Art Basel Miami

Miami Art Week marks the convergence of the art/design/fashion and now crypto crowds as they descend upon the city to partake in a plethora of events over the course of a week. Centered around Art Basel, the Swiss fair that first showed in the US in 2002, the first week of December is packed with exhibitions, gallery openings, satellite fairs, fashion presentations, talks & debates.

Art Basel Miami Beach galleries officially open tomorrow, Dec 2nd and run through Sat Dec 4th, at the Miami Convention Center.

Satellite fairs include:

Art Miami (Nov 30-Dec 5)

Untitled Art (Nov 30-Dec 4)

Design Miami (Dec 1–5)

This year in particular, there is enormous excitement surrounding NFTs. But what are NFTs?

NFTs are one of the latest manifestations of blockchain technology garnering mainstream media attention. Headline grabbing news like the record-smashing sales of CryptoPunks or Beeple’s “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” (exclusively minted for Christie’s auction house & fetched $69,346,250) have become household names.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are tokens which represent unique, non-interchangeable data that lives on the blockchain, providing a public proof of ownership for that digital asset. Fungibility is the interchangeability of an asset with another asset of the same type. For example, a dollar bill may be exchanged for another dollar bill or a bitcoin can be traded for another a bitcoin. This is not the case with NFTs, they are 1 of 1; hence non-fungibility. Examples of NFTs include digital art, collectibles, music, gaming, and other assets such as real estate.

The first NFT project was on the Ethereum blockchain in 2015, however the NFT market has experienced explosive growth over the past year as sales of digital art items spiked. Artists are able to securely register their art through blockchain technology converting them into sellable assets.

Art Basel might as well be a clinic for NFTs this year.

Art Basel Miami Beach will host the first ever interactive NFT exhibition in collaboration with Tezos. Patrons will have the opportunity to create an AI self-portrait of themselves and mint it as an NFT on the Tezos blockchain on site. The exhibition, titled Humans + Machines: NFTs and the Ever-Evolving World of Art, will feature generative and NFT works from various artists. Over the course of the week, Tezos will be conducting an expansive dedicated speaker series contributed by prominent artists and figures central to the NFT community.

Mark Soares CMO & Founder of Blokhaus, Inc. will be leading a conversation alongside Harm van den Dorpel (left gallery, Berlin), Saskia Draxler (Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne) and Amy Whitaker (author of Economics of Visual Art and NFT researcher at NYU) titled: Navigating the NFT Market on Thursday Dec, 02 at the Convention Center 5–6pm.

Other notable events include:

Perez Art Museum Panel: NFTs the Next 500 Years

Jay Mollica, PAMM Dir of Digital Engagement discusses the how-to’s of NFTS and how they have changed the landscape of digital art. Panel discussion includes contributions by artist Sofia Crespo, curator Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan, and Art Blocks CCO Jeff Davis.

Art at Faena Hotel

A series of artworks by Pilar Zeta will be on view at the Faena hotel; NFTs of these works will be available at auction. Andrés Reisinger’s The Smell of Pink, an immersive installation, will also be featured along with its accompanying NFT.

Wynwood Studios Art Week

FTX is sponsoring musical performances and art installations, seamlessly fusing the worlds of art, crypto and music into immersive experiences for patrons.

Triller Art Gallery

Triller Art Gallery will host notable artist PUNKMETENDER for live art and a NFT drop.

Star Trek Inspired Art Makes History

Roddenberry Entertainment (a leader in science-fiction) releases the world’s first living Eco-NFT, coded into the DNA of a living bacterial organism. The project is built on the Solana blockchain and will be exhibited under the title “El Primero” at Art Basel.

Aku World: Miami

Patrons have the chance to immerse themselves into the futuristic world of Aku, an NFT astronaut created by former MLB player Micah Johnson. Since inception, Aku has become the first NFT optioned for film and tv.

NFT BAZL x SLS South Beach

Carousel Fine Art’s new artist showcase will feature a live performance from artist & DJ Kasseus. Kasseus’ performance will include live creation of his art and an immersive light and sound show which will be available for purchase.

With NFTs in the spotlight this week, it is important to take note that cryptographic topics and blockchain technology permeate the global conversation and continue to impact the world as a whole.

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