From populist ‘immersive’ digital light shows of VanGogh and Monet, to highbrow digital artists like Krista Kim’s NFTs of immersive spaces–accessed only via virtual reality–a hunger for art that hits us full on and transports us is being fed by the art world with verve.

At the vanguard are creators like Kim of the futuristic tech company (0) –pronounced zero– and their Orb, pictured above. Orb, which has the sleekness of a luxury car turned giant kazoo, is designed to become a social space that hosts high fidelity immersive content. Price of admission: purchase it as an NFT, and get an ownable, navigable space that connects to the metaverse. The creators envision a system where people can see and share 360-degree content and have a social experience, including Kim’s own immersive environment that is airdropped to Orb owners, and the owners own video content. Hoping to become as ubiquitous as Play Station or Xbox, Orb is being road tested now. Its creators think 5 years from now artificial intelligence glasses will be mainstream, and technologies like Orb will become commonplace. Content for vehicles like Orb is being created by leading digital artists, to be minted as NFT’s, and will replace the current 2D art experience in most metaverses with high fidelity immersive content.

Why do we hunger for the metaverse’s alternative reality and for immersive art experiences? Perhaps the pandemic, which had us siloed at home and interacting digitally, has us questioning the value or importance of real-life experiences. But while we all live on our smart phones, we still come home at night to eat and sleep. Has the ‘social’ in social media convinced us we must try to be ‘everywhere all at once’ in order to exist anywhere? And was I the only person who found the movie Everything Everywhere All the Time, the darling of the Oscars, like being put through a sensory meat grinder? The metaverse is a meeting place between the physical and digital worlds where some of the most exciting ways to integrate the two will be made by today’s and tomorrow’s artists. But if the objective of these artists is to make the immersive virtual environment more ‘social’ and interactive as we go from 2D to high fidelity, will we simply become even more isolated in what is, and will always be, a fiction? Will we become even more siloed in the digital world, but not even know it?

Please tell me that a quiet, soul sustaining, proactive experience of viewing art in the real world will always be part of life as we know it.

Community Service with IFDA at ABC Wellesley

What do twenty design world vendors and contractors know about making life better for a very special group of academically gifted women high school scholars of color?  It turns out a lot!

My long association with the International Furnishings and Design Association bloomed into the New England chapter’s largest pro bono community service project to date. As VP of Community Service for IFDA NE, I worked with a dream team of 20 design world contracts and vendors who undertook improvements to the dormitory of ABC (A Better Chance) Wellesley, home to a very special group of young women of color who live there while attending Wellesley High School to prepare for college and eventual leadership in America.

Jacqueline Becker Fine Arts Consulting Services donated artwork for their study hall and for the newly created multi-user bath that replaced one out of commission for years. In a home with 6 teenagers and two resident advisors, that new bath was very much appreciated!

A special shout out to IFDA members who have stepped up to lead this effort: Kevin Cradock and Dan Wilson of Cradock Builders and Jessica Chabot of Katie Rosenfeld. And heart felt gratitude to the entire team: Pat Bryson of Bryson Electric, John Speridakos of Cosmos Painting, Richard Siegel of Stanhope Framers, Matt Clark of Clark Fine Art Services, Jim Lavalle of Lavelle Systems, Beezee Honan of Designer Bath, Jon Moss of Installation Plus, Jeff Pomeroy of Light New England, Joe DiMare of Art of Tile and Stone, Manny Makkas of Makkas Drapery, Lauren Hamilton of August Interiors, Tom Skinner of Skinner Demo, Brian Spellman of Metropolitan Cabinet and Countertops, Ken DeCost of Materia Millwork, Diego Olivera of Oliver Wall Plastering, Kyle Tripp of Simple Home, John Nicholas of Oasis Shower Doors and Cheryl Savit of Savvy Words. It takes a village…

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The Bad:

Predictably, COVID induced the biggest recession in the global art market since the financial crisis of 2009.

Total sales of artwork across all platforms—on line, auction and gallery venues—was down 20–30%. None the less, most dealers managed to offset lost sales with reduced expenses from canceled art fairs or exhibitions. Gallery and auction staff lost their jobs, but the most powerful global art dealers actually had their best year ever, a disparity similar to the global fallout from the pandemic that disproportionately devastated those with less power.

While the nascent world of on line art sales remained roughly unchanged from 2016-19, in 2020 on line’s speed, convenience and competitive pricing was bolstered by lock downs to post an increase. This was especially true for on line auction house sales, where Christies, Sotheby’s and Phillips posted record breaking on line sales increases of almost 400% from 2019. But while deep pocketed auction houses managed to control losses, many small galleries closed.

Winners and Losers: In July 2020, Pop art mainstay Wayne Thiebaud’s “Four Pinball Machines” was sold via on line auction by Christies Auction House for $19.1 million, double the artist’s previous record.

The Good:

All those on line sales came with an industry wake up call benefitting art collectors who have been turned off for years by the coy price hiding strategies of traditional galleries and art fairs. The biggest impediment sited by art collectors to making a purchase has been lack of easy access to pricing information. On line sales that generally post prices remade that playing field. The average price of a work of art purchased on line in 2020 was $5000, considered entry level cost, but an increased percentage of these buyers were millennials, who just might be the future market movers.

Across the United States and the world, museums have begun to address the reckoning with racism and inequity the pandemic laid bare.
Just a few examples of how:

• “Promise, Witness, Remembrance” reflecting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor, at the Louisville Kentucky Speed Museum: http://bit.ly/rememberingBreonna
• While museums sat empty and exhausted working parents homeschooled children, The Museum Computer Network (MCN) stepped up to create an exhaustive list of 100’s of virtual museum resources http://bit.ly/virtualmuseumresources which equalize access to culture and enrich students lives.
• The very design of museums is being rethought to address issues of accessibility and hygiene once we return in person, including cues from banks and movie theatres prompting the creation of the immersive drive thru museum: http://bit.ly/museumredesign

“Gogh by Car”, a drive through Van Gogh exhibit in Toronto last July, designed by artist Massimiliano Siccardi with soundtrack by Luca Longobardi, provided a completely immersive experience of Starry Night and Sunflower from the safety and comfort of your car.

The Really Weird: A multiple choice question situation.

NFT’s are:

1. Non-Fungible Tokens
2. A form of crypto currency
3. A new way of buying, selling and investing in art or other digital assets where the currency, not the art, is unique and unforgeable.
4. A marketing stunt proving there are too many people with too much money who are running out of attractive investments.
5. All of the above…*

If you haven’t heard about NFTs yet, you will soon. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique assets minted on and authenticated by blockchain. They can be used to establish ownership of anything digital. In March Jack Dorsey sold the NFT of his first tweet for $2.9 million. Christies Auction House just made headlines by selling the NFT of a digital work of art by Beeple (I hadn’t heard of him either) for $69 million.

I think it’s safe to say there’s a gold rush going on here as art collectors seek to get in on the ground floor of what might be the future of the very concept of ownership and art investment. At the very least, NFTs are a diabolically disruptive force in the art market. Blue chip artists like Damien Hirst are jumping in, shamelessly but aptly entitling the body of prints behind his NFT’s
“The Currency”, an accurate moniker given the $22.4 million he racked up.

If NFTs embody a new form of commerce, there are some aspects which feel decidedly familiar. It is techno savvy financiers, not art dealers, who have created this marketplace for investing. And much like old school art investors who would relegate their latest purchases to a vault for safekeeping, the “art” for which the NFT authenticates ownership often never sees the light of day. One could ask if it ever really existed at all.

* Yup, you guessed it.

“Everydays: The First 5000 Days NFT, by Beeple (AKA Mike Winkelmann), the first purely digital artwork sold at Christies in March 2021 for $69 million

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Whether rendered overnight in an organic rush or methodically over time, by iconic artists or people who do not even identify as artists, protest art always seeks to bear witness, inform and provoke public discourse.

Here are a few iconic examples, starting with our present moment and going back to Picasso.

Cece Carpio and Trust Your Struggle Artist Collective, Mural, Oakland CA, 2020

In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Carpio and her artist collective were among the hundreds of artists who took to the streets in the US and across the world to create murals protesting police brutality and supporting Black Lives Matters. On her Instagram page featuring the mural, Carpio quotes scholar Cornell West: “Justice is what love looks like in public”.

Ai Wei Wei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995

In 1995, the pro-democracy Chinese artist Ai Weiwei had photos taken to record him dropping a 2000 year old ceremonial urn. Like current cell phone videos of police brutality which take on a life of their own, it was the photos of Ai’s act that live on to convey and endlessly reenact a pivotal moment that fosters political and social discourse. By shattering the cultural and symbolic value others had invested in this revered object, Ai provoked outrage which he countered with the repressive Mao regimes own words: the only way of building a new world is by destroying the old one.

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974-1979

Seeking to amend the history of world civilization by honoring 999 woman (there ended up being only 998 because Kresilas the male Greek sculptor got included by mistake!) Chicago arguably created the most enduring feminist work of art of all time. It certainly is one of the largest, a triangular shaped table running 48 feet along each side, with table settings replete with “butterfly vagina” imagery that continues to provoke and inspire at the Brooklyn Museum, NY, where the piece is on permanent display.

Jacob Lawrence, Struggle: From the History of the American People,1954-56

Before Judy Chicago sought to rewrite world history, Jacob Lawrence sought to rewrite American history, making room for women, black people, Native Americans and a plethora of unsung heroes central to the founding of America. Thirty small egg tempura paintings retell the founding of American democracy from the Boston Massacre of 1770 to the aftermath of the War of 1812 from the point of view of the most celebrated black artist of his day. Painted at the dawn of the civil rights era, today Lawrence is simply recognized as one of America’s greatest artists, period.

Picasso, Guernica, 1937

Possibly Picasso’s most famous painting, Guernica depicts the Nazi bombing of the small defenseless Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. Painted in monochrome tones evocative of the newspaper from which the artist first learned of the atrocity, Guernica spread it’s anti-war message by touring for decades across the US, Brazil and western Europe. It was eventually returned to Spain in 1981, where it remained so polarizing it needed to be displayed under bullet proof glass at one time. It endures as one of the most indelible anti-war images of all time.

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