Quick take:
- The collection will consist of NFT art made on Tezos.
- The collection will launch this summer in the form of a digital art gallery.
- British photographer Misan Harriman will focus on acquiring works by emerging artists from Africa and Asia.
The Tezos Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Tezos blockchain, has announced that it’s launching a permanent collection of NFT art minted on Tezos with a £1M fund.
The collection will launch this summer in the form of a digital art gallery and will be initially curated by Misan Harriman, the first Black photographer to shoot a British Vogue cover. Harriman is the chairman of the Southbank Centre in London, a complex of artistic venues.
Harriman will focus on acquiring works by emerging artists from Africa and Asia, which are underrepresented regions in the NFT community.
“The Tezos Foundation Permanent Collection will support and celebrate a new generation of artists that have chosen a smart contract-enabled path to be their true selves,” Harriman says. “As the first curator of this collection, I want to make sure the world sees the diverse voices that are making truly extraordinary work with crypto art. We will be the custodian for this new community of creatives.”
The Tezos Foundation was formed in 2017, a year before the Tezos network was launched. In the past year, Tezos has been making its presence known in the art world. Last year, it hosted an interactive art exhibition at Art Basel Miami that allowed visitors to mint NFTs. Tezos will be the official blockchain for this year’s Art Basel events in Hong Kong, Miami and Switzerland.
The launch of the Permanent Art Collection comes as the crypto market plummets to lower lows than the levels of the May 2021 flash crash. However, Tezos believes that NFTs can break down barriers in the art world, especially for creators in Asia and Africa, including countries like India and China, which have restrictive laws placed around cryptocurrencies.
“We’re thrilled to introduce this collection as a way to celebrate and garner additional awareness for artists of the Web3 world. This project, in collaboration with Misan Harriman’s talent and expertise, allows us to create a bespoke destination with the sole purpose of elevating digital artists who turn to Tezos for a sustainable way of sharing their work with the world,” commented Arthur Breitman, co-founder and early architect of Tezos.
The Permanent Art Collection celebrates the artists pushing boundaries in the NFT category and aims to increase awareness of blockchain technology across the art world by empowering the institutions and artists building on Tezos.
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