The Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork (Lacma) revealed at this time (13 February) a promised present of twenty-two artworks minted on the blockchain—a set that it says is the primary and largest of its type to enter an American artwork museum. The acquisition is courtesy of the collector who goes by the alias Cozomo de’ Medici and is allegedly the rapper Snoop Dogg, a longtime proponent of crypto and Web3.
Works by 13 artists from world wide make up the present and buy, and collectively inform a “consultant historical past of the cryptoart motion”, in accordance with the museum’s announcement. They embody synthetic intelligence (AI) artwork by Claire Silver; NFT (non-fungible token) images by Justin Aversano; and the primary main decentralised ebook minted to the Ethereum blockchain, Neil Strauss’s Survive All Apocalypses (2021). Lacma will even obtain works by artists together with Cai Guo-Qiang, the digital illustrator Yam Karkai, and John Watkinson and Matt Corridor’s CryptoPunks—the favored pixel-art avatars that had been among the many earliest examples of NFT artwork.
Monica Rizzolli, Fragments of an Infinite Discipline #923, Summer time, 2021, .JPG delivered as an NFT, Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, promised present of The Cozomo de’ Medici Assortment © Monica Rizzolli, picture courtesy of the artist
The acquisition displays Lacma’s curiosity in buying, exhibiting and conserving NFT-authenticated digital artwork, and its decades-long funding in artists who have interaction with expertise. Its Artwork + Know-how Lab, which gives funding and area to artists experimenting with new applied sciences, has roots in a programme established in 1967. Final June, the museum reiterated its assist of digital artwork with a brand new acquisition fund for such works by ladies artists, established by heiress and NFT evangelist Paris Hilton.
“For many years, artists have integrated expertise inside their apply, and the intersection of artwork and expertise has been central to Lacma’s programming because the 60s,” Lacma director Michael Govan says. “As one of many first museums to assist artists’ experimentation with expertise, it’s becoming that Lacma would obtain this primary museum assortment of blockchain artwork.”
Dmitri Cherniak, Ringers #962, 2021, .JPG delivered as an NFT, Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, promised present of The Cozomo de’ Medici Assortment © Dmitri Cherniak, picture courtesy of the artist
The gathering is known as after its donor’s pseudonym, Cozomo de’ Medici, a nod to the Italian banker and main Florentine Renaissance patron Cosimo de’ Medici. The self-described “grand patron of the digital arts” first emerged on the crypto scene in August 2021 and constructed a set of NFTs price greater than $17m. After gaining a following on Twitter whereas working anonymously for a month, the person promised to dox themself, and the id was quickly claimed by Snoop Dogg, who merely tweeted from his personal account: “I’m @CozomoMedici.” Whereas many imagine that the rapper—whose blockchain initiatives embody NFT artwork collections and his NFT report label—is the famed NFT dealer, others stay sceptical of the declare. An investigation by Vice suggests that the true Cozomo is a white man who has spent way more time in Italy than the Doggystyle creator.
Lacma didn’t reply to inquiries in regards to the donor’s id.
The Cozomo de’ Medici present significantly expands Lacma’s NFT assortment, which started in 2021 with a donation from John Gerrard, of an NFT of his iconic work Western Flag. The museum additionally owns on-chain works by artists together with Tom Sachs, Erick Calderon, Jessica Wimbley and Peter Wu.
“With this present, my purpose was to assist bridge the worlds of on-chain artwork and up to date artwork, which till now have existed individually,” Cozomo de’Medici mentioned in an announcement. “I’m thrilled to have these traditionally vital on-chain works contextualised beside many iconic artistic endeavors in Lacma’s assortment.”
