thegeepee

Serra. "Art for the most part, is about concentration, solitude and determination. It's really not about other people's needs and assumptions. I'm not interested in the notion that art serves something. Art is useless, not useful." One of the greatest artists of our generation passed away, and I have seen an endless stream of posts about his art and his importance. That is cool and all, but it does make me question what we value in the NFT space as art. If so many people recognize the value propositions of Serra's art and acknowledge the importance of doing art at that level of commitment and, most of all, with a profound understanding of the history of art and how to propose something within that context, then why don't we hold all the art in the NFT space to those same standards and values? We argue fu** the institutions but yet we all know the importance institutions had in Serra's construction of an artistic voice. Seems confusing and, most of all, discouraging for artists dedicated to art at the highest levels when looking at what is being promoted as the best art of the digital era and not seeing any consideration for the values they hold their art to. In order to build a solid movement within the NFT space we need to move away from commercial values and move towards the acknowledgment of the importance of a set of values that have centuries of examples and visible and documented progressions. We should all try to implement just a tiny bit of those values and we actually have a chance of making artistic propositions based on the art and not on the chains, the tools and the shiny objects they make (with or without the collectors), or the floors of the works. For NFTs to become a thing and not just an echo chamber of commercial transactions, we all need to bring the values that the other 90% of the art world considers as important for art to be art. Yes, let's leave out the dirty mechanics of the traditional art world (but assume we are not saints in the NFT space), and let's actually build something based on the ART. ART that builds value because of the importance of the ART and how the subject matter, the conceptual propositions are challenging our understanding of ART. This might make us the revolutionary space we all want this space to be. This is absolutely doable.