BZ-INTERVIEW with curator Georg Bak about the future of digital art and the enthusiasm for NFT technology.
Digital art is selling at record prices thanks to non-fungible tokens – something like digital deeds of ownership. In 2018, curator Georg Bak organized the first exhibition of the NFT pioneers Larva Labs. Stefan Mertlik asked him where digital art could develop with NFT technology.
BZ: The streamer Kaitlyn Siragusa recently sold the ownership of a digital pixel image for $ 125,000. Are such sums justified?
Georg Bak: Not everything that is sold dearly is good. This is also the case in traditional art. We’ll see which artists are still relevant in five years’ time.
BZ: How important is NFT technology to digital art?
Behind: There was a great digital art movement as early as the 1960s. But you never had a market for it. NFT is an ingenious technology that now makes that possible. Digital works of art can be sold as unique pieces through them. It’s a market that attracts a lot of investors.
BZ: What are the advantages of digital art?
Behind: There are obstacles in the traditional art market that you don’t have here. You don’t have to go to a gallery anymore. Transport costs and delivery times are eliminated.
BZ: So digital art is less complicated than traditional art?
Behind: One can consume NFTs just like traditional art. There are screens that look like a framed picture. The younger generation thinks that’s pretty cool. Many identify with the digital works of art. You exchange ideas with other collectors. This creates communities that combine art, fashion and lifestyle.
BZ: You are a digital art curator. How do you organize exhibitions?
Behind: Exhibitions take place partly in the real and partly in the metaverse. In the Metaverse you walk around as an avatar – a digital image – and look at the art in a virtual world. This works with the computer or smartphone.
BZ: Hand on heart: How did digital art and NFTs become so successful?
Behind: At first, many gallery owners didn’t take this seriously. After Christie’s auction house sold Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann’s digital collage for $ 69 million, many became aware of the technology. That was not a year ago. In this short time, however, a lot has happened. That will intensify in the next year. We’ll see a lot more NFTs on regular art markets. In the art world, there has been no such upheaval in such a short time for a long time. It’s a really big art movement – for me comparable to Cubism.
BZ: Did the collectors understand the art behind the art?
Behind: Many have not yet understood the art behind the art. But when newspapers write about record prices, people get interested. The true potential of this medium will only gradually be understood.
Georg Bak (48) from Zug in Switzerland is an art advisor and curator for digital art.
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