TOKYO: During the pandemic, Tokyo tattoo artist Ichi Hatano’s typical business has dropped, but he’s eager to mine a new source of money at Japan’s first crypto art exhibition. Hatano’s ink depicting Japanese folk creatures was particularly popular with international visitors until COVID-19 forced Japan to seal its borders to tourists. Hatano’s creations are now available as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), virtual objects that have taken the art world by storm.
“Having a new market offers up a lot of opportunities for artists,” said the 44-year-old, who has five digital artworks on display at the Tokyo show, which debuted last weekend.
Ichi Hatano’s Japanese traditional tattoos are now available as digital artworks safeguarded by blockchain technology. AFP/Philip FONG/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/
NFTs turn anything from paintings to memes into virtual collectors’ items that can’t be replicated, thanks to the same blockchain technology that powers cryptocurrency.
They’ve exploded into the mainstream this year, and they’re now exchanged at big auction houses, producing hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly transactions.
Hatano said the creative process is the same even if his familiar canvas of human skin has been replaced with pixels.
“This is the birth of a new economy, a new way to value art,” he told AFP, adding that he hoped the technology would allow artists like him to reach a bigger audience.
At CrypTokyo, Hatano wants to receive roughly $1,400-2,400 for digitized replicas of his well-known Japanese folk art tattoos. AFP/Philip FONG/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/
His piece is one of 150 NFTs on show at the “CrypTokyo” exhibition in the trendy Harajuku neighborhood of the Japanese capital.
The works, whose NFTs can be purchased online using the Dai and Ethereum cryptocurrencies for values ranging from a few hundred dollars to about US$50,000, are shown on screens on the walls. Hatano anticipates earning between $1,400 and $2,400 for each of his deals. Maxim, the vocalist of the British electropunk band The Prodigy and a recent convert to NFT art, has some of the most expensive works. “A PART OF EVERYDAY LIFE” Any digital creation can be traded digitally as an NFT, letting artists to monetize their work by providing buyers bragging rights to unique ownership – even if the piece can be infinitely replicated online. GIFs and home films, among other aspects of online culture, have been auctioned off for large sums of money. When an NFT of one of his works sold for US$69.3 million in March, the American digital artist Beeple became one of the world’s three most valuable living artists. But, according to Yasumasa Yonehara, a 62-year-old artist who is exhibiting at the festival, there is still a long way to go before crypto art becomes a standard in Japan. “In Japan, NFTs are infamous for selling famous people’s tweets for astronomical sums, and few people know what it’s truly about,” he stated.
CrypTokyo organizers hope to dispel some of the skepticism about NFTs, according to artist Yasumasa Yonehara, who believes Japan has been hesitant to embrace crypto art. AFP/Philip FONG/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/
In March, an authorized copy of Twitter creator Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, the first ever on the social media platform, was sold for US$2.9 million.
Sascha Bailey, the exhibition’s 27-year-old curator, agreed that Japanese purchasers are still wary of the format.
“Many people’s concern with NFT art is, ‘How do I live with it, how do I connect with it in my daily life?'” According to AFP, Bailey, who manages the international sales site Blockchain Art Exchange, “At least in the proto-stages, what we’re seeking to accomplish here is show how this can be part of your everyday existence.”
Some of the digital pieces on display at CrypTokyo have augmented reality elements that come to life when seen on a smartphone screen. AFP/Philip FONG/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/AFP/
During the three-week exhibition, there will be talks with artists and some of the static sculptures will include augmented reality aspects, which will come alive when viewed through a smartphone screen.
Botchy-Botchy, a 48-year-old French artist, sold his first NFT at the Tokyo event.
“The true benefit is that the artist receives royalties from each selling of the token,” he explained. And “that’s actually a new phenomenon” in the art world. Bailey considers Beeple’s big sale to be a “exception,” and believes that the value of NFTs lay in their ability to encourage broader creativity. “Perhaps (Beeple’s sale) was necessary to demonstrate to the mainstream art world that it is a competitive market… When it comes to assisting smaller artists, I believe crypto art is the most impactful and important “he stated
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