Digital Art: NFT sunset or new dawn of art?

" The Hero di M. Abramovic", image taken from the web

The NFT bomb has now officially exploded, and as always happens, when a novelty begins to take root and spread its branches, then it can be seen. By some persecuted, by others feared.

Until recently it was not worthy of attention, although it already existed and was somehow growing.

This is what has happened for digital art that sees NFT as a mode of producing certified works of art. This led to the birth of Crypto Art and of a market of millions of euros. And it is precisely at that moment that the silent "bubble" of the NFT began to be seen and to make noise when it began to generate market.

The Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) were a matter reserved mainly for the "game" world, but everything changed with the news of a collector who paid 69 million Christie's for an NFT of Beeple. At that moment, digital art enters the artistic debate, or rather the "art market", because the discussion is mainly about economic and legal issues. The possible reflections on the aspects of the reproducibility or less on the works of art and on their authorship seem to have ended up in the background, only touched by the experts.

Yet, digital art has long appeared in the art scene, and here there are just a few examples, among the most recent:

-In 1996, the Postmasters gallery in New York sells works by digital artists on floppy disks.

-In 2001, Steve Sacks opened the Bitforms Gallery in New York, which sells only digital works.

-In 2012, the artist Carlo Zanni gives life to the project P€OPLE ¥rom MAR$ which allows you to buy digital works in limited and unlimited editions.

In any case, it is in the current year that the NFT conquer the role of protagonist of the artistic debate generating a diverse range of reactions: distrust, prudence, rejection, enthusiasm, introspection.

There are those who see the natural evolution of the art market, hand in hand with a world that is increasingly digitizing, there are those who see the definitive sunset of "true" art. But what is true art? And then after every sunset there is not always a sunrise?

For sure, we can glimpse the attempt of a new generation of artists to establish themselves, even economically, in a more autonomous way, outside the official "art system" formed by institutions in which for years it seems increasingly difficult to enter in terms of visibility, recognition, opportunities.

It is the construction of an alternative to a system perceived as stagnant, narrow, too closed compared to the moving artistic tide.

Many "big" people of the art scene have at first reacted with suspicion to this digital wave, but then they have understood that if there is a wave the most logical thing, and also fun to do, is to ride it.

An example above all: Marina Abramović, who reproposes her work "The hero" of 2001 in digital version. The video of the Serbian artist is projected (until August 13) on large light boards in London, New York, and Seoul: on a white horse with a white flag moved by the wind.

The NFTs are now among us, let's do the math, let their presence trigger new synapses of creativity, and let's leave open an eternal reflection with the words of an artist who was among the precursors of contemporary art:

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution" (Paul Gauguin)

Miriam Fusconi