Alpha Tears on NFT Showroom
1/1
price: 2200 $Hive
My new cryptoart piece titled, Alpha Tears pokes fun at the cryptoart NFT by Pak titled, Alpha.
Alpha recently sold on Super Rare to MOCA for 55.555 ETH, or USD $15,370 using the exchange rate of one month ago. Because the value of ETH has gone up a lot, using today’s exchange rate would yield a price tag of USD $24,127.
Yes, this transparent pixel, which is nothing more than a solid white box sold for more than some people make in an entire year.
Alpha on Super Rare: https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/alpha-7713
What is your reaction?
There is nothing new or innovative in this idea of creating an NFT of a solid block of color. You are probably familiar with abstract artists like Mark Rothko who in the 1950’s and 60’s painted large blocks of color in his paintings. Here’s one example of a minimalist painting by Rothko titled No 4:
https://www.wikiart.org/en/mark-rothko/no-4-1964
We have to ask the question, why would someone pay $15K for an NFT of a solid white square?
What’s going on here?
It probably has more to do with Pak and his body of work than anything else. Oh, and yeah, speculation.
Art speculation is a game and it’s safe to say that the art speculation game is moving from physical art to digital cryptoart but the rules of the game are nearly identical to the traditional art market. It’s a winner-take-all art market, where most of the value is captured by the artists and collectors who get into the magical “top tier” and where many talented artists are left out of the game. The whole idea of “disrupting the art market” is thrown out the window, in favor of huge profits, egos, manipulation and games.
But is this bad? Is this part of human nature?
Everything depends on your particular position in the game. What I’m seeing in the cryptoart market is certainly not disruptive. It’s the same game where the rich and the overly cocky win. It’s the same game as everywhere. It’s the game in which most artists are losing.
If there was any indication that the cryptoart speculation game has officially started, I think the sale of Alpha, a solid white square selling for $15K is it.
It shows that big money is now involved in the cryptoart world. But it’s still a game. I have not formed an opinion about this game, even though I am now involved in it. That will be for a different post.
There are some interesting things to discover when you look at the history of bids for Alpha. One thing that really stood out is the fact that Pak didn’t cave in and accept lower bids. Pak even declined a bid of 29 ETH.
Beatriz Ramos, Founder of DADA weighs in:
“Fast forward two years. Crypto art has become precisely what it claimed to disrupt: a crypto version of the conventional art market. Naturally, a Museum of Crypto Art that buys a transparent pixel for $15,000 from an artist with a large following on Twitter may be exactly the kind of museum we deserve. But is it the kind of museum we intended? To me, the biggest issue with the crypto art ecosystem is not that it bluntly replicates the current art market, but that it does so while still claiming to be revolutionary for artists. It is not. As long as we use the same incentives as the art market we are going to have the same results: a fetishization of rising prices instead of a focus on the art. This is not a coincidence."
https://medium.com/@PowerDada/the-complacency-of-crypto-art-b7d026546e8a
About Alpha Tears
I made this NFT based on my knee-jerk reaction when I first saw that a solid square of white had sold for $15,000. It was the day I suddenly realized that the whole “art revolution” rah rah kumbaya stuff is just a delusional fantasy, that only a few purists embody. The crying eye at the bottom is the revolutionary NFT artists who probably lost their mind over Pak's white square, and I am the black hole, at a loss for words. The eye in this NFT is from my painted face that I created for one Halloween several years ago. Here's my painted face with that eye:
In the end, cold hard cash wins every single time.
The only reason we are all talking about Pak’s white square is because it sold for $15,000. Huge sums of money make us pay attention. The fact remains that technology has advanced far more quickly than the evolution of the human mind. Most of us are still money- and status- obsessed humanoids, who will literally do anything, no matter how crass to get our fix for them. Most adults retain their adolescent emotional age, and the art world is no different.
I don’t have a lot of hope for the NFT art market being any different from the traditional art market where a few winners take home the lion’s share. I think there will be some interesting outlier NFT experimental projects, but most will replicate the existing art market, at least for now until we all get sick of it. LOL.
For me, however, I made the decision to do a deep dive into the cryptoart world, no matter what its current state is. Most of my minting takes place on NFT Showroom for a few key reasons: 1. no gas fees 2. I’m acquainted with the team running NFT Showroom and they are good people. 3. NFT Showroom doesn’t censor edgy art or have an elitist artist acceptance guideline, which means that they don’t reject artists.
Yesterday, 4 of my NFTs sold on NFT Showroom. For me, this is an indicator that I am doing something right. I feel happy.
I want to thank my recent buyers for believing in me:
@bulluage https://nftshowroom.com/bullauge/collection
@enn36 https://nftshowroom.com/enn36/collection
@wizardx https://nftshowroom.com/wizardx/collection
Cheers,
Stellabelle
Those Pak sales on SuperRare..... I don't know. Some nonsense going on I think.