ARTS: THE NEW OIL MONEY

There have been two major shifts in the Art world that currently excite me about the future of arts. One is the massive shift from consuming physical arts to digital arts; and two, the plans to return various looted Benin Bronze artefacts to Nigeria.

From the rise of digital art to witnessing ancient original artefacts that were lost during colonization return to the shores of Africa, and here in Nigeria, these are interesting times for the arts.

Let’s begin with the future before we revisit the past. If you haven’t heard about it already, the most hyped of art sales driven in 2021 was non-fungible tokens (NFT’s); welcome to the age of new arts, quote on quote I call the new oil money.

But what is all this rave about NFT’s you may ask? Well, I’m here to decipher what we know so far. In May 2014, the first work to be associated with an NFT-type certificate was Quantum, an octagon-shaped animation by New York artist Kevin McCoy.

This happened three years before the term NFT was even coined. NFT’s are non-interchangeable units of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledge associated with reproducible digital files such as drawings, animation, piece of music, photo, or video with a certificate of authenticity created by blockchains. Think about them as unique items that you can’t replace with something else.

In the early months of 2021, interests in NFTs increased after a number of high-profile sales, and these digital art pieces are fast becoming part of our culture. Artistes, musicians and art collectors are minting millions worth of NFT art, but what does it all mean and what are these NFT’s and why are they worth millions of dollars? Is it just a fad or is this the future of the arts world? Let’s delve deeper…

In July, limited edition NFT of “Hunminjeongeum,” a book of the Korean alphabet created by King Sejong (1397-1450) in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) was sold to 100 buyers, each priced at 100 million, won $87,000. This project even won an award from The Tokenized Assets & Digital Securities Awards (TADS Awards). PUBLISH won the “Non-Fungible Token (NFT)” category award at the 2021 TADS Awards for “Hunminjeongeum NFT” project. Yes, the world is already handing out awards to encourage and nurture the growth of this industry. According to the World Economic Forum, by 2027, forecasts show that 10% of the world’s GDP will be tokenized with an estimated market capitalization of US$24 trillion.

NFT exchanges happen in cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Bitcoin and other specialist sites. Some of the most popular market places to sell your NTF work are OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, Foundation, AtomicMarket, Myth Market, BakerySwap and KnownOrigin, just to name a few.

Nigeria is not far behind, with companies such as Afen Blockchain creating marketplaces to trade NFTs (https://afenmarketplace.com/). The need for data security, legitimization and authentication of important aspects of Africa’s economy, demography and system cannot be overemphasized. The potential industries in Africa are prone to certain shortcomings such as piracy and dishonest transactions and are in dire need for new ways to plug the loopholes, thereby increasing general productivity.

AFEN is a Nigerian company with a solution to the problems of 3 key sectors within the African continent, namely real estate, arts and education relating to cryptocurrency.

Traditional auction houses are seeking to capitalize on the new phenomenon of trading NFTs. For example, one NFT artwork by a digital artist, Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, is credited for one of the most expensive NFTs ever sold. His masterpiece called “Everdays: The First 5000 Days.” sold for a whopping $69 million. The art piece features a collage built over 13 years, and Winkelmann started working on it in 2007, finishing in 2020.

His work was auctioned by Christie’s, the auction house, and was bought by crypto billionaire MetaKovan. This particular sale pushed Beeple into limelight, and has since then worked with large traditional brands like Nike and Louis Vuitton, and even musician, such as Katy Perry.

People are collecting these digital artworks just as collectors have collected physical paintings for years. While some of these NFTs have gone for extraordinary prices, a more down-to-earth version of a modern digital NFT is CryptoKitties. They are Ethereum blockchain games where users can buy, sell, even and breed digital “cats.” Every “cat” is unique (just like your real-life pet).

Public awareness in NFTs began with the success of CryptoKitties, soon after release, and the project went viral, raising a $12.5 million investment, with some kitties selling for over $100,000 each. NFTs are fast-growing to becoming a status symbol, as they have become popular amongst art collectors, celebrities and pop culture across the world. An example is the K-pop industry, with acts such as Kang Daniel, Leenalchi, Ateez, Jo Yu-ri and The Boyz all releasing NFTs of their songs or merchandise. Also, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dog, Steph Curry, and Lionel Messi, to name a few celebrities around the world, have either bought NFTs or created their own.

There are some NFT projects that dominate the market, such as CryptoPunks. Being the OG NTF collection, they are costly and only 10,000 CryptoPunks exist, making them rare and exclusive. They are often a status symbol in the cryptocurrency community. Simply put, they are very rare and the rarer an item, the higher the price. They usually sell for between $350,000 and $500,000, even though some fetch millions.

The most expensive Crytopunk, Cryptopunk 7523, was sold for $11.75 million at a Sotheby’s auction. This is aside from CryptoPunk 9998, which sold fraudulently for $530 million.

Even though this new technology is giving artists a chance to really cash in, there have been underpinning environmental and long-term value concerns, such as forgery, fraud and money laundering. This technology raises alarms from a money laundering and financial crime perspective.

To start with, NFTs are most often purchased with cryptocurrencies from online marketplaces. Cryptocurrencies are routinely exploited for malicious means, such as obfuscating the source of criminal proceeds, and despite transactions being traceable, more sophisticated criminal actors use a variety of techniques to disrupt investigations by law enforcement.

NFT purchases and sales are enmeshed in a controversy regarding the high energy usage, and consequent greenhouse gas emissions associated with blockchain transactions. A major aspect of this is the proof-of-work protocol required to regulate and verify blockchain transactions on networks such as Ethereum, which consumes a large amount of electricity. Ethereum alone is responsible for 96,200,000 tons of CO2 since its inception; this is equivalent to the combined annual carbon emissions of the 84 least carbon-intensive countries around the globe.

But how much of that can NFTs be blamed for? Joanie Lemercier, a French artist whose work is deeply tied to climate activism, has been working on steadily decreasing his carbon footprint by 10 percent each year. He and many other artists are concerned with the environmental cost of blockchains and cryptocurrency.

Other concerns are plagiarism and fraud in the NFT marketplace. For example, the BBC reported a case of insider trading when an employee of the NFT marketplace OpenSea bought specific NFTs before they were launched, with the prior knowledge they would be promoted on the company’s home page. NFT trading is an unregulated market that has no legal recourse for checking such abuses.

While the rest of the world is actively catching up in the world of digital arts, somewhere in Africa, specifically in my country, Nigeria, looted Benin bronze artefacts are being returned home. After years of pressure, Germany announced last year that an agreement had been reached to return hundreds of priceless artefacts and artworks that had been looted from Nigeria and were on display in German museums.

The Benin bronze articles were looted by British soldiers in an expedition in 1897, when the Benin Royal Palace was ransacked and burned. Dealers and shippers in Hamburg ended up distributing the artefacts across the West, which helps explain why Germany is home to so many of them.

Hamburg’s ethnological museum, Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), gave the looted objects a send-off exhibition, “Benin: Looted History,” which opened on December 16th, 2021. The show presented the 179 looted works in the museum’s collection, including not only bronze articles but also ivory and jewellery.

MARKK director, Barbara Plankensteiner, said “I want us to say goodbye to these works by once again honouring their quality and significance for a global history of art, while at the same time doing justice to their provenance as looted colonial property.”

Since the day they were looted, demands for their restitution have been made by Nigeria and other African countries. So, they were never entirely absent in conversations about their return, but perhaps not in the global media. Now, with the intense interest in the question of colonial loot, the focus has also turned to them.

Central for this shift in interest was the 2017 announcement in Ouagadougou by French President, Emmanuel Macron, to return colonial loot from French colonial museums. The Quai Branly Museum in Paris held a ceremony last year to mark the return of 26 looted objects from its collection.

A bronze acquired by the University of Aberdeen in 1957 was handed back to Nigeria last year. The artefact depicted an Oba (king) of Benin. The university approved the repatriation in March, and a handover ceremony took place in October 2021.

This noble act was commended by many and, according to Prof. George Boyne, the University’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor, the Benin bronze articles have become an important symbol of injustice over the last 40 years. “It would not have been right to have retained an item of such great cultural significance that was acquired in such reprehensible circumstances,” he said.

Although many of our artefacts ended up being sold to museums or private collectors, a ripple effect is happening and there is hope for most of the artefacts to return back home. Another example is the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C, which removed 10 out of 16 Benin bronze articles from display as a signal of its intentions.

The changing tides regarding restitution has begun, as the German government and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments announced plans last year to transfer more than 1,000 bronze artefacts from German museums back to Nigeria.

The most important collection, however, with up to 800 of the artefacts, is in the British Museum in London, where the government has denied the need for restitution. This ties in with a larger debate about taking responsibility for colonialism as a crime against humanity.

The Edo Museum of West African Art is currently being built across the street from the former site of the palace in Benin City, Nigeria to house the returned Benin Bronze artefacts. How exactly returned artwork is distributed between Nigeria as a nation state, Edo State as a federal unit, and the Oba (King) as heir of the former kingdom and representative of the Edo people, is still a matter of discussion. Frankly, this is not the Europeans’ concern. However, what the rightful owners do with their art is their decision, and should not delay restitution.

For the sake of art, I proudly return to the Valuechain Magazine with my monthly column, Shubox where I write about my journey towards discovering the stories behind the people and place in Africa. Thank you for reading.

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