you need to be prudent and carefully check any documentation that comes along with the work of art. Today, we will learn about “provenance,” which proves the history of ownership of a work of art. This can greatly affect the value of the artwork.
What is Provenance?
Provenance comes from the French word, provenir, meaning “to come from.”
Provenance can be the basis for determining the authenticity of a work of art. It includes receipts and sales invoices that prove that the seller owns the work of art, as well as historical valuation documents proving ownership of the work of art. It can also include auction, art gallery, or art museum catalogs that identify the location of the artwork at the time of ownership or sale. For a museum or corporate collection, an inventory number is included that proves that a sale happened. This means that provenance includes all records of the work, including information on transactions between auction houses, art dealers, and galleries, as well as information on when it has been exhibited in galleries and museums.
The Importance of Provenance
The debate about forgery is ongoing in the art world. This is because there is surprisingly no proper procedure for registering works of art, and there is no association that protects and manages the intellectual property rights of artists. Sometimes it is difficult for the artist themselves to determine the authenticity because the original and the forgery are so similar. There was a famous forgery controversy in the 1980s in Korea. Artist Cheon Kyung Ja raised concerns about a piece entitled, “Beauty Island” owned by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Affairs. She claimed that the painting on display was not her work. Despite the artist’s claim that it was not genuine, the Korean Gallery Association concluded that it was genuine through an authentication process. Sadly, Kyung Ja became “an artist who did not even recognize her own work,” and she left Korea desperately declaring that the painting wasn’t hers. This became controversial once again years later when expert forger Kwon Chun Sik confessed to forging the painting.
What happened was related to provenance. In order to prevent such incidents from happening again, it is necessary to establish a means to track and prove how works of art were distributed after they were created. Works of art with provenance are priced 15% higher on average when resold because they have a clear origin and a clear record of the work as a whole. Experts in the art market advise, “You must check the provenance of the art before you buy it.”
Why ARTIC?
ARTIC uses blockchain technology to provide provenance for works of art, including the distribution process and the transaction history of the works of art. It proves that the work is the original by recording the information related to the piece, such as its artist, attributes, production date, and location on the blockchain. These records can be stored as encrypted data with keys to ensure safety. ARTIC’s provenance information is permanently and securely stored due to non-hackable distributed ledger technology. Once recorded, that data cannot be deleted or modified, which ensures the authenticity of the works of art.
