Crypto art crash: After 78% drop in trading volume, let's talk about its value

The art market is always frantic and seething. Investors, collectors and literati have always spent a lot of money to buy high-priced works of art. In any case, traditional mythology tells us that behind every work of art, there is some kind of metaphysical, sacred meaning. This fetishism captures people, who also recognize the value of artworks.

 

The emergence of encrypted art challenges people's nerves. Investors in the encrypted art market also spend a lot of money, but people are very hesitant about the actual aesthetics, artistic meaning and value of encrypted art.

 

"I can't see any artistic value in this thing at all." An NFT art investor said to Rhythm express. "Some people buy it because it will go up. If it doesn't go up, you can see if anyone will buy it." Even in the group of NFT investors, there are still a large number of people who do not recognize its artistic value.

 

Although some encrypted art collections are popular in the secondary market, this has not led to the rise of the entire NFT market . After the market volume peaked this past May, it nearly collapsed, with sales in every category almost completely drying up.

 

DuneAnalytics data shows that OpenSea’s trading volume peaked on May 4, with a 24-hour turnover of $23.13 million. On June 15th, the turnover was only US$4.93 million, a drop of 78.7% from the peak of the market. Based on the 7-day turnover, the turnover in the past seven days has dropped by 61% from the peak in May. The turnover of SuperRare has also declined significantly, with a turnover of 936,000 ETH in May, a drop of 58.3% from the high of 3.382 million ETH in March.

 

Perhaps, the reason why the encrypted art market is so unstable is precisely because its artistic value has not been widely recognized.

 

“These things don’t talk about composition and color at all, let alone brushwork and ink techniques. It’s not a painting at all.” Rhythm used an ink-style encrypted painting to ask Li Xiu for advice, and she gave such a comment. Li Xiu is a member of the Chinese Artists Association and a Chinese painter. Her comments may represent the attitude of some traditional art figures.

 

Take the Boring Ape (BAYC) that has been in the limelight in the NFT market recently as an example, although the transaction volume and price have both risen , but many of the investors who participated in it, like the aforementioned investors, did not agree with its value beyond appreciation. "Many people who buy monkeys now are not for collection. There are also people who only look at the price and buy monkeys at the floor price. Such people should be purely speculating." Encrypted art investor and holder of BAYC Sleepy thinks so of.

 

Although NFT collections have frequently appeared in many well-known auction houses recently, encrypted art is accelerating its competition for the territory of traditional art. However, the data shows that this wave of NFT has subsided faster than other trends. Even among the holders of NFT artworks, there are still a large number of people who do not recognize it.

 

After the encryption art market gradually cooled, the bubble burst, and the trading volume collapsed, Rhythm talked to many people in the art world, It involves both mainstream art and encrypted art, let's talk about its value regardless of the hype.

 

"The medium is the message", is the blockchain a natural art medium?

 

Xie Shangjin is a collector and an expert in the art finance industry. He has managed a number of art investment funds with a total amount of nearly 1 billion yuan, and he is the first batch of art fund managers in China.

"The value of artworks comes from the spiritual enjoyment of artistic aesthetics, and the artistic carrier is the material means for artists to convey aesthetic images Or the media system.” Xie Shangjin introduced to Rhythm. "The emergence and development of artificial carriers has enriched the means for people to master the world in an artistic way. For example, artificial pigments can express colors more richly and delicately."

 

 

 

"Art provides human beings with eternal thoughts, while technology is constantly changing with each passing day." Cocafe founder Shi Lan also provided the same point of view, "The development of human technology will lead to artistic language and A rich vocabulary.” Shi Lan used to be a senior consultant at Christie’s, and has a deep knowledge of many art fields, especially 20th century and contemporary art, as well as the emerging digital art and encrypted art.

 

The development of artificial carriers is undoubtedly promoting the development of art. Shi Lan introduced to Rhythm, "Every development of human technology will lead to the enrichment of artistic language and vocabulary. For example, with cameras, there will be photography, and with television, there will be video art." In other words, there is no reason It can convince people that the emergence of blockchain will not bring new art forms.

 

Xie Shangjin also said, "In the period when artistic creation relies more on natural carriers, artistic language appears accordingly However, after the emergence of artificial carriers, the artistic language has been greatly enriched, which has also made the art world more complex and diverse.” In this sense, encryption art is a breakthrough and a revolution.

 

In traditional artistic creation, media and materials always come first. At first, artists could only create on canvas; Andy Warhol used cans, Coca-Cola and other commodities as media for artistic expression; installation artists created through fibers, metals, and steel bars.

 

Duchamp told us: nothing is more important than an artist’s thoughts. A work of art can be expressed in various ways such as painting, photography, sculpture, behavior, language, etc., but what the artist needs to choose is which expression is more suitable. Blockchain technology provides richer and more revolutionary media and means for art creators.

 

“Just like the recently popular NFT art, the emergence of new art forms requires a process of acceptance, But art still has to return to its origin. NFT can only be used as a new tool, and the real creation still depends on how the artist uses it.” Xie Shangjin thinks so.

 

During the 1880s, discussions of intermediality focused on Surrealism and Dada art , focusing on the relationship between text and image. The theory of intermediaity can be used as another dimension of media understanding of media fusion. It regards media culture as the main body of fusion, and examines the dialogue between old and new media in conflict, the dynamics of collusion in negotiation, and the process of the two cooperating to build a mainstream value system.

  

At the end of the 20th century, the wave of media digitization had a comprehensive impact on the fields of literature and art production. McLuhan once said bluntly that "the medium is the message" and believed that the medium plays a decisive role in artistic production. Each art form has its own unique medium that sets it apart from the others.

Xie Shangjin said, "We all know that traditional art exhibitions are more about easel paintings, sculptures, and installations, which are mainstream art exhibition forms. Only the fundamentals of art theory can be appreciated and it is also an elegant art form.”

 

The development of blockchain technology, It will bring far more technological progress and far-reaching influence to the art world than before. Shi Lan believes that the application of new technologies fully stimulates the audience's senses with an immersive experience. These experiences are not available in traditional two-dimensional art (painting) and three-dimensional art (sculpture), as well as time-based media.

 

“I think the emergence of blockchain is a great change in history and a sign of human progress. Art embraces technology, and let technological progress empower art.” Facing encrypted art, Xie Shangjin maintained great confidence. "As a technology, NFT not only empowers art, but also film, music and other fields. At present, NFT, as a new field, needs to be known and recognized by more people."

 

But this does not mean that encryption art has no problems at present. "I also see some chaos in the current market, so aesthetic education is very important. The origin of art is beauty. We still need more real artists to embrace technology and embrace NFT, so that technology can broaden the boundaries of art. The business of NFT Value itself is a kind of innovation and change, and I firmly believe that this track can run wider and wider.”

Breaking the authority of art, the centralization and market of encrypted art Autonomy

 

The traditional art market consists of a primary market (gallery) and a secondary market (auction house).

 

In the primary and secondary markets, the long-term dual-track operation of artworks, the primary market is responsible for promoting artists and providing fresh blood, and guarantee the long-term stability of artwork prices. Although the works of art that have been repeatedly auctioned in the news come from the primary market, they are not directly sold by the gallery. Although the separation of primary and secondary markets restricts profits, it maintains the overall prosperity of the industry.

 

Galleries essentially act as an academic threshold in the industrial chain of the contemporary art market, screening for the entire academic market. Works of contemporary value. In the entire industrial chain, galleries are responsible for checking and setting prices for the academic market, while auction houses become bidding platforms for artworks with more academic value.

 

A similar phenomenon exists in the encryption art market.

 

SuperRare may be the most comprehensive encryption art platform at present. Artists who want to settle in SuperRare need to go through strict screening, and The platform started earlier and has greater influence and authority. In the field of encrypted art, SuperRare plays the role of a "gallery" in the traditional art market to a certain extent, "and it is the most famous one." Sleepy added.

 

Sleepy is an encrypted artist and an NFT investor. According to him, NFT collections currently have a brand-name effect, and the works of artists selected by SuperRare will appreciate quickly, and the same is true for artists favored by big collectors. This goes against the spirit of the blockchain to a certain extent. "Crypto art advocated decentralization from the very beginning. I don't want to exist in the traditional art market. You have to be a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and your work is selected by a certain gallery to make a living from your own artwork. Instead, every art creator has You can make money with your talent.” Sleepy further explained to Rhythm.

 

In addition, like the traditional art market, the encrypted art world also has a certain degree of stratification. "I used to think that there should be a threshold for encrypted art to be reviewed by the platform, but after a deeper understanding, I can find that there are too many insiders on those so-called big platforms, which is the consequence of being too centralized. For example, SuperRare is basically a boss now. Mutual invitations between acquaintances, there are very few artists who can pass the certification through self-uploading."

 

Currently, the encryption world itself A decentralized solution has been given. According to Sleepy, there are mechanisms like Rarible that hand over artist certification and pricing power to the market, or mechanisms like Zora and Foundation that hand over review rights to the community.

 

Sleepy believes that encrypted art does not need to be reviewed. But this does not mean that there is no threshold for encrypted art, "more precisely, it should be to decentralize the right of review. Art collections should be based on their own aesthetics, understanding of artworks, and communication with artists. opinions.” He believes that the role of art platforms here is equivalent to supervision. "The legality and copyright issues of the supervision work are not the "quality" and "style" of the work, because everyone has a different understanding of each work of art, and no one has the right to decide a work based on their own preferences and cognition. Whether a work of art should be called a "work of art"."

 

Yuan Haotian, a literary theory researcher at Beijing Language and Culture University, believes that: in the market Under the operation of relationship, the subjectivity of traditional art creation comes from the primary market, not the artist. This creative act is purposeful and governed by rational market principles. The relationship between the gallery and the works of art is the relationship between God and the creation, God as the center dominates and determines the fate of the works. When NFT art appears, what replaces the relationship between the creator and the guest of honor is the spontaneous generation of decentralized works of art. Encrypted art brings real subjectivity to art creators and artistic texts.

 

The auction has repeatedly broken new highs, but the bubble has not yet formed

 

< p line="aug3">In March of this year, the exhibition "Virtual Habitat - Memes Can Be Seen in the Mirror" held by UCCA Beijing opened. This is the world's first offline encrypted art exhibition held by a well-known art institution. Encrypted art has finally entered the vision of mainstream art.

 

In the traditional art industry, works of art need authoritative intermediaries such as auction houses and galleries to provide endorsements, while encrypted art Otherwise, based on decentralization and community atmosphere, participants spontaneously formed a truly autonomous space. But the progress of technology does not mean the progress of art.

 

"More NFT art now uses the blockchain as a carrier, but the form is still a traditional artwork." At present, more encrypted works of art adopt the form of computer painting. Shi Lan, who was a senior consultant of Christie's, made this judgment.

 

Shi Lan not only worked in an auction house, but also founded the Hetian Jade Museum in Xinjiang, investing in artworks It's quite deep. According to her, different carriers and materials of works will have an impact on the circulation price of works of art. "For example, oil paintings can be sold at a higher price than other materials such as watercolors, sketches, prints, etc., so the mainstream art category is still oil paintings. Most of the works with the highest auction prices in history are oil paintings. Auction prices The highest was Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450.3 million at Christie's New York in 2017; followed by Picasso's The Woman of Algiers, Version O, at $179 million; and Modigliani's , Bacon and other artists. Only Giacometti, as the most expensive sculptor in the world, has won the top three most expensive sculptures in the global auction market."

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And Xie Shangjin gave the opposite view, "Different carriers will affect the creation of artists, and at the same time have an impact on the "artistic value" of artworks, but they do not Affects the auction price of artworks. The artworks that can be auctioned are recognized by institutional collectors, and because there is a consensus on the value of art, they are worth bidding for circulation, and the one with the highest price wins."

 

In recent years, encrypted art has repeatedly fetched high prices, and some people can't help but wonder whether there is a bubble in this market.

 

“The current encryption art is still in a very early stage. There is no doubt that NFT is an innovative technology and what it represents The future of the trillion-level digital asset market has greatly stimulated the public's attention to this field." Shi Lan made a positive outlook on this market.

 

“The popularity of NFT is still in its infancy.” Xie Shangjin also gave a similar view. "There are bubbles in every industry, just like the real estate and finance we are familiar with. And the size of NFT is too small, and the audience is too small. It is too early to say whether there is a bubble in NFT art. What I hope is that this industry can With healthy development, I am also optimistic that technology will bring more possibilities to art and at the same time broaden the boundaries of art, so that art can bring more people the enjoyment of beauty instead of excessive hype.”

 

Crypto art: the new Duchamp?

 

In New York in 1917, Duchamp bought an ordinary urinal from a store. After signing the urinal upside down and titled it "Fountain", he sent it to the exhibition anonymously as a work of art. This became a milestone event in the history of modern art. Duchamp's "Fountain" asked loudly: "What is art?" So far, the boundary between art and non-art has been broken.

 

Traditional artists are not interested in the answer to this question, they smash it on the spot. However, more than 100 years later, Duchamp became a milestone in art history, while those who opposed him disappeared in the dust of history.

 

Encrypted art raises the same questions as Duchamp, and its significance is no less than Duchamp’s feat.

 

Xie Shangjin explained, "Duchamp's work "Spring", Zhang Huan's performance art "Twelve Square Meters" etc. These arts were created by artists driven by the social background or social events at that time and attracted great attention at that time, and they would also be criticized and fermented by art critics and people from all walks of life, but after the expressions of artists and critics As more people learn about the stories behind the works and the reasons for their creation, these arts gradually arouse more people's thinking and perception, and at the same time gradually integrate into the art system, so both art and scientific research must be Create new things."

 

"Every era has new art forms and new carriers, these works At the beginning of its appearance, it may not necessarily be accepted and recognized by mainstream art."

 

Although the price of encrypted art has repeatedly hit new highs, but Its "artistic value" has also attracted many doubts, as Shi Lan introduced to Rhythm: "It is difficult for you to explain the artistic value of pixel avatars like CryptoPunks from the perspective of Fine Arts, but it represents the encryption community's understanding of their sub-genres. The admiration and support of cultural labels, and I am willing to use real money to solidify this support at auction prices.”

 

She believes that the uniqueness of encrypted art comes more from the characteristics of encrypted art creators and collectors, such as early technology geeks, cryptocurrency owners, cyberpunk groups, and so on. This can be reflected in the most popular creative themes of encrypted art and the works with the highest prices and the most collectors.

 

Currently, encrypted art has come into contact with mainstream art, whether encrypted art is integrated into the mainstream, accepted by traditional art, or Starting from scratch and developing independently, its future is hard to predict.

 

At present, the "artistic value" of encrypted artwork is still an important reason restricting its development. Xie Shangjin believes that if we look at it from the perspective of pure art, the current digital art is a mixed bag. "Art requires professionalism and has a threshold, and it needs to be supported by academics and theories. The current NFT art feels like a hodgepodge. Only when the sea tide ebbs can you know who is swimming naked."

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Crypto art is not a new thing in the past two years. A platform for registering artworks on the chain. But it is still the sky-high transaction price of $69.34 million for "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" that brought encrypted art into the public eye. Xie Shangjin said, "If the wings of NFT were not plugged in, it would not have such a great influence."

 

Shi Lan also made a positive outlook on this market. "We believe that more and more creators and artists will join this wave, and NFT art will also have a wider range of creative themes, collectors, application scenarios and future space."

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