🎨 Metaproof Art

Hey friends, this is Sophia from 🎨 Metaproof Art, the weekly newsletter where we keep you informed on how the metaverse and web3 are changing the art industry. 

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💌 A quick thanks to our friends…

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📲 By the numbers

Ever wonder who the top-selling NFT artists are and what the numbers might be? (Source)

• At $291,732,674.58, PAK is the highest-grossing artist in the world of NFTs. Little is known about the artist, as they have remained anonymous throughout their time in digital media.

• Until PAK surpassed him, Beeple held the record of highest-selling NFT art. Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold for $69,346,250.00 at a Christie's auction house session.

• SNOWFRO, artist and founder of generative art platform Art Block, has his total artwork value sitting at $71,428,522.72.

📫 News & trends

⌚ Takashi Murakami x Hublot launch latest project as part of long-term metaverse collaboration

Celebrated contemporary artist Takashi Murakami and timepiece maker Hublot have released a 13-piece collection of unique NFTs alongside physical watch counterparts as their latest collaborative project. This is what went down and details that emerged from the event unveiled at a private event at the Glass House in New York on February 2:

• The Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami Black Ceramic Rainbow watch features Murakami’s famed smiling flower motif created from gemstones including rubies, sapphires, amethysts, tsavorites, and topaz in varying shades. It will arrive with its very own token, inspired by 1970s video game aesthetic. 

• The other 12 watches and NFTs will be debuted during the Watches & Wonders Geneva 2023 exhibition in March.

• The project is the fourth artistic venture for the duo. Their collaborations offer a tight-knit community exclusive benefits and rewards, yet for this initiative only holders of the 324 NFTs that the brand issued in April 2022 will be able to purchase one of Hublot x Murakami’s new Classic Fusion models.

👩🏻‍⚖️ Hermès defeats Metabirkins in the first NFT trademark trial

The much-publicized lawsuit between Hermès International SA and digital artist Mason Rothschild over the sale of MetaBirkin NFTs has come to a conclusion, with the jury ruling in favor of Hermès and awarding the company $133,000 in damages. Here’s what we know so far:

• The jury found that Rothschild's NFTs were not protected speech under the First Amendment, a decision that could influence pending and future NFT cases that test the line between art and consumer products. Rothschild had argued that his NFTs were works of art protected by the First Amendment.

• The verdict raises important questions about the role of NFTs in the art world and the extent to which they can be regulated, finding a balance between protecting the rights of artists and safeguarding the interests of established brands.

• Physical Birkin bags range in price from $12,000 to close to $200,000. Rothschild first sold the NFTs for around $450 each, but their resale value skyrocketed to tens of thousands of dollars.

Stay tuned for further updates on this case and its impact on the NFT landscape.

🌟 Why AI artist Refik Anadol was the real breakout star of the 65th Grammy Awards

In recent years, the use of AI in the art world has been on the rise, and Refik Anadol has been at the forefront of this trend. The Turkish-born artist and architect recently made a big splash at the 65th Grammy Awards, where he created the mesmerizing backdrops for the event. 

The Grammy backdrops, which consisted of swirling hues of crimson, fuchsia, cerulean, and violet, are part of Anadol’s ongoing series “Machine Hallucinations—Space and Nature,” drawing on a massive dataset of over 300 million publicly available nature images, processed through software created by the artist and his studio.

The 38-year-old media artist’s use of AI to create large-scale installations has been gaining traction in the art world, with his work - blending architecture, data, and AI - being featured at prestigious institutions such as the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In another significant development for Anadol, his NFT collection recently sold for a combined $5.06M in Hong Kong, making it the most valuable single artist NFT collection sold in Asia. 

🎌 Netflix Japan is drawing ire for using AI to generate the background art of its new anime short

Controversy surrounds the release of Netflix Japan's latest project, The Dog and the Boy, an anime short generated using AI and thus has led to debates about the role of technology in the anime industry. Some details to consider:

• On January 31, Netflix Japan revealed the short on Twitter as a joint animation outing by the platform’s Anime Creators Base initiative, anime producer Wit Studio, and AI development firm Rinna.

• The three-minute film is about a robot dog’s search for its human owner, the titular boy, against a futuristic backdrop. A brief visual explainer tells how the anime’s backgrounds were developed using Rinna’s AI tech.

• The use of AI has sparked a strong response from some insiders, who argue that the use of algorithms takes away from the human touch that makes anime so special. Animators have pointed to the industry's labor shortage as a result of inadequate compensation, not a lack of available workers.

• Among the notable criticisms is one from Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli co-founder and a vocal opponent of generative AI in the anime space. 

🎨 Rare artworks by Picasso and UAE royal family member to be auctioned together

The Rare Antiquities is making high-value art available to everyone, regardless of their budget, by fractionalizing works of art and distributing the fractionalized pieces as individual NFTs. As the first platform to fractionalize a Banksy and has lined up live fractionalised auctions throughout 2023 for art and antiquities valued at over $1B, The Rare Antiquities will kick things off this year by hosting one of its first auctions on February 12. This will happen at Sama L Ain Gallery in Dubai, marking a major milestone for the platform. 

The fractionalization of art has been argued to be inaccessible to some as well as too complex to understand, but it’s a fascinating take on what lies ahead for art. 

✨ Pixel Perfect: Artists explore the new frontiers of technology

The art world is constantly evolving, and in recent years we have seen a major shift toward digital and virtual art. The rise of NFTs has been a major contributing factor, providing a new way for artists to monetize their work and for collectors to invest in unique, one-of-a-kind pieces.

NFTs have been around for almost a decade, and in that time we have seen some impressive sales. In March 2021, Beeple's The First 5000 Days became the most expensive NFT ever sold, fetching $69M at a Christie's auction. Since then, it’s been both the good and the bad for NFTs: a recent cooling off due to uncertainty around crypto, the perception of NFTs as overpriced cartoon images, and yet immersive environments like Lightroom showcasing the works of established artists like David Hockney. 

🧸 China’s latest digital collectibles platform teams up with art toy brand TOPTOY and singer Betty Wu

Art toy brand TOPTOY has collaborated with singer Betty Wu and digital collectible platform Mints to launch an art toy phygital collection, where customers can purchase the art toy offline initially. The item arrives with a QR code that can be scanned to access a wearable digital collectible (same as the one their toy figure is wearing), marking a growing trend in China’s collectible art toy space and redefining the collector culture in the country through infusing elements of the metaverse and web3 as well as the thriving Chinese fan culture through Betty Wu’s presence. The collection is available to purchase via TOPTOY’s WeChat mall, Tmall, and in offline stores for $30 or 195 RMB.

🏃‍♂️ Quick hits

• Web3 company Yuga Labs - known for Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and Meebits - has added another piece to its Punks Legacy Project. One of the CryptoPunks, #110, will now be on display at the Centre Pompidou, one of Paris’s premier contemporary art museums.

• The metaverse may heavily impact gaming company Electronic Arts’ health in the future. Thus life simulation game The Sims may be their huge asset in this context, continuing to be their most popular and oldest franchises. They are currently working on the next game in the series, believing it can grow as big as Roblox or Fortnite in the future. 

• North Wales art collective ink. Gallery in the UK - where founder Rob Bebbington incorporates the world of NFTs and the metaverse in his creations - will showcase well-known contemporary artists alongside up-and-coming, regional artists. 

• VR and immersive technology have taken center stage at Ithra, Saudi Arabia, where the Cycle 2 cohort of the creative program showcased 10 prototypes, eight of which were projects led by Saudi women.

• Heterosis, a new series of digital artworks and an immersive metaverse experience by Mat Collishaw, will see participants cultivating and breeding virtual flowers that grow in a hyper-realistic metaverse “greenhouse.” It is a digital recreation of a grandly decorated wing of London’s National Gallery, abandoned and reclaimed by nature. 

💸 Finance buzz

• Accenture announced a strategic investment in growing hologram company Looking Glass Factory, which has developed an end-to-end holographic platform, with a lineup of displays that can show content in life-like 3D, without requiring the use of headsets or head-tracking. (Source)

🗣️ Quote of the week

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All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.

If you are a startup building in the metaverse / web3 ecosystem and are raising capital, please reach out to Sfermion. Sfermion is an investment firm focused on accelerating the emergence of the metaverse.

Stay informed via our Twitter and Subscribe here to get your metaverse art news every Monday.