This week’s NFT Outliers
You know, these NFT artwork things just don’t seem to be going away. The NFT space doesn’t seem to be collapsing in on itself like my mother told me it would. On the contrary, I feel like I’m sitting on the back of an 1,800 pound bull and they are about to open the gate. (If you’ve never seen bull riding at the rodeo this makes no sense.)
There are myriad interesting things happening in the NFT space right now, and I want to share a few of them with you to start your week. If all goes well and the bull doesn’t crush my skull under his cloven hoof, expect a weekly kick-off and more content throughout the week. If there are more things you’d like to hear from Outli3rs, leave a comment or send us a DM on the twitter.
For the newcomer: first, the concept of a “Grail”
You’ve heard of the Holy Grail — Harrison Ford found it in 1989 in a cave right after that German guy aged 100 years in 10 seconds. While it was worth dying a comically horrible death for then, in the collector space it means something a bit less fraught with danger.
A “grail” or a “grail piece” typically means the best thing you have in your collection. You can assume most folks that own Bored Apes and Punks probably keep those as their grails.
Conversely, a “grail work” by an artist is their best, or best known piece. Leonardo da Vinci’s could be argued the Mona Lisa. Michelangelo’s could be the Sistine Chapel. Mine is the below piece by Tim Maxwell.
Welcome Quantum to the Curation Space, re: photography
Justin Aversano, the big brain behind Twin Flames (a grail???), and NFT profile haver, has released a new curation platform for photography called Quantum. This is a big deal for photogs, as the NFT space has close-danced with digital and generative art, but has been mostly chaste when it comes to photography. No more.
Quantum, as you can see on their website, promises to house the worlds finest photography collections, and only drop the sickest and slickest NFTs.
At Outli3rs, our perspective is that curatorial oversight is going to continue to take a bigger position in the ecosystem. Especially as new collectors with new funds come into the fold, there will be a massive gap to fill for tastemakers.
Evaluating Generative Art
This is a whole topic we are going to build education content around, but wanted to drop a few words here. There’s a running joke in community that if you can generate some trees and a river you can sell out whatever you put together. It’s not really wrong — Mark Knoll recently sold out his new piece in under 20 seconds.
We want to be clear though when understanding generative art (or any art, but particularly generative): you don’t find the song by dissecting the bird. This is, at its core, still art. But understanding cultural relevance, what the programming does, and how truly creative something is will go a long way in choosing the right pieces for you. We want to help you do that.
And finally, a shoutout to Tim Maxwell and TOOL
One last piece of hot news — Tim Maxwell’s collaboration with Nate Hill to create TOOL’s new poster.
We’ve loved TOOL since the first EP. And we also love Tim.
Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you next time.
