For the last year, the digital art ecosystem has been abuzz with talk of NFTs. Digital artists, crypto entrepreneurs, and digitally-minded museums have moved to adapt to the potentially seismic shift brought on by the rising trade in digital artworks – in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – following the record breaking sale of Beeple’s Everydays at auction last winter. Since then, many artists have hoped to mirror Beeple’s success, while organizations as diverse as the NBA, the British Museum, and traditional investors have sought to present NFTs as a revolution – not just in how digital art is commodified, traded, and conserved, but in how cultural objects themselves are curated and consumed in an increasingly digital world.
Heralded by the COVID pandemic, the shift to virtual experiences isn’t going anywhere, but the jury is still out on how paradigm-shifting NFTs will be over the long term. The rapid growth of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, social media, and immersive technologies, coupled with momentous sales by digital artists, makes it clear that NFTs will be part of the cultural and financial technology (fintech) industries for the near future. But right now, there is no consensus on what role NFTs may play over a longer time horizon.
While there is still uncertainty, how are cultural organizations approaching NFTs, and what might they mean for the future?
At this point, many institutions are offering programming and engagement opportunities to help educate audiences on this new phenomenon. Other organizations, still suffering from two years of pandemic slump, have used NFTs as a way to generate buzz and revenue through the sale of digital assets. Lastly, several museums have begun acquiring NFTs for display within their collections.
With this in mind, let’s dive into some examples of how museums are starting to navigate the world of NFTs in order to educate the public, create new revenue streams, and engage their audiences.
NFTs as Topics for Programs & Lectures:
Source: MCA Denver
Considering the novelty of NFTs (and several sensational sales of these digital assets!) a number of museums have stepped into their traditional role as hubs for cultural and intellectual exchange in order to educate audiences on this emergent topic. From facilitating dialogues and holding informative lectures to offering instructional workshops on how to create, buy, and sell NFTs, cultural organizations have spearheaded a range of programming initiatives to help enlighten the public on NFTs:
1. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Sponsored by the LACMA Art + Technology Lab, this ongoing series of conversations, entitled “NFTs and the Museum,” includes a range of topics like the history and debate surrounding NFTs, their possible avenues for innovation and investment, and their potential risks for artists, consumers, and art institutes.
🔗 NFTs and the Museum Part 1: NFTs 101
2. Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum
In May 2021, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum sponsored and presented a panel discussion by various artists, curators, and digital entrepreneurs on whether NFTs were “a fad, or the future of art.” Considering the promises of blockchain technology for ensuring authenticity, the authors highlighted the possibilities of democratizing the arts by allowing relatively unknown artists, such as Beeple, to become internationally famous and overnight millionaires.
🔗 NFTs: Fad of the Future of Art?
3. New Museum
The New Museum’s program of events surrounding the possibilities for museums in the digital age promises many intriguing dialogues between artists, curators, and collectors who ask, “What can an institution become when it is organized with the network at its core?”
🔗 Speculative Values: Between the Institution and the NFT
4. Legion of Honor | Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are hosting a virtual talk in November that offers an analysis of NFTs and their potential ups and downs, drawing on the expertise of digital creators, art auctioneers, and crypto specialists.
🔗 NFT Mania: The Future of Art or Venture-Backed Experiment
5. Brattleboro Museum
In May 2021, the Brattleboro Museum hosted a workshop with artist, academic, and author Anne Spalter, who discussed how NFTs were disrupting the art market in good and bad ways and facilitating the rise of whole new forms of art.
🔗 An Introduction to NFT Art
6. Newark Museum of Art
On November 23, 2021, the Newark Museum of Art will host a free, virtual talk called, “NFTs and Art Explained,” which promises to provide an introduction to the topic for beginners, as well as cater its analysis to professionals in the art world hoping to understand the implications of digital assets in the future.
🔗 NFTs and Art Explained
7. Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver
MCA Denver is hosting a four-part virtual series of lectures on NFTs. Sponsored by Sotheby’s, the series promises to “detail the history of blockchain technology and explore the future of art in the digital world.”
🔗 NFTs: Putting the Fun in Non-Fungible Tokens
8. Bruce Museum
In “Separating the Myth from the Moment,” the Bruce Museum sponsored a discussion on the history of NFTs from a financial technology perspective, with a panel of software developers, privacy and copyright attorneys, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and digital art traders. The talk demystifies NFTs and analyzes their longer history, which, the hosts highlight, “has been emerging for some time.”
🔗 NFTs: Separating the Myth from the Moment
9. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The institute offered a Zoom lecture, hosted by art and technology writer, Jesse Damiani, and digital copyright and privacy lawyer, Sarah Conley Odenkirk, on how artists can tap into NFTs while protecting their rights as creators.
🔗 NFT WTF: Do I Need to Care About NFTs?
10. Albright-Knox Museum
Coming in early December 2021, the Albright-Knox Museum will give the floor to art historian and curator Tina Rivers Ryan. Dr. Ryan will discuss NFTs as part of the larger history of disruptive technologies, in the context of digital art developments since the 1960s.
🔗 NFTs and the Future of Digital Art with Assistant Curator Tina Rivers Ryan
11. Aspen Art Museum
As part of their “How to…” series of lectures, the Aspen Art Museum hosted Art Newspaper correspondent Anny Shaw in March 2021 to share insights and understanding on digital collectibles.
🔗 How To… Understand NFTs with Anny Shaw
NFTs for Fundraising & Revenue Generation:
Source: British Museum & LaCollection
In the art world, the majority of discourse around NFTs has thus far focused on educating industry professionals and stakeholders on the rapidly emerging synergies between software, encryption, and cultural objects, as well as bringing audiences into ongoing conversations about the future of art and tech.
There are signs, however, that NFTs may also become important revenue generation channels for cultural organizations. Indeed, there are also a handful of museums experimenting with NFTs as a mode of fundraising and monetizing digital collections:
12. British Museum
Coinciding with the opening of “Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything” (which will display 103 previously unseen prints by the Japanese master), the British Museum launched a series of NFT postcards of the artist's more well-known prints. On October 30, 2021, it was announced via a tweet that the 1st edition of Hokusai's "The Great Wave" sold for 10.6 ETH (approximately $45,000 USD).
🔗 British Museum enters world of NFTs
13. Uffizi Gallery
After a series of financially challenging years, The Uffizi has turned to minting NFTs of Renaissance masterpieces by artists such as Boticcelli and Michaelangelo to bring in much needed funding during the pandemic. Through a partnership with Italian encryption firm Cinello, the museum is able to create NFTs of famous paintings, which include a certificate of authenticity. Through the blockchain, this allows the museum and Cinello to continue making a portion of any profit each time the NFTs are traded. There is already clear interest from the art market: early in 2021, an NFT of Michelangelo’s painting “Doni Tondo” sold for €140,000 (approximately $170,000 USD).
🔗 The Uffizi Gallery Just Sold a Michelangelo NFT for $170,000
14. State Hermitage Museum
The Hermitage has likewise turned to its vast permanent holdings as a fresh source of revenue. Despite facing Russia’s strict anti-cryptocurrency regulations, the Hermitage recently announced an “auction of tokenised versions of several masterpieces from its collection—including a painting by Leonardo da Vinci.” This example offers an interesting case study for similar organizations working with crypto-averse governments or requiring additional degrees of authenticity for digital asset sales. A promising sign of the fundraising potential of NFTs for museums, the auction of a few of the museum’s tokenized works yielded a whopping $440,000 in Binance USD.
🔗 Hermitage museum mints Leonardo, Monet, Van Gogh NFTs to raise funds
15. Academy Museum
The recently-opened museum of cinema collaborated with artists Simon and Nikolai Haas to create NFTs inspired by its Future of Cinema gallery. The digital assets, which have been going up for auction since October 2021 on the NFT platform OpenSea, will feature the museum’s Pillar Award, which it presents each year at the Academy Museum Gala.
🔗 Academy Museum to Raise Funds Through Sale of NFTs
16. Whitworth Art Gallery
The Whitworth Art Gallery, in collaboration with Vastari Labs, recently minted an NFT of William Blake’s The Ancient of Days to help raise funds for local community organizations. This NFT drop was launched on an eco-friendly marketplace based on Tezos, and it has raised £30,000 (approximately $40,300 USD) for the community fund so far. The NFT is also going to be included in the Whitworth's 2023, exhibition "Economics: the Blockbuster" in 2023.”
🔗 The Whitworth gallery in Manchester mints a William Blake NFT
17. Universal Hip Hop Museum
On June 19th, 2021, the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx launched a special collection of NFTs in partnership with blockchain platform NEAR Protocol and celebrated illustrator André LeRoy Davis. These NFTs – called “Hip Hop Heads” – feature iconic artists from the genre’s history, which fans can now own a piece of. The implications of this go beyond creating digital keepsakes – this is also a step toward giving artists a space to be creative, while protecting their intellectual property rights through cutting-edge decentralized technologies. “We are doing this to spur the revolution,” The Source Magazine co-founder Ed Young said in a statement. “I’ve seen enough to know the signs: the next wave of Hip Hop is here, and it’s happening on the blockchain.”
🔗 Universal Hip Hop Museum Auctions Off Hip Hop Heads NFT Series To Honor 47 Years Of The Culture
18. National Art Museum of Ukraine
Highlighting the opportunities for smaller museums to draw in a larger international audience, a partnership has emerged between the National Art Museum of Ukraine and Estonia-based startup, STAMPSDAQ, to create NFTs from the museum’s permanent collections. Stakeholders highlighted the possibilities of using NFTs to strengthen regional ties and break down antiquated borders.
🔗 The National Art Museum of Ukraine has announced the release of an exclusive NFT collection in cooperation with Estonia-based startup STAMPSDAQ
19. Charles H. Wright Museum
In September 2021, it was announced that Ford Motor Company, the Charles H. Wright Museum, and BrandXR were partning to bring Detroit murals to the NFT market. This partnership has yielded a new NFT collection from Black Detroit artists.
🔗 Ford Motor Company, Charles H. Wright Museum And BrandXR Bring Detroit Murals To NFT Market
NFTs in Museum Collections:
Source: San Jose Museum of Art – Rashaad Newsome’s “Build or Destroy” (2020), video and NFT artwork commissioned by Museum
It’s clear that a wide array of players are entering the NFT space, either as creators, first time investors, or crypto-entrepreneurs looking to expand the possibilities of cutting edge technologies in the cultural space. There are further signs that museums are seeking to curate the present moment and the recent history of NFTs by bringing digital assets into their permanent collections:
20. Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
Apart from Beeple, most people following the past year’s digital collectibles trends will be familiar with the works of Eduardo Burillo, whose CryptoPunks series of pixelated “misfits and non-conformists” has been selling in various online auctions for multi-million dollar sums. Upon donating CryptoPunk 5293 to the museum, trustee Burillo said, “The CryptoPunks represent innovation in art, identity, and cultural archive. I am so pleased to support experimentation in ICA Miami's collection by contributing an important work that captures contemporary discourse and the evolution of artistic practice."
🔗 Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami Acquires CryptoPunks NFT Through Major Gift from Trustee Eduardo Burillo
21. San José Museum of Art
To add another layer of excitement to their 2021 Gala + Auction, the San José Museum of Art commissioned and premiered a new NFT work by Rashaad Newsome. After the gala, the piece became a new artwork in the museum’s collection and remained publicly accessible through their website.
🔗 SJMA Announces Auction and Virtual Benefit
As this list demonstrates, the emergence of NFTs is a source of excitement, potential, and uncertainty. Are we on the precipice of a widespread adoption of NFTs by museums? Or is all this buzz just another short-lived fad?
While this remains to be seen, it’s clear that the future of NFTs is unfolding before our eyes. We’re only beginning to explore what non-fungible tokens and digital collectibles may mean for the cultural sector – and such digital assets may very well play an important role in the future of museums.
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