2 years ago
Jeff Koons, the world’s astir costly surviving artist, has announced his archetypal foray into the satellite of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – a caller postulation of carnal sculptures, each with a corresponding integer trinket.
He’s 1 of the much high-profile ocular artists to task into NFTs; Damien Hirst, different creator known for splashy, commercially-minded projects, made similar moves past year.
The twist for the Koons effort is that, successful a motion to a longstanding crypto meme, these sculptures are virtually going “to the moon.”
Per a property release, a subset of the carnal pieces successful “Jeff Koons: Moon Phases” volition “make a lunar landing connected an Intuitive Machines Nova-C Lunar Lander, to beryllium launched connected pad 39A astatine Kennedy Space Center successful a afloat autonomous mission.” They’ll extremity up successful Oceanus Procellarum, connected the adjacent broadside of the moon.
It’s a collaboration with Pace Gallery’s dedicated crypto arm, arsenic good arsenic 2 lesser-known backstage companies experimenting with creation and tech: 4Space, founded by Chantelle Baier, and NFMoon, besides founded by Chantelle Baier, on with an capitalist named Patrick Colangelo. Intuitive Machines, the institution that built the lunar lander successful question, is besides involved.
Koons’ works stay the priciest of immoderate surviving artist. He’s champion known for a bid of giant, stainless alloy balloon dogs, which are beloved by collectors and often dismissed by critics (he began his vocation arsenic a commodities broker connected Wall Street – which is to say, helium knows a happening oregon 2 astir what sells).
Though Koons began teasing his NFT task this past winter, determination are inactive nary details astir the pieces themselves.
Said Koons, successful a prepared statement: “I wanted to make a historically meaningful NFT task rooted successful humanistic and philosophical thought. Our achievements successful abstraction correspond the limitless imaginable of humanity. Space explorations person fixed america a position of our quality to transcend worldly constraints.”
The “to the moon” conception is besides a notation to the trajectory of NFT art, which, until aboriginal 2021, was mostly dominated by crypto memes – imagery on the lines of bulls, astronauts, and carnal bitcoins. You tin spot the remnants of that benignant successful the enactment of the NFT creator Beeple, who famously sold a token for $69 cardinal past year.
The Koons motorboat is being planned for aboriginal this year, and proceeds from “one of the archetypal NFT sales” volition beryllium donated to Doctors Without Borders.
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Will Gottsegen is CoinDesk's media and civilization reporter. He holds ETH and 2 NFTs supra CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1000.
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