Forbes x New Art Academy “Basel ArtTech + Blockchain Connect” Conference Recap
Invited by Forbes and New Art Academy, FRESCO was privileged to attend the “Basel ArtTech + Blockchain Connect” conference on June 13 in Basel, Switzerland, discussing the future development of “Blockchain and Art Market” together with other industry leaders.
About Art Basel
During the 49 edition of Art Basel, the most prestigious art fair in the world, 290 galleries from 35 countries gather in Basel. More than 95,000 people participated in this international event in four days.
Photo Basel, Paper Positions, the Frame Art Fair, the Rhy Art Fair, the Outsider Art Fair, and I Never Read, Art Book Fair, and plenty of other events took place in the city at the same time.
Collectors, galleries, and artists all over the world had been preparing for a year, traveled all the way to Switzerland to participate in aesthetic dialogues, exclusive parties, and the chance to learn the industry direction at the art fair with the highest transaction volume.
Art market professionals, artists, visionary, collectors, blockchain companies and the crypto community gather together to learn how technology is used in today’s art market and how it is shaping its future.
Conversations From The Conference
The most common vocabulary mentioned by the speakers at “Basel ArtTech + Blockchain Connect” conference is provenance, transparency, and authenticity. From their perspectives in different fields, the participants of the summit also raised a series of issues concerning the revolution in art market democracy, ICO, and blockchain-based art project.
Professionals from art museums, galleries, art funds, wealth management, and other art investment and technology-related fields came here to hear major project experiences like FRESCO, Codex protocol and Maecenas.
In this speech at the Forbes forum, panel speakers mainly analyzed the current issues of provenance, authenticity, and transparency of the art market in view of the existing market problems, and discussed the possibilities of the future art market.
Marco Grossi, the Director & Leader Blockchain Audit and Assurance at Deloitte AG, believes that blockchain is the answer to the ownership problem.
“My advice for my client is that if you cannot continue to grow the business, you can cut the cost during the process with your clients and suppliers”
as Marco mentioned his experience in team of the Deloitte Switzerland.
“Blockchain can actually improve the process and maximumly reduce the cost in many industrial fields. Art is an important segment, as it needs to check the originality and so on. We need to recognize the benefits of the blockchain, from the cash perspective, holding, and operational view.”
Roy Huang, Co-Founder of FRESCO, the first blockchain asset network expanding the size of art market through FRES Trust and FRES Edition, said that
“Blockchain technology helps to overcome art world’s problem to record provenance, serve as copyright registration, and potentially quantify the value of art. Blockchain stores the information and protects the security.”
Jerome Croisier, Chief Art Officer of Maecenas the first open blockchain platform that democratizes access to Fine Art and the chance to buy shares in famous paintings, said that blockchain technology is like to leave fingerprints on the transaction.
Maecenas recently held the first ever Blockchain art auction to put 49% of Andy Warhol’s 14 Small Electric Chairs up for sale.
Jess Houlgrave, Co-founder & COO at Codex Protocol, a decentralized registry for unique assets like art, fine wines, watches and more, mentioned the obstacles to buy art are
“how do you find the item; how do you know how much it worth; how do you know if it is real or not; how do you prove your ownership and persevere the value for the next buyer.”
Jess stated the vital point that art is a unique asset and most of the value lay in the provenance. She used the example that a Pollock’s painting found in the garage with no provenance will not sell, even though experts believe it painted by Pollock.
Kevin Abosch, as a prominent artist with artworks sold over million dollars, launched IAMA Coin project, the virtual artworks with a limited edition of 10 million. As an artist, Kevin believed in the potential of blockchain and produced various projects based on this advanced technology.
“The collaboration and combination of art and technology still have more space. The blockchain is not just hype. It is a method to create art as what I do right now.”
The art market has always been under the control of a centralized group, which has set up barriers for newcomers to participate. They worry that new entrants will undermine established rules, have a negative impact on the entire market, weaken their influence and reduce their profits. Roy advises fellows in the art market not to be afraid of new money to go in. He strongly suggested that the art market peers should look at the sudden growth of the blockchain community.
“As the public discovers that they can profit from cryptocurrency and invest in, the whole blockchain community is getting a lot of money in this process so it can thrive.” Similarly, the exponential growth in the art market will increase the profit margin and protect everyone interests.
Roy pointed out that
“how to optimize the current art fair and art gallery model so that the public is more interested in art” as a major direction to solve the problem.
“Just as if you don’t own any cryptocurrency, you don’t really care about the development of cryptocurrency and blockchain. Art is like this. If people don’t own work of art themselves, people won’t really care about art or the entire art market. When more people participate in art and buy artworks, we can all together promote the development of the entire art industry and bring about fundamental innovations in the global art field.”
“In FRESCO, what we will do is to allow people in the art circle or non-art circles to enter art museums or art galleries with a different purpose. It is not simply as ‘taking pictures and then spreading to the Internet’ but not directly involved model. In the future, when you go to an art gallery and see a work you like, you can take out your mobile phone and purchase the digital copyright of this artwork through FRESCO platform, which is the FRES Edition. Whether you are traveling in Europe, visiting the U.S., or just sitting at home, you can directly buy the digital rights of works of art.”
The panel discussion followed with questions for Roy about art market democracy and ICO from professionals worked in art investment and funds. Roy stated that
“It is crucial for funds to enter the art market. The art circle always wants to avoid talking about money, but what if an art school student can’t support himself after graduation? Artists have dreams to fulfill and inspirations to produce on canvas, but dream crushed when they can’t guarantee basic life.”
“What FRESCO is doing is really making everyone benefit from the FRESCO project. Other art blockchain projects started earlier. At that time, the order of ICO was relatively stable, but since December last year, all kinds of scams are constantly emerging. Because of the chaos in the industry, FRESCO boldly took another road, made ICD, and distributed 60% of the coins to the community free of charge, so that artists and other people who really care about this project can use it on the FRESCO platform.”
Media Cover:
FRESCO ICD: http://fresco.work/icd
FRESCO Whitepaper: http://fresco.work/whitepaper
FRESCO Twitter: https://twitter.com/fresco_network
FRESCO Telegram Community Talk: https://t.me/fresco_community_talk
FRESCO Telegram Announcement Channel: https://t.me/fresco_network
