In summary
- Banksy’s ‘idiots’ were destroyed on camera at a fire ceremony in Brooklyn this month.
- A scanned copy of it was sold as NFT.
- Will the ashes be sold as an NFT next?
A symbolic version of a now destroyed Banksy painting called ‘Idiots’ was sold at an NFT auction for 228.69 ETH or $ 382,336 to bidder ‘GALAXY’ later this afternoon.
The original painting by the enigmatic British street artist was first sold for £ 16,250 in 2006. It depicts a crowded auction house. The lot for sale behind the auctioneer is a framed canvas that simply says, “I DON’T BELIEVE YOU MORONS BUY THIS SHIT.”
So far, so good, but new layers of social commentary were added to the work when crypto-obsessed financial operators got their hands on it.
Buying to burn it
Earlier this year, a group of investors and blockchain professionals bought ‘idiots’ for $ 95k after it was verified by Banksy’s authentication body pest control. This group included members of the DeFi) Injective Protocol and SuperFarm decentralized finance projects.
Pyro-loving anarchists began to irritate art fans around the world when they uploaded a video of themselves burning the work in Brooklyn, New York. The page seemed to be fireproof for most of the terrible three minutes it was lit, causing the film’s brave arsonist to try to light it from different corners.
NFTs: a second life for works of art?
“The terrorist of one is the fighter for the freedom of another” says the old saying, so what edifying purpose could this flagrant vandalism serve? Well, before setting the painting on fire, an NFT copy of it was made.
Thanks to the blockchain’s cryptographic encryption, digitized tokens have the ability to replace physical artistic assets. The broader point that these happy traders were making is that Banksy’s work still exists and, although he is no longer with us in a tangible form, he is happy somewhere in an Ethereum blockchain block, indelibly coded as the property of GALAXY.
Art doesn’t even need an earlier physical existence to be an NFT. A new generation of exciting digital artists is making the NFT space as valid in the creation and dissemination of new works as any museum or gallery. Just look at Refik Anadol’s intricate data paintings, or Surrealistic illustrations by FEWOCiOUS.
And in addition to the visual arts space, there are all kinds of collectible items entering the NFT space as well. MF Doom’s final creative project was a set of augmented reality masks, while the NBA even licensed official blockchain merchandise in the form of digitized collectible cards that they’re even seeing $ 32 million trading volume In one day.
This exciting and often absurd world blurs the lines between currency, collectibles and art.