ADAM LINDEMANN tends to have quite good times.
He sold a group of radio stations for around $ 200 million just before the 2008 financial crisis, more than triple his investment. A painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which purchased for $ 4.5 million in 2004, sold for $ 57.3 million two years ago.
Now the son of the late billionaire George Lindemann, who made his fortune in cable TV and pipelines, has organized a conference during the Art Basel Miami Beach to explore how the blockchain, his latest obsession, can transform the world of # 39; art.
"Everyone talks about blockchain, but nobody really understands it," said Lindemann, 57, referring to technology that supports Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. "This is the right time to think about art and technology".
His half-day event, "The Art of Blockchains", took place on December 4th, just as the best galleries and collectors of the world gathered for the largest contemporary art fair in the United States, with over 3 billions of works up for grabs.
Blockchain technology has been a hot topic in the art market because of its potential to disrupt opaque commerce and give confidence to collectors who are concerned with buying fakes. Start-ups like Verisart already use it to record jobs and track their provenance, verifying authenticity and ownership. Another company, Codex, is working on an application that will allow auction bidders to pay with cryptocurrencies. Others offer fractional ownership of art through tokenised actions that minimize costs by circumventing traditional intermediaries.
Lindemann's conference – one of at least half a dozen blockchain events taking place around the Art Basel – brought together people from art and technology in its orbit, including the philanthropist Nicholas Berggruen. The main conversation was to present Lindemann and Jim McKelvey, who helped found the payments company Square Inc. with Jack Dorsey.
Emmanuel Aidoo, head of Credit Suisse Group AG's distributed accounting and blockchain accounting system, discussed the business of art and technology with Marc Glimcher and Dan Long, co-founder and chief executive officer of Artblx Inc., a platform of blockchain art.
Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, was to conduct a conversation about how art institutions see blockchain, with speakers including Stuart Comer, media curator at the Museum of Modern Art and artists Leo Villareal and Simon Denny.
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Mr. Lindemann, owner of the Venus Over Manhattan art gallery in New York, said he was an investor in several blockchain start-ups including Artblx, which predicts technology can upset the art world and create a new one.
"The blockchain will completely change the market," said Lindemann. "If it works, we can see millions of participants".
However, there are a lot of obstacles.
A blockchain is only as reliable as the data that compose it, said speaker Nanne Dekking, founder and CEO of Artory. "It does not improve information and should only be used in a public register by reliable partners."
Christie & # 39; s used the Artory Registry for his evening auction on November 13, when that of Edward Hopper Chop Suey sold for $ 91.9 million to become the most expensive piece of art recorded on a blockchain.
Concerns about accuracy can be alleviated if living artists cryptographically sign their work, said Dekking, creating an immutable and time-stamped record on the blockchain.
Overcoming the fundamental cultural differences between the world of art and technology will be another challenge.
"It's a bad marriage," said Lindemann, who will try to bridge the gap by focusing on something they both share: creativity.
The conference was to address the way in which blockchain technology can influence the artistic process. Kenny Scharf, who became famous in the years as a street artist alongside Basquiat and Keith Haring, was to be available to create an original work composed of more than 100 parts.
"Each participant will receive a piece," said Mr. Lindemann. "It's a metaphor for blockchain: it's meant to be shared." – Bloomberg
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