Yoyo Maeght - NFT - The Art of Tomorrow

See my video for TDXx on NFTs here

While wandering through exhibitions, museums, art fairs or galleries, have you ever asked yourself this question: Would I like to have this work in my home? Would I like to hold it, own it? What relationship would I then have with her and will my view of her change?

Should we own art or is it enough to have access to it?

The question may seem surreal, but isn't it up to me, raised by the surrealists, to ask it and try to answer it.

I always asked questions.

Surrealist questions to surrealists, like here to Jacques Prévert and Pablo Picasso, yet I am only 3 and a half years old!

It must be said that having as a grandfather a visionary like Aimé Maeght and having as uncles Prévert, Chagall, Braque, Picasso, Yves Montand or André Malraux, gives you terrible strength, freedom and audacity. .

These geniuses not only passed on their knowledge to me, they gave me this taste for art history.

They made me understand that art is constantly in motion, that it advances, branches off, takes side roads, sometimes highways or small steep paths. But it moves forward inexorably, nourished by all innovation.

But what would art be without sharing?

My grandfather, who started from nothing, an orphan, to show and offer his artistic tastes and discoveries to as many people as possible, created his own Foundation in the sun of Saint-Paul-de-Vence...

Helped in this by his artist friends who were all passionate about the project: first Braque, then Giacometti, Chagall, Calder and especially Miró, who, by deploying his Labyrinth there, endowed the Foundation with a garden museum.

Miró is the one who taught me the most, he showed me nature and its relationship with art, he sharpened my curiosity and answered each of my questions and encouraged me to always ask more, as no doubt here, in 1966, under his caring gaze full of tenderness which says a lot about our complicity.

It’s probably thanks to him that I have this appetite for discovery. So it's no surprise that I focus on all forms of modernity, creation or proposal, including technological ones, and to look ahead, far ahead!

It is by doing this that today, I can tell you that we are experiencing the beginnings of a revolution in the world of art, and this upheaval will come from NFTs.

Who knows about NFTs?

When did the term NFT enter our everyday language?

It's very recent, it was in March 2021 when the artist Beeple - Mike Winkelmann - became known worldwide because his work, “ Everydays: the first 5,000 days” , sold on the blockchain the equivalent of 69 millions of dollars. We discover crypto Art .

It's a shock for the world's media: mass media, written press, society press, celebrity press, women's press, sports press, audiovisual press, web, TV, radio, all covered the news, often ignoring what it was about. he acted.

But beyond the communication on the record price, little has been said.

So some explanations are in order.

NFTs (Non-Fungible Token) are digital assets uniquely held on the blockchain. Cryptographic and virtual elements, they are unique identification codes for the author, signature, date, title.

In short, blockchain makes it possible to create a sort of unique deed of ownership or certificate, encrypted and therefore non-falsifiable, which can be attached to various assets: Real estate, collectibles, domain names, brands and, of course, Art.

An NFT Art is an encrypted certificate attached to an image. So only one person holds the certificate of ownership of an image which is visible to everyone.

You don't understand everything between holding and having access. ?

So a little demonstration with the world's first NFT.

It dates from ? Let's see, its date of creation is debated, it is probably 1516.

Ah, does that surprise you? But no, because I consider the Mona Lisa, the famous Mona Lisa, to be the world's first NFT.

You find that I have kept the spirit of my surrealist mentors!

Let's see why I call Mona Lisa an NFT.

When I talk about NFT, people say “speculation and snobbery of billionaires” to me.

But I retort, “rather less than Francis I with Leonardo da Vinci, who was basically a great PR stunt!”

The young 22-year-old king wants to show Europe that he is the most powerful and aware of new developments and technologies. This is how in 1516, at the request of the monarch, Leonardo joined France to become first painter, engineer and architect to the King of France. Leonardo completed Mona Lisa at Clos Lucé and sold the painting to François I for the royal collections. This is also when the contemporary art market was created; previously, contemporary works were commissions and were almost never resold.

Great operation for France because, out of around fifteen paintings whose paternity by Leonardo is certain, 6 are in France! What a good investment and one that still pays off.

Why Mona Lisa is the world's first NFT?

Let's make a comparison:

  • The image is immediately identifiable, like NFTs, and is known even to those who have never been to the Louvre.
  • Its creator mastered both the brush and new technologies.
  • The owner ? We don't really know who it is and we don't care, since we have access to the work. Only one owner has a deed of ownership. It's the Louvre or, more precisely, France, that's a very strange notion. Today we could speak of “investment funds”.
  • Only one owner but the work is accessible to all. Like an NFT.
  • Who could set the price if it were put up for sale: the buyer .
  • It could even be sold and not move from the Louvre .

What if NFTs offered a true and total democratization of art, total sharing, going even further than the Mona Lisa.

Let me explain, let's always keep our dear Mona Lisa in mind.

  • Free access
    • NFT art can be viewed by everyone on the web via distribution platforms such as S upeRare, Opensea, Nifty Gateway . While the Louvre has a fee.
  • Timelessness
    • There is no access time. No closing days, unlike the museum.
  • Globalization
    • wherever you are on the planet, all you need is an internet connection. No need to travel.
  • Quality of the work consistent with its creation
    • The work was designed on a screen and it is visible through the glass of a screen, yes, behind a glass, like Mona Lisa.
  • Unlimited Imaginary Museum
    • To create our NFT collection for free, all you need to do is collect our favorite images or videos, you don't even need to hold the certificate. The images are free to access.
  • Market transparency
    • All transaction history appears on platforms, dates, prices, acquirers. Artists are thus informed of all transactions and receive royalties on each.

So, isn’t this the advent of art for all? It is easier and cheaper today to have a smartphone or a computer than to come to the Louvre.

Art now represents 20% of NFTs.

However, will NFTs push aside more conventional art? The one that I could describe as materialized?

The history of art, as I said, has several paths, one not excluding the other. I give you an example.

1914 : Claude Monet paints one of the monuments of the history of Art, the Water Lilies . Eight panels two meters high for a length of 91 meters. They are thus exhibited at the Orangerie, in the Tuileries in Paris, in two oval rooms to symbolize the sign of infinity.

It was that same year, 1914 , that Marcel Duchamp 's work " Le Porte vins " was created. This work is considered the first Ready Made, since it is an ordinary object purchased by the artist at the City Hall Bazaar.

We can clearly see that Art History has various components that coexist perfectly. Les Nymphéas and Le Porte Bouteilles, both from 1914, are essentials in the history of Art.

Today paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations and NFTs have their place in the history of Art.

Some, like Aki Kuroda, sublimate painting,

And yet he knew how, from 2000, to create digital exhibitions. None of this ever materially existed .

New Artists

A new generation of artists is emerging via NFTs. The visual variety of creations is incredible and the subjects endless, Manga, science fiction, ecology, hyperrealism, poetry and animated images

Among these new artists, more than thirty of them have already acquired immense notoriety, including:

CryptoPunk - Hackatao - Android Jones - Mark Inducil and of course Beeple

You see, the expressions, the styles are rich in variety.

Should we own art or is it enough to have access to it?

Today technology allows us not to choose. Let's have works on our walls and works on our computers.

It's fascinating, or should I say it fascinates me and admit:

In Art, as in life, anything that doesn't excite me bores me!

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