NFTs and Art: Can Blockchain Preserve Lost Art?
Can NFTs Save Art From Wildfires?
In every catastrophe, no matter how tragic it is, there’s always something good to be found among the bad.
This isn’t just about finding a way to justify or accept a catastrophe — it’s also a rational way to move forward.
During the Los Angeles wildfires, we lost David Lynch. Reports suggested that being forced to evacuate while already suffering from serious lung problems may have worsened his condition.
We lost homes.
We lost pieces of art.
We lost some faith in American insurance companies.
And no, of course, no one is suddenly going to rush to save the planet or seriously address climate change to prevent tragedies like this in the future.
That ship has sailed.
We also lost the belief that climate problems ONLY affect the less privileged — and somehow spare the wealthy.
But there is something good.
What we have here is yet another opportunity for NFTs and blockchain art — hey, OpenSea and Sotheby’s — to finally prove their value to the art world.
Yes, you may lose the original artwork, but at least you’ll still have the NFT.
Imagine this:
Sotheby’s and OpenSea establish a market for NFTs tied directly to physical artworks.
The NFT exists, but remains non-transferable while the physical artwork still exists.
If the original is destroyed — by fire, flood, war, whatever — the NFT becomes transferable.
Sotheby’s and OpenSea could charge a percentage of the current market value of the artwork for minting and verifying it.
Maybe they could even guarantee some kind of minimum value for the digital version later.
It might sound absurd.
And yes, if we’re talking about the current NFT market — it probably is.
Lol.
But maybe this is one way to preserve an artwork as something that continues to exist — not just in photos or memories, but as a verified digital object connected to the original.
A kind of digital afterlife for physical art.
Why not?
This also brings to mind Damien Hirst’s The Currency experiment, where collectors were given a choice:
keep the physical artwork,
or destroy it and keep the NFT instead.
Back then, it felt like an experiment about ownership.
Now, after wildfires destroyed homes, collections and artworks, it suddenly feels like a slightly different question:
What happens to the value — and identity — of an artwork when the physical object disappears?
Maybe NFTs were trying to solve the wrong problem.
Maybe digital ownership becomes interesting not when it replaces physical art
but when physical art is gone.
After all, an NFT is better than nothing, even if its value is 93.3% below its All-Time High price.
...your worst artist and best friend,
In every catastrophe, no matter how tragic it is, there’s always something good to be found among the bad.
This isn’t just about finding a way to justify or accept a catastrophe — it’s also a rational way to move forward.
During the Los Angeles wildfires, we lost David Lynch. Reports suggested that being forced to evacuate while already suffering from serious lung problems may have worsened his condition.
We lost homes.
We lost pieces of art.
We lost some faith in American insurance companies.
And no, of course, no one is suddenly going to rush to save the planet or seriously address climate change to prevent tragedies like this in the future.
That ship has sailed.
We also lost the belief that climate problems ONLY affect the less privileged — and somehow spare the wealthy.
But there is something good.
What we have here is yet another opportunity for NFTs and blockchain art — hey, OpenSea and Sotheby’s — to finally prove their value to the art world.
Yes, you may lose the original artwork, but at least you’ll still have the NFT.
Imagine this:
Sotheby’s and OpenSea establish a market for NFTs tied directly to physical artworks.
The NFT exists, but remains non-transferable while the physical artwork still exists.
If the original is destroyed — by fire, flood, war, whatever — the NFT becomes transferable.
Sotheby’s and OpenSea could charge a percentage of the current market value of the artwork for minting and verifying it.
Maybe they could even guarantee some kind of minimum value for the digital version later.
It might sound absurd.
And yes, if we’re talking about the current NFT market — it probably is.
Lol.
But maybe this is one way to preserve an artwork as something that continues to exist — not just in photos or memories, but as a verified digital object connected to the original.
A kind of digital afterlife for physical art.
Why not?
This also brings to mind Damien Hirst’s The Currency experiment, where collectors were given a choice:
keep the physical artwork,
or destroy it and keep the NFT instead.
Back then, it felt like an experiment about ownership.
Now, after wildfires destroyed homes, collections and artworks, it suddenly feels like a slightly different question:
What happens to the value — and identity — of an artwork when the physical object disappears?
Maybe NFTs were trying to solve the wrong problem.
Maybe digital ownership becomes interesting not when it replaces physical art
but when physical art is gone.
After all, an NFT is better than nothing, even if its value is 93.3% below its All-Time High price.
...your worst artist and best friend,
hEhe and my contemporary art criticism
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All text, photo, and video materials belong to their owners and are for demonstration purposes only. Please do not use them in commercial projects.
