Interview with Akinyele
Q1. Please explain: what do you do?
A1. I run an art gallery call Gallery Renaissance based in Seven Sisters, a district in London noted for its vibrancy. It’s a microcosm of the world in North London and all that entails for creativity. For the time being, I’m concentrating on digital art but my aim is to apply the same principles to fine art (physical art).
Q2. Let us concentrate on the digital aspects first. You say that you run a gallery. Is it is physical gallery and why does digital art require a physical gallery?
A2. Yes. It’s a physical gallery. The simple reason for a physical gallery is that digital art shouldn’t simply be confined to a computer screen. I’m looking to expand the ways in which digital art can be appreciated. So I might put on a show for invited guests to view the works of an artist in which the guests could interact with the artist, ask questions and learn about the meaning of the work of that artist. Naturally, the show will be an all-encompassing event with music, wine, conversation, etc.
Q3. Digital art is not usually treated in this way. Are you trying to display digital art as conventional fine art?
A3. The answer to your question is a tricky one and some people might be offended by it but my basic premise is that not all digital art is “art” as recognised by the community of artists. When I speak of artists, I’m specifically speaking of those who have graduates of art schools or who have qualifications in associated fields like design and architecture. For instance, I would consider a fashion designer or a car designer to be an artist.
Digital artists who are outside these fields can generally take care of themselves without my help but the more conventional fields may find that my gallery provides a bridge between their world and the digital world.
So the answer to your question is: yes. I am indeed looking to treat digital art as fine art or, rather, I’m trying to encourage fine artists to become digital artists.
Q4. Would you exclude digital artists who don’t have a background in fine arts?
A5. By no means; my gallery will support anyone with a strong message, no matter what their backgrounds might be. I have to be bear in mind that some digital artists might not be comfortable with the idea of a gallery. If I feel that an artist needs support but is put off by the idea of galleries, I would certainly make allowances.
Q5. This naturally leads to the question: what are your criteria for choosing the artists you support?
There is one major criterion: does the artist have something to communicate? The other criteria are more practical such as whether the artist is willing to work with me.
Q6. When you say “something to communicate”, do you mean an aesthetic message or some other type of message like a political or social message?
A5. I mean primarily a message about the artist’s sense of the world. This could be a message about the artist’s own state of being, a political message or a social message. At any rate, it must make the viewer think. It can’t just be a pretty picture.
Q7. Isn’t that a tall order? If the artwork is not attractive to look at or it isn’t a well-crafted object, what is there to attract the buyer?
A7. This is the reason for the physical gallery. Let me explain. As far as I am concerned, the primary works of art are the artists themselves. Whatever pieces they produce and designate as “art” are therefore extensions of themselves. This is the only way in which to understand modern art. Since the time of Duchamp, art has merged with philosophy. So you might think of an artwork as an embodiment or a material manifestation of the artist’s philosophy.
The purpose of the gallery, if you wish to think of it in this way, is to sell the artist. Anyone believing in the artist can buy a piece of his or her output as a tangible connection to that artist. When the buyer exhibits that piece of art, it would be essential to convey something of the artist’s philosophy and the reasons for the creation of the piece. The piece cannot simply be appreciated in isolation; context is indispensable.
Q8. How will you apply these, in a practical sense, principles to digital art?
A8. My idea is to tokenize every piece of art that goes through the gallery. In the first place, I intend to make the digital art available to be available through any practical medium, be it on paper, as digital, on garments, etc. The number of copies will always be limited, say, to 100 per piece.
All these copies will be converted into NFTs. In the case of purely digital manifestations, the NFTs will be sold directly through the gallery’s marketplace. In the case of physical manifestations, each object will have its own QR code which will be tokenised and this NFT will also be listed.
Q9. Speaking of NFTs, aren’t you afraid that the NFT market is a bubble which might burst at any moment? You’ll be aware of what happened to the NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, no doubt.
A9. There is no doubt that the NFT market is still developing and many things can go wrong. I’m only dealing with works of art, not general NFTs. I think your question can be rephrased as: how to you create and maintain the value of your NFTs?
I cannot create value. It is the artist who creates value by being an interesting person with whom people want to be associated. This is why the artist’s message is so important. It is the message which will maintain the value of the art.
If the viewer does not believe in the message of the artist, the work of the artist will be compromised in the mind of that viewer.
So the service I provide the artist is to find the audience which is willing to believe in that artist. I believe that if a circle of appreciation can be created, sales will follow.
The same considerations do not apply to much of the NFT market. To take your example of the Jack Dorsey NFT, what exactly is the message that this piece convey? As far as I can make out, the Dorsey NFT was a curio, a rare object which is not sustained by any discernible philosophy.
Imagine the buyer of the Dorsey NFT displaying it is a glass case at his home, say. What thought might be excited in the mind of the viewer? Most likely, the only point of interest would be its enormous price. Does it say anything of Dorsey’s stat of being, anything of view of the world, anything of his opinion of the times? I would say not. That’s the difference between my NFTs and the general NFT market.
Q10. It sounds like you’re saying that there is a distinct category of art NFTs and the balance consists of non-art NFTs. Would this be an accurate description of your views?
A10. Yes. The fact that an NFT is a drawing, perhaps created by AI, does not make it a work of art. A pretty painting need not be a work of art. To be a work of art in the modern sense, the piece needs to convey more than what it can render in terms of paint or pixels. A philosophy must be associated with it.
You will find many digital artists who do not produce “art” with any particular message. They can be very successful if they have a large social media following. Buying an NFT from such an artist would enable the buyer to belong to the loose community created by the social media. The basis of this market is very different from mine.
Q11. I’m sure that you know about the recent crash in the crypto and NFT markets. Aren’t you getting involved in a speculative bubble or an unsustainable market?
A11. As I mentioned earlier, I’m in the business of setting artists, not NFTs. The concept of the NFT is just a medium for artists to reach new audiences. It’s a means to an end. The current NFT market was partly conceived as a medium for speculation, of quick turnovers and of making a fast buck.
I, on the other hand, am interested in permanence, of value, of the appreciation of what it means to own a piece of art. I expect my customers to have a certain level of interest in the artist as well as in the art. This is the purpose of the physical gallery.
If I were only interested in NFTs, I wouldn’t need the gallery and could just run the business through a website. I wouldn’t be trying to promote artists and their creative processes. These principles are generally immune from any boom or bust in the NFT market and so I don’t expect to suffer from speculative swings.
In fact, in the context of my plan, your question only has relevance for cryptocurrencies. Since all the transactions are in cryptocurrencies, the proceeds of sales and hence the income of both artist and gallery will depend on the stability of the cryptocurrency in which the sale takes place. So if the cryptocurrency collapses, everyone is going to be adversely affected.
The only remedy is to convert the cryptocurrency to real money as soon as convenience allows. If the cryptocurrency is gaining in value, there’ll be a temptation to hold it but my advice would be to convert to dollars in a rising market. It’ll be risky to tempt fate because a collapse could happen at any time until the crypto-markets settle down.
It must also be borne in mind that crypto-markets are not very liquid. So the bid/offer or buy/sell spread could be very large. As with all these innovations, the people supplying the tools are likely to get rich a long time before the users of the tool.
Nevertheless, if both the gallery and the artist exercise caution, I believe that the crypto-market can be successfully negotiated.
Q12. How do you intend to develop the gallery and over what time period?
A12. I’m working on a timeframe of 2 to 3 years before the gallery will be able to attract recognised names in the art world, both conventional artists and purely digital artists.
In the first instance, I intend to work with up-and-coming artists as well as with underground artists. For this, I will have an initial stock of digital art which will essentially be a pump-primer to get the show off the ground. The galley is intended to be an intimate arena in which the art can be viewed to best effect and so it’ll be an experiment to prove that my method is not subject to the vagaries of the NFT market. The objective is to prove that a physical gallery can be run on blockchains. I expect this phase to last a few months.
After that, I will invite newly-graduated artists to consider working with the gallery. In other words, I’ll approach the new graduates of the Royal College of Art, the Guildhall, the Slade, etc. to see if they might be interested in this new way of propagating their ideas and work. I see this phase taking about 2 years.
At the end of two and a half years, I would expect to have about 30 artists (with artistic integrity) signed up to the gallery. On this basis, I will expand to include the more established artists, whether they are specialist digital artists or conventional artists. This is because my business plan is not confined to NFTs. My aim is to tokenize all art, whether digital or physical, so that artists have more control and obtain fairer reward.
Q13. Can you actually run a normal art gallery on blockchains?
A13. Certainly. Not only is it possible but I think it’ll become the norm. For instance, if an artist were to come to me with a painting on canvas, the first thing I would do would be to create an identifier for the painting. This could be a certified photograph or a more detailed description. This can then be tokenized as the title deed to the painting. In other words, the title deed is recorded in a public ledger or blockchain.
Then all a buyer has to do is simply purchase the token (title deed) and take delivery at his or her own convenience. Conversely, if the buyer wishes to sell, he or she will simply sell the token without actually having taken possession of the physical painting.
Of course, such sales will not take place in the usual NFT marketplaces like OpenSea or Rarible. It’ll be analogous to selling a Tracey Emin on Ebay. The appropriate places to sell the tokenized title deeds would be on specialist sites like the gallery’s website. The seller will then be able to maximise the chances of getting a suitable price from other art lovers.