written by Maurice Cardinal …
The Anomaly of OLD ARTISTS in Historic NFT Art Collections
It takes two things for legacy artists to be NFT collectable; Great Art! & Stealth!
In real life, artists with experience walk through your front door and sit at the head of your table with nary an invite. In real life, artists feel welcomed, and as familiar to you as family or friends. In the NFT metaverse however, almost everyone is anonymous on some level, and not as open as it first appears, especially to older artists. It’s one of NFT’s dirty little secrets.
It’s ultra-cool that artists are building what is amounting to thousands of NFT art cliques. At this stage though, it is still mostly an ideology artificially propped up by anonymous players, many of whom are creating havoc with trust and credibility, and doing it at the expense of others.
SHITPOSTING is the new CLICKBAIT designed to build followers based on the “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute” formula. They provide as little value as possible for the greatest return–to them, and as you can see below, they brazenly admit it. They share little, if anything of value and make a lot of noise doing it so it sounds like a party. No one is trustworthy.
As you can see, age discrimination isn’t the only challenge, but it’s a big one when you consider that such a vast library of practical and useful contemporary art knowledge has been amassed by this demographic. OGs already know the psychology of promoting and selling art. They also already have their own rosters of collectors, some who have been following and collecting their art faithfully for decades.
It’s a fallacy that traditional art collectors aren’t interested in NFT CryptoArt. Smart art collectors know that NFT is a marathon, not a sprint, and that when all the clowns leave the ring, the trap artists perform. Timing is everything.
Women, as you can see below, also have challenges–recently with anonymity.
The range of con artists in NFT communities is overwhelming. Greed does that to people, and shitposters know how to ramp up the blah, blah hype.
Back to our main event; OG means Original Gangster–a term of respect, but in NFT World it also means, Old Guy–sometimes the exact opposite of respect. When the context smacks of ageism, and it’s risky to use the word boomer, OG is the sly Go2. NFT Discord accounts often let boomer bashing slide depending on the mods and owners. It’s easy when you’re hiding behind a mask. Responding to it is futile and ends up with having to listen to a self-appointed influencer blame poor, older artists for causing the global financial crisis.
Stuff like this is a relatively common occurrence and rarely addressed except when someone complains, which most times is by the victim who was slighted.
IRL, NFT has been claimed, as have most new art concepts in history, by young artists–which is a good thing. Unfortunately, NFT has also been misappropriated by hucksters and shitposters who demonize experienced older artists. For con artists, OGs are dangerous because they recognize manipulation at the first cocked smile. Deceptive anonymous influencers, aka shitposters don’t want anyone hanging around who can easily recognize how the pump, grind, and dump works. Consequently, they play to the lowest common denominator.
Ironically, it was mostly Old-Guy Geek Gods who created the crypto art concept and NFT blockchain technology that now demoralizes older artists. The same creatives who have amassed decades of experience in the contemporary art business, and who have relationships with collectors that last entire careers.
IRL, boomer artists are vital for contemporary art. Yet, only a very select few are recognized for the impact that experienced artists make on society every day. All artists shape society and culture, but those with a long and storied history, leave a mark on our consciousness that is indelible and iconic, plus with a bit of karma, maybe even a modern unconscious archetype, like Jose!
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Jose Delbo is an OG OG that broke through the bias. It’s well deserved because of the contribution he’s made to the comic art world.
When did experience, full disclosure, and transparency become dirty words?
It’s an expected, accepted, and mostly welcomed right of passage for young artists to appropriate and develop new art ideas as their own. It’s a good thing because young new artists are the biggest risk-takers, and today especially, art is begging to be taken and reinvented.
A favored influencer strategy is to turn common words and expressions into buzzwords that only someone in a younger and eager demographic will have the time to figure out. For example, years ago the word competition became disruptive marketing, and in NFT lexicon recently, the carny-barker word SHILL, became the Holy Grail for promotion–until it wasn’t ten seconds later. NFT word-games purposefully keep most busy artists, who are often older, out of the loop. It’s code for SOTRWYFDOG-step off the ride when you feel dizzy old guy.
Experienced older players quickly recognize deception …
NFT was introduced as a pandemic panacea for the ills of the art world, and a way for artists to reinvent the art industry, and it still can be, but; Very quickly NFT turned into tech-talk shitposting designed to shout down anyone who even mildly disagreed with new ways to do old things. Overnight, pseudo-art also morphed into unregulated gambling for rich high-rollers pseudonymously shrouded in exosuits (fake identities) and behind avatar masks (more fake identities). It’s the polar opposite of CHEERS.
Today, no one knows your name Sam, how much you won, lost, or your culture.
When exactly, did culture become an anonymous commoditized concept?
Old Guy Art Critics are also boxed out. Legendary Pulitzer winner Jerry Saltz claimed on Twitter that he was smacked by a passerby on the streets of NYC for being critical of NFT.
Even though there are at least a third more traditional artists globally who identify as female (including amateurs), on the gamification side NFT avatars mostly ooze testosterone. NFT gamification btw, is another buzzword for unregulated gambling, aka PUNK and APE identities created by apps, not artists.
So far, NFT is primarily a younger artist and collector’s world–the 18-44 demographic. As such, it’s incredibly difficult to find legacy artists selling art successfully in the NFT market, at least not yet.
Consequently, when you discover painters like Lawrence Lee, a septuagenarian Tucson Arizona artist with over forty years of canvas experience, plus thirty in digital, it’s like finding a platinum needle lost in a field full of haystacks.
Several of Lawrence’s Fine Art NFTs are in the Metapurse Collection–owned by the same collectors who bought the $69.3 million Everydays Beeple that launched the NFT Art frenzy.
Will more OG OGs eventually stake out NFT space? It’s hard to say.
Maybe the real question is, will the NFT space even be around long enough for legacy artists to exosuit up and get in the game? Art collectors are also daydream-wondering if NFT scarcity will, like in real life, be affected by an artist physically passing into the NFT cloud in the great hereafter.
Seventy-three-year-old artist Lawrence Lee claims “The big thing about NFT is that it validates digital art in a way that will change the world.”
Hmm, visionary prophecy, or simply wishful thinking?
IRL, NFT still has more questions than answers.
