a marriage made in Miami

For decades, technology investors have been the elusive unicorns that the art market has been chasing. Now, thanks to NFTs – the Trojan horses of crypto – the worlds of art and technology are beginning to merge. And with fintech companies flocking to sunny, low-tax South Florida, Miami is fast becoming an NFT fundraising hotspot.

This is largely due to Miami’s Bitcoin evangelical mayor Francis Suarez, who over the past year has loudly courted tech staff and investors from the Bay Area and East Coast. The viral moment came in December last year when venture capitalist Delian Asparouhov tweeted: “ok guys listen to me, what if we move silicon valley to miami”? “How can I help?” Suarez shot back. This week, the mayor is doing his part to build a bridge to the art world, attending a symposium yesterday, the NFT BZL, which examined the convergence of culture with the blockchain.

Several years ago, it was rumored that Art Basel saw San Francisco as a possible venue for a trade fair – rumors that the Swiss company rejected. Its global director, Marc Spiegler, notes how the technology elite in Silicon Valley in general “has not been engaged enough in the art world to board a plane and get to Miami Beach.” But now a new pool of tech entrepreneurs is living “suddenly within 15 minutes drive of the fair – and many of them are paying attention to the art market because of NFTs”.

By playing for this crowd, Art Basel in Miami Beach (ABMB) has increased its NFT offer. The blockchain platform Tezos is a new sponsor and presents an NFT screen just outside the fair, including an interactive element that allows visitors to generate self-portraits using an algorithm designed by AI artist Mario Klingemann. SuperRare displays 20 large-scale augmented reality works in the Convention Center, and several galleries, including Pace and Nagel Draxler, display NFTs and blockchain-related art on their stands. Meanwhile, galleries across the board are beginning to accept crypto for the sale of both digital and physical works.

Installation view of Tezos’ NFT exhibition at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2021

Photo: Eric Thayer

Marc Billings, a technology entrepreneur and founder of Blackdove – Miami’s first NFT art gallery, which opened in June – believes the art world failed to crack Silicon Valley because “they sold an analogue product to a digital audience.” He adds: “This is the first time technological natives feel included in the art scene.”

Conversely, as NFT displays become more sophisticated, traditional collectors are tempted to take the plunge. Blackdove has partnered with electronics company LG to develop a “digital canvas” with integrated technology that allows customers – including Christie’s, Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Cisneros Foundation – to display works in the chain. The Miami company is collaborating with several galleries across several satellite fairs this week: Saphira & Ventura at SCOPE, Oliver Cole Gallery at Art Miami, Alaina Simone at Untitled and the artist collective PunkMeTender at CONTEXT.

Billings believes this week will be “the moment the crossover happens”. He adds: “The concept of NFTs has become so popular that I do not think it will be a crypto community that buys. It will be more of a traditional community purchase.”

In order to keep up with the artists’ demands, more and more galleries are collaborating on NFT projects. Some have developed their own platforms. Last month, Pace launched its own custom-built platform, Pace Verso, which sold all five of Lucas Samaras’ NFTs within three hours (priced at $ 10,000 each; prices for the next drop have doubled).

The new venture is led by Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, Pace’s head of digital sales, who identifies a younger, more diverse NFT collector base flourishing in Miami, where the gallery launched its technology-heavy art space Superblue in May. “There are a lot of young and colored people in Miami,” she says. “Not everyone is formally in tech; some have moved into the industry from entertainment or fashion.” According to Boyle, crypto-hedge funders promote NFT sales. “They are also very interested in going into collecting more traditional art,” she adds.

Boyle does not predict that Silicon Valley will lose its status as America’s technological mecca; Pace is among a small but dedicated group of galleries in San Francisco (Gagosian opened there in 2016, but closed four years later). Instead, she believes Miami could become the country’s crypto capital. “I feel like Miami Art Week will cement Miami’s status as a hub for the new Web3 world,” she says.

At ABMB, Pace shows an NFT by Studio DRIFT and Don Diablo (priced at $ 500,000, with 10% of the profits going to Justdiggit, a grassroots organization that fights global warming by making Africa greener).

While entering the mainstream art industry, NFTs still represent a brave new world for many retailers accustomed to trading on “gentlemen’s agreements”. NFT-smart contacts typically assign artists 10% each time a work is sold, as well as giving them greater control over other aspects of circulation, sales, and display.

Galerie Nagel Draxler, who exhibits at Art Basel in Miami Beach, launches a Berlin gallery for blockchain-related art

Photo: Eric Thayer

From gatekeeper to enabler

So will NFTs diminish the role of the gallery? Saskia Draxler, co-founder of Galerie Nagel Draxler, who has dedicated half of her booth to NFTs at ABMB and is launching a blockchain-related art gallery in Berlin in January, does not think so. She sees her role as a negotiator as less of a “gatekeeper” and more as an “enabler”, saying: “We risk a lot to show new artists. It creates overhead, even though we accept that there is a difference in culture when it’s coming to NFTs.It may not be the classic way of doing business, but we’re finding ways.

Other forms of business are opening up thanks to new NFT platforms. Among them is Aorist, an environmentally conscious NFT marketplace launched yesterday with an exhibition of physical installations, immersive augmented reality experiences and online-only works by artists including Joanie Lemercier, Refik Anadol and Nancy Baker Cahill. Similar NFTs were also released for auction yesterday. The profits benefit The ReefLine, a new 7-mile underwater public sculpture park that opens off the shores of Miami Beach, which will provide a habitat for endangered reef organisms.

Aorist works with artists in much the same way as a gallery would, “ordering projects, collaborating with institutions and supporting the creative process,” says Miami-based crypto investor and collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, who co-founded the platform with the artist, Andrea Bonaceto and cultural strategist Ximena Caminos.

Slow learning curve

Creating a bridge between the digital and the physical has been one of the main challenges in making the NFT mainstream, says Rodriguez-Fraile, whose own collection includes more than 1,000 NFTs. “At the moment, it is very difficult for people who are not technical in blockchain to participate. It can be a slow learning curve, and there can be risks in storage, ”he says. “We believe platforms should facilitate this in the same way that Amazon allows you to pay and integrate with multiple payment methods.” For artists, meanwhile, NFT marketplaces offer little marketing, communication and price sensitivity – “none of the things needed for a professional career with long-term audiences,” Rodriguez-Fraile points out.

For others, volatility in the NFT market has been a deterrent; a month after Beeple sold an NFT for a record $ 69.3 million. at Christie’s in March, prices fell by 70%. Rodriguez-Fraile predicts a “decoupling” in which the majority of NFTs will “fall to zero or below”, while a select few will become “symbols of the movement and will continue to grow exponentially in value”.

The future of NFTs may be uncertain and the jury is still out on their artistic merits. But their abundance in Miami this week marks a growing age – one that the art world can no longer ignore.