Museums and the NFT hype
What views as the dust begins to settle?
I have been thinking about this piece for quite sometime as I observed the ways and means museums have jumped onto the bandwagon of the NFT hype. Some of that was probably informed by circumstances, particularly with regards to hard-hit revenue streams due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I still don’t think we have as yet seen the dust settle completely but there is certainly enough that has happened to reflect on where the NFT movement might be heading to. The trends are certainly taking shape. The possibilities are much less understood at this point in time.
The obvious question beckons. What is an NFT?
In simple terms, Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital assets validated via blockchain technology. What makes them different from any other digital assets is validation and traceability. This, too, makes the sale and resale of NFTs possible. Indeed, the possibility to monetise NFTs has made them very popular with creatives, particularly digital artists. Indeed, NFTs can guarantee royalty like no other transaction happening in the art world.
Paradoxically NFTs were the case study that blockchain was in dire need of to make it understandable and for its potential application to be fully understood and endorsed. That understanding could only be acquired through the lens of monetisation.
So where do museums stand with regards to NFTs?
Museums have slowly crept in, sensing potential to explore and exploit. These are still a few, although interest is consistently increasing. A few have ventured much further albeit still cautious and much less innovative than one would expect. There is much to discuss and reflect upon.
I choose to go for one particular observation.
The use of NFTs is still limiting… we’ve just scratched the surface. Lots of experimentation is still underway but that also has to look into how NFTs shall fit within the bigger picture of museum business.
Let’s unpack this further.
What most museums experimenting with NFTs have overwhelmingly done so far is to replicate masterpieces in their collection as digital twins. Some have described them as Digital art works (DOW). There is certainly much more that can be done and my next blogposts will take this further. What is also striking is the fact that this has happened within the span of less than a year. NFTs of well-known masterpieces have been minted by Uffizi, specifically Michaelangelo’s Tondi Doni in May 2021 with Cinello, the strategic partner behind this project, claiming to give a new life to a masterpiece. In July, The Hermitage followed suit, minting works by Leonardo, Van Gogh and Monet. Almost concurrently with the Hermitage, the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester minted its William Blake NFT, this time with a long term commitment towards an exhibition on the economics of art and community causes. The list is certainly set to grow to include others that increasing joined the fray since August last, and continued to do so by the end of the year. Soon enough, an exhibition of NFT digital art works (identified as DAW) of masterpieces from four Italian institutions shall be happening in London. There is more to cite and flag in what is increasingly coming across as a phenomenon that still needs to be documented appropriately.
What museums have been experimenting with so far can be compared to limited edition re-prints of a physical origional. The medium is, indeed, different but concept and process is very much the same. Indeed, an origional is being replicated in a relatively secure and traceable way and a physical original is securely replicated in DAW format. The argument put forward is that thanks to NFTs artworks are being finally dematerialised but the relationship between the physical origional and the digital twins, validated and quantified, remains untouched.
There is a paradox in this immediate interest in NFTs shown by museums in just a few months. It’s been years now since museums have been consistently advocating an open access policy for digitised content from their collection and, in most cases, free access goes beyond use and purpose with no distinction between commercial and non-commercial use. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, for example, states this very clearly on its website “ Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.” The Smithsonian released 2.8 million images in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit home, announcing that “Our goal for Smithsonian Open Access is to make the nation’s collection available to people around the world for any purpose…”. Many more American museums have been joining the fray since a few years, not least their European counterparts embracing open access museum principles in due course. Creative Commons Zero has been increasingly used by museums as a guarantee that users can “ reliably and without fear of later claims of infringement build upon, modify, incorporate in other works, reuse and redistribute as freely as possible in any form whatsoever and for any purposes, including without limitation commercial purposes.”
The shift towards open access, particularly with regards to works of art in the public domain, goes against the principles of scarcity that informs the production and minting of NFTs, particularly by open access museums. Indeed, there would be technically no difference between an NFT minted by a museum and one other minted by an art gallery or a private individual. Does this automatically and unequivocally imply that anybody anywhere can mint as DAW NFTs works of art in museums whose collections are fully open access?
It seems that partnerships between museums and the industry could be a partial solution to this museographical impasse. A good example of what this compromise might look like is the French startup LaCollection. The introduction available on their website describes them as “a community of people passionate about art, culture and NFTs”. The approach they advocate is to “work with the world’s most famous museums, galleries and contemporary artists to bring you a curated selection of NFTs.” The adhesion of the British Museum to this project certainly validates the platform even further, also thanks to the sustainable use of NFTs.
This may well be the case of a partnership of convenience, given that those museums that have the resources to mint NFTs are very few inspite of the excitement around NFTs that does not show signs of abating.
Experimentation is set to continue in earnest. Most of this excitement is still within expert circles. Most museums are still adamant to move forward, perhaps due to percieved risks also due to lack of knowledge. Some are also not cashing in on NFTs yet possibly due to the uncertainly as to what these tokens can do for an art museum’s primary goals. Others think that selling NFTs of origional works of art might be demeaning.
NFTs are certainly not mainstream yet, but what might make them much more so might have to do with utility and unique character.
