Marfa, Texas, has transformed into an art-world brand signifying independence and authenticity. This narrative seems to have a strong appeal to tech people, who have been driving the town’s latest rush of gentrification.
This past October, Erick Calderon stood in front of a crowd in Marfa, the West Texas town beloved by artists, and attempted to explain, in a public town-hall meeting, his new venture: a gallery showcasing N.F.T. art. The Marfa gallery is the physical embodiment of Art Blocks, a virtual platform forthat Calderon launched a year ago. Since then, the platform has generated more than a hundred million dollars in sales of digital art.
The painter Christopher Wool was equally skeptical: “It sounds like you’re talking about art without aesthetics.” Calderon is a newcomer to fine art. The first time he’d been publicly introduced as an artist was the day before, he told me. “I turned red,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt impostor syndrome, but I feel it every day.” His immersion in the art world has been unusually swift and thorough.
Other people began building on the Canadians’ idea, creating N.F.T. projects of their own. Owning a CryptoPunk soon became an indicator that you were either an early adopter of N.F.T.s or had plenty of discretionary Ethereum. Last year, as N.F.T.s exploded in popularity, the price of CryptoPunks rose to astonishing heights. I asked Calderon how many CryptoPunks it cost to buy the building in the center of Marfa that’s now the Art Blocks gallery.
When Calderon launched Art Blocks, in November, 2020, he wasn’t sure if people would be as enamored of the idea as he was. His previous projects had found limited success; he and his friend ended up selling only around a thousand L.E.D. bracelets. The first piece he listed on the site was the Chromie Squiggle, which he still thought of as less of an art work than a proof of concept.
Art Blocks’ smart contracts are structured such that the platform gets ten per cent of every transaction, including resales on the secondary market, while artists receive a five-per-cent royalty. “Everyone was, like, ‘Oh, you’re making so much money, you must be so happy,’ ” Calderon said. “Nobody at Art Blocks enjoyed August. It was awful. It felt like we were getting trampled by speculation.
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