WesRecs x WHALE: Art Media Spotlight #006
A quick rundown of cool art reads, views, & listens curated for WHALE Members by Wes Hazard
A recurring series highlighting worthwhile writing, podcasts, & videos of note pertaining to digital art, NFTs, blockchain and WHALE Member’s mission to become the MoMA of the Metaverse.
📜 Table of Recs (Contents):
⭐ 2022 Floor Is Rising NFT Awards: Category — Artist (Podcast Episode)
I’ve found Floor Is Rising to be an absolute gem of a podcast if you are interested in the NFT art world and the intersection of NFTs & traditional art. Hosted by the duo of Kizu, a professional art critic & Sabretooth, a professional NFT collector the show reliably provides thoughtful and hype-averse reflections on current market developments alongside some of the most expansive artist interviews I’ve come across in the space.
After a bit of a break the show just recently came back with episodes dedicated to digging into the winners of the various categories of the recent fan-voted 2002 Floor Is Rising Awards. The show bestowed awards in the fields of Art, Gaming, PFPs, & Metaverse. I’ve only had a chance to listen to the art episode thus far but damn was it an amazing conversation, featuring crypto art/generative art/art-on-blockchain OG and expert Jason Bailey (aka Artnome) who provided some excellent commentary/context/history about the artists nominated in these fan-voted awards.
As these were fan awards (and thus, as Bailey notes, quite literally a popularity contest) you may choose to weight their meaningfulness highly or dismiss them entirely, but all four of the finalists discussed here are unquestionably worth talking about in the context of the the art sector of the NFT space & their contributions/influence within it.
📃 The 4 artists (in order of their voted placement from 4th to 1st) are:
- Cath Simard
- Deafbeef
- Beeple
- & the winner XCOPY 🏆
The convo here does an excellent job of talking about each creator’s style, how they’ve managed their releases, the general consensus about their work within the NFT space and the TradArt world, and the ways in which their artistic legacy might be perceived in the coming years.
It also offers up a hefty dose of blockchain art history (ex. Bailey purchased XCOPY’s first NFT mint ever but the platform’s servers were centralized so the work is no longer accessible years after they went out of business). This ep covered tons of interesting ground such as whether having one’s work 100% fully on-chain will matter to institutional collectors, whether art specifically about crypto & crypto culture will be more highly regarded in this space over time vs art that just happens to be tokenized, and the enduring legacy of that $69M Beeple sale that kicked off last year’s dizzying bull run.
There are too many gems to quote here, instead I would just heartily recommend that you get this in your podcast rotation ASAP.
⭐ The Accidental and Extraordinary Life of Art Collector Herbert Lust — Sothebys (2019)
A ‘Rare Bird’ Among Art Collectors Expands His Reach — NYT (2020)
It could be reasonably be mistaken for a small private museum featuring the deepest non-institutional collections of Alberto Giacometti, Robert Indiana, Hans Bellmer, and numerous other Surrealist & Pop artists. Yet the Greenwich, Connecticut home of famed art collector Herbert Lust is exactly that - a home where a man who has loved, collected, and written about art for over seven decades has surrounded himself with the most prized items acquired during a lifetime of looking & loving.
After watching this short Sotheby’s profile of the man and reading some supplementary items, I am consumed with one overriding thought: I’m tryna be on THAT level.
Lust is described by others and himself as an “accidental collector”. Coming from a family with a decent amount of money but no artistic roots he found himself in officer training school in the 1940s where he was required to take literature classes. The military might not seem like an obvious springboard to a life of arts patronage but after reading John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn he had an intense and immediate need to dive into an exploration of beauty. Before long he had become a close personal friend and collector of the existentialist sculptor Giacometti and from there was introduced to new styles and new artists throughout the rest of his life.
Lust financed his avid collecting by working a day job as an investment banker but his passion has always been art. And he’s been able to channel his impressive intellect & curiosity into writing numerous monographs on various artists in a way that only he could - from the perspective of not just an armchair scholar & deep-pocketed collector but as someone who knew these artists as a longtime friend and confidant. Not many gallerists or art historians can talk about how they kept the wives of Alexander Calder and Mark Rothko entertained on a long cruise because those visionaries hated to dance while he loved to cut a rug. Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” iconography is famous the world over but few curators of his work can say that they let him crash on their couch or that they supported him by buying his work after Indiana’s career had been stalled by his massive ego and big mouth.
I love what I’ve learned about Lust’s perspective on the role of the collector and how to do it well. On the one hand he doesn’t take himself too seriously saying “You can glorify art collecting all you want; it’s just shopping”, while on the other hand it’s abundantly clear that he’s as serious as a heart attack when it comes to cherishing the work and honoring the creative intentions of the artists he collects. The vast amount of art that he’s acquired may be hard to pigeonhole into a few clear cut categories but Lust’s driving motivation is about as direct as it gets. As he says:
“This collection has often been called the most eclectic in history…It’s a mystery why I go in so many different directions, but I chalk it up to one word: love. Always buy what you love.”
⭐ Contemporary art is popular — but it’s still about money and power — Open Democracy
This article is written about the Traditional/IRL art market but almost everything in it goes double for art sold via blockchains. The lion’s share of all sales going to a small sliver of super-successful artists & projects? Check. Art being purchased primarily as an investment vehicle? Check. The interests of artists, institutions, & super rich mega-collectors becoming blurred and often running into each other? Check. All of this leading to more people looking at and collecting and talking about art that ever before? …Also check.
“A double movement has made contemporary art much more popular than it was: more people go through higher education, acquiring the mindsets that are prepared to find pleasure in the puzzles that artists tend to throw before their viewers; and much art has become a lot friendlier and more accessible.
The engagement of these viewers — if that is quite the word for them now — is very different from the quiet Kantian detachment and nodding appreciation of the bourgeoisie in aesthetic contemplation. The gallery has now become a place for play, for chat, sometimes for laughter and above all for self-display and posting on social media platforms.”
Sure there are obvious differences, such as the much smaller influence (and presence) of museums & art fairs/biennials in the NFT space plus the fact that no matter who buys (or doesn’t buy) minted works it has no bearing whatsoever on the ability of anyone with an internet connection to experience a given piece, but money and hype tend to have the same effects in either realm. This article is great for cataloging many of those effects within the TradArt world and being very upfront about who wins a little, who wins a LOT, and what all of us (and art itself) stand to lose if we take our eyes off of these realities. Food for thought.
“It is strange that the same Banksy image can be found in poster form on the bedroom of many an adolescent and in signed print form in some of the most prestigious private collections. This is especially so because the difference in print quality is pretty small: it is the signature above all that confers value. By the standards of even 15 years ago, such work offers strikingly little conceptual or stylistic complexity.”
🌟 5 Tips for First-Time Art Collectors — Artsy
Almost every gallerist we spoke with emphasized the importance of looking at art — and not just art that you might be interested in collecting. “Visit as many museums, art fairs, and galleries as possible,” said Christine Pfister, owner and director of Philadelphia’s Pentimenti Gallery. “Scour pieces online. Determine which subjects, mediums, and styles of art speak to you so you can begin collecting.”
If you’re just starting out trying to build an art collection (whether in NFTs or traditional works) and you have a few minutes to spare, you could do a lot worse than spending them with this article that gathers a wealth of helpful “big picture” tips & suggestions from gallerists & art consultants on how to approach the process. Nothing here should come across as Earth-shattering since the people offering up advice mostly offer their own individual takes on tried and true principles such as “do your research”, “buy work that you like and that has meaning to you”, “stay within your budget”, “never assume that a specific piece will be a good financial investment” etc., however the reasoning for all of these and colorful ways in which these tenets are expressed makes this list so much more than a retread of cliches.
🔑 I love how they urge collectors to acquire the knowledge that’s necessary to locate a given artist’s work within both the context of art history and the current scene that that artist is creating in. Not only will this help you to more fully appreciate the work, it will make you a more savvy buyer.
A big part of looking at art isn’t just to discern what you do and don’t like, but also to help you recognize where a particular artist’s work sits within the contemporary art landscape: who and where they’re borrowing from art history; who are the other practicing artists grappling with similar ideas; and what sets a particular artist apart from others in their sphere.
Above all: Buy only what you love…and really think about why you love it and how the work will fit into your life.
After all, there’s a decent chance that a given art purchase will be something that you look at and think about, even if only in passing, every single day. That sort of presence should be imbued with meaning and offer you some kind of reflection and enrichment, not just now, but for years to come. Choose wisely…but don’t stress about it, you have a lifetime to build your collection and develop your taste.
Any work you acquire “should have a personal connection to your being that feels lasting,” he explained. There can be myriad reasons behind that connection: “Maybe that connection comes because the work and artists inspire you, or because it reminds you of moments in your life or upbringing.…Maybe it makes you contemplate your reality or challenges your perception,” he suggested. What’s key is that the connection exists. When you purchase an artwork, “it’s an investment in your everyday life. It pays dividends every time it makes you think,” Gupta said.
OK, those are the current recs, but certainly not the only art-related media that we’re discussing in WHALE Members!
Be sure to stop by our Discord and check out the 👉 #art-edu 👈 channel for additional recs & dope conversation!
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