BANKSY PAINTING TO BE SOLD AS 10,000 NFTs

WHAT HAPPENED: Banksy’s 2005 painting, “Love Is In The Air,” which went for $12.9 million at a Sotheby’s auction in May, is due to be fractionalized and sold as 10,000 NFTs. The company behind the venture (and the buyer of the physical canvas) is the up-and-coming Particle, a platform headed up by Loic Gouzer, the former Co-Chairman of Christie’s who also launched the auction app Fair Warning last June. Sales of the Banksy NFTs will open on January 10, 2022, with each of the particles set to be priced at about $1,500 each.

WHY IT MATTERS: In an environment where art ownership remains the privilege of an elite few — a phenomenon that’s emerging in the NFT art marketplace itself — Particle, quite simply, represents a disruption. 

Per its mission to “​​acquire some of the most important trophy masterpieces in the world and to put them in the hands of the wider community,” the platform is democratizing ownership in a way that captures the original ethos of crypto art (and street art), while expanding the existing base of NFT art collectors. As Harold Eytan, Particle’s Chief Executive, told the New York Times, “This is a different experience, one focused around collecting and not investing.” In that same spirit, the physical artwork will be held by the non-profit Particle Foundation in a permanent collection, ensuring the work can never be resold to a single buyer.

Particle's drop joins a flush of other upcoming Banksy-related NFT releases, including Exposed Walls' similarly fractionalized sale of "Gorilla in a Pink Mask," and a collaborative project to auction "Wharf Rat." It's also fueling a swiftly growing fractional NFT space that, as of December 12, has an overall market capitalization of more than $200 million.

ARTWORK: Merge by Pak

PLATFORM: Nifty Gateway

THE LAUNCH: On December 2, OG crypto artist Pak launched the open edition in a highly experimental format: buyers were invited to buy units that could be assembled into a “mass” to form unique collectibles post-sale. While the early access saw prices for each unit starting at $299, the public sale saw prices rise to $575, with increases of $25 at hourly intervals. Further gamifying the sale, Nifty Gateway offered package deals, such as 300 free units for a bulk buy of 1,000, and displayed a leaderboard that tracked the top “mass” buyers, who could potentially resell or trade their stakes on the secondary market to grow their value.

THE RECEPTION: By the end of the sale on December 4, Pak had become responsible for the most expensive NFT sale, moving 266,445 units of Merge to 28,000 buyers and earning $91.8 million. Should all stakes be combined into a single piece, it would outprice Jeff Koon’s “Rabbit,” which set a record in 2019 for the most expensive work sold by a living artist at $91 million.

WHY IT MATTERS: Duncan Cock Foster, Co-Founder of Nifty Gateway, put it succinctly, “I would quote something Pak said to us immediately after the sale. He said, ‘This is the largest single artwork sale ever sold publicly. And it didn’t happen at a traditional auction house; it happened on a web3 platform.'”

Away from the art establishment, the NFT art sector is indeed thriving at a vibrant pace. Pak’s increasingly conceptual projects, too, are fast differentiating the mechanics of the digital art space from that of a traditional auction house or museum (also see: Pak’s Fungible Collection, released with Sotheby’s). The Merge sale radically reimagines NFT commerce, tapping a savvy, ever-growing, and highly social base of crypto art collectors, while underscoring lucrative and forward-facing opportunities on the blockchain.

SEATTLE NFT MUSEUM
Seattle will soon play host to its first NFT museum, aimed at providing “an outlet for artists, creators, IP owners, and collectors to display their NFTs in a highly contextual, physical setting.” Artists including Blake Kathryn, Neon Saltwater, and Robbie Trevino are already lined up for its opening showcase.

CELESTIAL HERMITAGE
Russia's State Hermitage Museum, hot off its first crypto art exhibition, The Ethereal Aether, and a number of high-profile NFT sales, is developing Celestial Hermitage, a virtual version of the museum that will be dedicated to exhibiting NFTs.