The latest addition to the UK capital’s rising art scene is a gallery that exhibits physical non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The NFT Gallery, one of Europe’s first physical places dedicated to NFTs, opened its doors on Thursday in London’s “post-coronavirus” creative social scene to many art and technology enthusiasts.
For its inaugural exhibition, Surface Tension, technology entrepreneurs and founders Lynn Rosenberger and Lilien Hornung-Mary chose an all-female ensemble of NFT creators to “demonstrate that there was a space for women in art-tech.”
“We aim to change that by giving female artists the opportunity to be exhibited and thrive in galleries and private homes,” she says. Women’s works contributed for barely $4 billion — roughly 2% — of the more than $196.6 billion spent at auctions on art in the last decade, according to a 2019 analysis by ArtNet.
Ms Hornung-Mary and Ms Rosenberger, both graduates of the Istituto Marangoni school of fashion, are both Web3 industry enthusiasts who have already co-founded a fashion technology start-up.
Their inaugural show is “female-first” in order to demonstrate the “huge potential” of women in the art technology sphere. However, the NFTs available for purchase will not necessarily be gender-specific. Buyers can buy NFTs with cryptocurrency, fiat currency, or ordinary money, and the sales will be recorded on a blockchain, which is a digital ledger of transactions.
During exhibitions, people can scan QR codes with their phones or submit an online bid. TokenFrames can be purchased by collectors to display the NFTs in their own place.
The NFT Gallery’s launch in one of London’s most wealthy neighbourhoods comes as the market continues to heat up, making it a potentially lucrative venture for both collectors and speculators.
The goal is to entice Web3 purchasers by providing a physical place for collectors to “experience” the art, which is fundamentally intangible. A specialized learning area on one level of the 270-square-metre gallery, which is divided over two floors, allows visitors to learn about art and the crypto sector.
Their other “goal” is to “inform and draw people into the metaverse,” which includes panel discussions, workshops, and other “ed-hub” activities. The founders’ simultaneous focus on “curation and education” may be what distinguishes them from a growing number of actual NFT art places throughout the world.
Nonetheless, today’s exponential NFT surge, along with an increasingly unpredictable cryptocurrency market, has sparked concerns about the run’s sustainability and whether a bust is imminent.