NFTs (thread now extremely NSFW)

the whole thing reminds me of the poker ecosystem, where 85% of them claim they're winning players. but the money's gotta be coming from somewhere!

otm

the whole purpose of NFTs for the crypto weirdos is ultimately to funnel money into cryptocurrencies from credulous artists etc. in order to further inflate the bubbles & make them more money

It’s either that or the petrodollar

https://news.artnet.com/opinion/beeple-everydays-review-1951656

69 million, not nice
http://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2021/03/Beeple-its-fun-to-draw-black-people.jpg

I also heard an interview with him - he seems like a complete idiot. Perhaps even an idiot with no delusion that he's anything other than an idiot.

his audience is as bad as he is

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/nfts-are-driving-stunts-and-diving-into-the-culture-wars

The insanity around NFTs, and what is now for sale as an NFT, has whiplashed from obscurity to frenetic hysteria in just a matter of weeks. While Ja Rule and trading cards and Beeple’s “artwork” are often talked about with perplexity, there are countless NFTs hitting the specialized trading markets almost hourly. Some are stunts, some are pitched as real art, and there’s everything in between. A company that specializes in blockchain technology, for example, purchased a real, physical print by the artist Banksy for $95,000, then lit the print on fire until it was destroyed, and then sold a digital version of it as an NFT for almost $400,000. Grimes, the musician, sold about $6 million worth of music-and-video NFTs last month. Jack Dorsey’s first tweet is currently at auction with a high bid of $2.5 million. A poker player is selling his most famous quotes as NFTs. The TV show American Gods is shilling trading cards of the show’s characters as NFTs. The website Quartz is offering a news article about NFTs as an NFT itself. There’s an NFT house for sale, nudes of the actor Katie Cassidy at auction as NFTs, and there are all sorts of digital collectibles ranging from pixelated punks to impish kitty cats with wings. Now an Unnamed Artist has a bridge to sell you.

If it feels to you like culture is collapsing in on itself and nothing makes sense, that’s because the speed with which these changes are taking place is exacerbating. It’s almost like we’re living in a simulation that has sped up and no one knows where the pause button is. But that, sadly, is by design. Bitcoin, which is only a little over a decade old, was first adopted by the video game culture: nerds who thought it was cool to mine on their computers and collect these odd little coins, but who are now Bitcoin billionaires. They are using that money, like Monopoly money that turned real overnight, to dictate what is considered art culturally. In doing so, they are—some believe—destroying the culture. Like all things tech, what we’re talking about when we talk about NFTs is still up for debate. In the same way that no one knew (or still doesn’t know?) if companies like Twitter and Facebook were “media companies” or “tech companies,” and the financial markets can’t decide if Tesla and its electric ilk are car companies or iPhones with wheels, NFTs are proving to be a ubiquitary that can be hijacked for anything that someone is willing to pay for: music, videos, collectibles, articles, and the most contentious of all: art.

a little over the top, but honestly i'm in burn it down mood so it resonates with me

that's good, reminds me of the Bruce Sterling quote "technology is an infinite powderkeg"

i wish i had made something of myself and had a big following, because I am *STARVING* for a big name whatever to say these words:

fuck all of this. fuck the old art world. fuck this new art world. reject both of those, loudly

i would logroll across the united states to lick the boot of someone important to say this

I see a lot of NFTs for sale on Instagram now for every mediocre piece of digital art there is

Deviantart should go NFT

i thought it did

the absolute hideousness of beeple's jpegs is pretty notable i think. this isn't just the art world elevating a charlatan, as usual, but something worse even than kitsch

we're talking sub-adbusters social commentary here

They are purposefully shocking for sure

I sort of enjoyed Beeple when I thought he was just some random guy with a lot of IG followers. It's kitschy for sure, but sometimes it's fun. But I had no idea he had so much art-world cache.

there is a sickening circularity to it.

beeple creates images that reflect the american grotesque, the whirpool of desire, cruelty, and meaninglessness that lies at the heart of our culture.

and then he is elevated by the "blue chip" art world, ultra-rich collectors, the very people who make our society that way.

whenever these people elevate nihilistic artists -- artists who seem to mock the idea that art should aspire to anything more than, like, a winking acknowledgement of its own status as a commodity -- it makes me angry. it just seems like an example of the rich investor class rubbing our noses in the face that they don't care, that they think it is uncool to care.

beeple seems like the worst example of this. i feel a little like this about koons, too.

beeple seems like the worst example of this. i feel a little like this about koons, too.

sorry for the double post

But I had no idea he had so much art-world cache.

honestly seems like he has zero. absolutely zero. but also that it reveals how empty something like koons is too. it's just whatever. it's a ton of money, it has nothing to do with art in either case

if it has something to do with "art", it has something to do with the part of art that i don't recognize.

this is basically the same as the grammies grammys

beeple_crap
Verified

2,568 posts
2m followers
869 following
beeple
art shit for yer facehole. --

filled with the best and worst quotes, like any vanity fair article

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/nfts-are-driving-stunts-and-diving-into-the-culture-wars

already quoted last week, like any post i make

trivia: i have sneezed like 20 times in the last 2 minutes

beeple is worse than koons, which is really saying something

i feel like this has to be read in the tradition of 'anti-art,' as like a new version of duchamp putting a urinal in the museum, but the gesture means something like the opposite of what it once did.

like, dada and similar movements were attacking the institution of the museum because it represented the system of philanthropy through which the ruling class justified its position. the bourgeoise, back then, wanted people to believe in culture, then. they were threatened by anarchism in art for the same reason they were scared of anarchists in politics, because it was a challenge to their legitimacy.

today it isn't really like that. the uber-rich investor class is aware that they are parasites. the notion that art should mean something, that anything should mean anything, is a threat to them. cynical self-awareness is the posture they like. they love things like warhol's quote that "making lots of money is the best kind of art." to them, this means that everything is just money. money is the most real thing, the only real thing, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a sucker. they like to patronize artists who seem to be saying this in their work.

that's my reading anyway. for a certain kind of financial sociopath, a beeple causes less anxiety than an abstract expressionist painting. the latter represents some kind of ideal -- or tries to -- whereas the former mocks ideals, revels in the grotesque, and maybe feigns at critiquing it but in a way that is self-disavowing anyway so there is no need to worry about it. "art shit for yer facehole."

i think it depends on the role: artist, buyer, or observer. almost everyone is the latter. the art sucks. that's my take. for the artist, it's an attempt to finally cash in on something that has made almost no one money. the most important thing is the buyer, because it's the most vicious. it has nothing to do with the art, or the observer. treeship is right that it's a rebuke to the idea that art should mean anything. it's more than a rebuke, it's an afterthought. who cares what it means? who cares if it means? what's it worth? what will it be worth? that's what it means. that's what high-end "art world" art has been about for a very long time. this is a translation to the mass market of idiot images

y'all on the money, er... no pun intended

i'm anxious about clicking that vanity fair link

i think it's all a useful way to figure out who is a complete douchebag, whether it comes to artist, speculator, or bystander. anywhere i go, within 45 feet of me, fucking sucks. (that's not true - if it were, i would be the perfect NFT artist)

the vanity fair piece was interesting. apparently beeple's work is related to alt right meme culture and early images included in his 'everydays' were often racist. the piece also claims that the people fueling the nft art craze are bitcoin millionaires who got in early and earned their money as a fluke. culturally, they are alt right/edgelord types, not the manhattan elite i was thinking of in my post.

it's all play money in the truest sense

"the art world" is definitely into beeple now, though. they don't have standards beyond what sells.

What if, in the future, you could buy a Baby Yoda puppy, and it knew to play with kids. But then it got screwed up, and it got confused, and the algorithm got messed up, and it started eating kids, and it got stray, and there were these attacks of stray Baby Yoda robots that used to be toys, but they got so much AI in the future that they got loose, and they’re fricking eating kids.

https://news.artnet.com/opinion/beeple-everydays-review-1951656

this is pretty good. elements of the art press isn't having it. good for them.

yeah, a few others tore it to shreds, too. the very first one i saw, though, was this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-56368868

So, best to put money aside and consider Everydays: The First 5000 Days as a work of visual art and not as a tradeable commodity/financial investment.

Is it any good?

Yes, is the short answer.

If you're into the comic book aesthetic, which can be traced back decades, then Beeple is a talented exponent of the genre.

It's not too much of a stretch to make a reference to Hieronymus Bosch's 15th Century densely weird masterpieces, or Andy Warhol's Pop Art, or the macabre nature of Philip Guston's surreal, cartoonish paintings of the late 1960s and 70s.

loooooooooool, that take was so awful on the very first day, aged very poorly

lol jesus

"the comic book aesthetic, which can be traced back decades" lol

it's kind of offensive to compare him to guston

bosch is safely distant, warhol was a great artist but he also flirted with the kind of market nihilism that made beeple possible, but guston's late work is a real attempt to capture the grotesque aspect of vietnam-era america. there is outrage behind it and real sadness. it's nothing like beeple's scattershot collection. there is no coherent point of view with beeple.

also, like, what is "the comic book aesthetic"? there are many artists working in different styles in comics.

Hieronymous dosh amirite

The digital art community is basically imploding right now as it has polarized into for and against jumping onto this train. People that knew nothing about this two weeks ago, are now cool with creating dox lists of other artists they think are on the wrong side. It’s pretty distressing.

― Kim, Thursday, March 11, 2021 6:57 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Why is it bad for people to publicly tell other people that their morals suck and that their art does, too? It isn't "doxing" if it's publicly available information, too.

Fuck NFTs. The only thing that's distressing about the situation is that it's just another playground for rich fucks to get more rich, and further evidence that the only art that matters will never actually matter to a market.

http://beeplegenerator.com/

It's not too much of a stretch to make a reference to Hieronymus Bosch's 15th Century densely weird masterpieces,

Actually, it is too much of a stretch ... none of the images used in the article have much "density" to them. If you want to make a reference to a famous painter, Magritte would be closest in terms of "weird" and the lack of density/commercial aesthetic.

or Andy Warhol's Pop Art,

how so? because he is a household name?

or the macabre nature of Philip Guston's surreal, cartoonish paintings of the late 1960s and 70s.

because one of the images selected for this article has a somewhat similar color palette to that period of Guston's?

the warhol comparison has to do with the way he incorporates pop culture symbols. there isn't much similarity in how the two artists use this material though.

it's just a very inept artist. this writer is just itching for the chance to "legitimate" art that the hoi polloi don't "get." they think that is the situation here, elitist gatekeeping. when in actuality what's happened is a total collapse of standards instituted from above, not any kind of democratization.