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The globally renowned publisher Taschen has launched the first book about NFTs in the art world, releasing the first substantial study of the disruption the technology has brought to the sphere and its market. Killing two birds with one stone, the legendary publisher also made a groundbreaking entry into the NFT space by introducing an “On NFTs” art edition: a book that includes a claim code for a corresponding NFT hidden within its first pages. This innovative approach bridges the gap between the worlds of traditional and digital art, offering art enthusiasts a unique blend of physical and digital ownership. It marries the joy of holding a physical art book with the exclusivity and digital proof of ownership that NFTs provide. That being said, what is it really about?
NFTs, short for Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital assets known to represent ownership of unique items, including images, videos, music, GIFs, audio files, and other types of collectibles. Non-fungible means that something is unique and can’t be replaced. By contrast, physical money and cryptocurrencies are fungible, which means they can be traded or exchanged for one another. Each NFT contains a unique digital signature and can only have one official owner at a time. That’s why it can’t be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded on the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. Making an NFT requires the creation of a digital token through a process called “minting”, which involves creating smart contracts that defines its use and properties, making it legally binding.
To summarise, while NFTs are widely known by the masses as a means of collecting digital art, they are actually a blockchain-based technology that can be utilised to ensure ownership or authenticity of practically anything: a house, a piece of art from the real or digital world, or even attendance at an event can be authenticated by a token. In essence, while the acronym gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the opportunity it provided for artists to generate revenue from their homes, it is neither art nor a form of art. Rather, for the creative sphere, it serves as an artwork certificate of authenticity and ownership.
Robert Alice—also known in the crypto art sphere as ALICE—is an art historian, author, and one of the first NFT artists sold at a Christie’s auction in 2021, even before Beeple. His book “On NFTs” provides a comprehensive overview of the NFT ecosystem in the art world, featuring a survey of 101 key practitioners working in NFTs today, accompanied by ten essays authored by experts, curators, critics, and artists. This book presents the first major art historical survey of the most compelling area of today’s art, providing readers with deep insights into the realm of non-fungible tokens and connecting this new digital medium with its art historical context.
Presented in Taschen’s Baby Sumo format (between 47 and 50 cm tall), the book covers essential information for both newcomers and those experienced with the modern medium of NFTs. “On NFTs” sheds light on unlikely and thought-provoking connections from across art history, featuring illustrations of Rembrandt paintings alongside CryptoPunk avatars. With extensive essays explaining the world of NFTs and behind-the-scenes insights into the creative processes of pioneering artists, such as Emily Xie, who creates lifelike textures and forms using computer algorithms, and Beeple, who in 2021 sold an NFT of his artwork for $69.3 million, becoming the third-most expensive living artist at the time. The book also features legends of the NFT and generative art world, including Snowfro, founder of Chromie Squiggle and the Art Blocks platform, and Refik Anadol, a media artist exploring human-machine interaction through data and machine intelligence. This book embraces diverse voices to navigate this borderless movement.
The book is available in various editions: the “Numbered Collector’s Edition” (2500 copies), “The Hard Code Edition” (600 copies) in a stainless steel slipcase, and four “Arts Editions” (100 copies each), which contain limited edition works – a signed print and an accompanying NFT by four artists: Refik Anadol, Dmitri Cherniak, Sofia Crespo, and Osinachi, making each book the ultimate collector’s item.
In his book, author Robert Alice employed the approach of cataloguing, which is an important aspect of the traditional fine art world. As he mentioned in his interview for OpenSea: “We took that mentality, that old school connoisseurship mentality of a kind of catalogue raisonné. But the beauty of the blockchain is its perfect ordering, right? So we wanted to bring that front and centre. We wanted a traditional collector to be able to go look and see the catalogue and say, ‘This was minted on this second, on this day.’”
“On NFTs” presents hundreds of pages of digital art history, richly illustrated and academically rigorous, providing readers with the opportunity to delve into its depth and better understand the digital art world that NFT technology has popularised among the public, breaking the barriers of a type of art collection that was often reserved for institutions and museums. While we haven’t read it yet, we expect this book to provide some insights into this new art market, which has seen meteoric rises, creating avid enthusiasm even among the general public, and then a vertiginous fall, which in turn has buried the medium as a whole. Perhaps it is time to take the subject back to the beginning and finally try to understand it in depth. What are your thoughts on this?
