Famous artists went anonymous to launch an NFT experiment
“What if a potential buyer had the option to buy art for art, sans the artist’s market value and buzz around the name?” asks a new NFT project called “The Pyramid,” which is launching an NFT series from anonymous artists. Artists who have exhibited at prestigious galleries such as the Louvre and the Guggenheim are represented in the Pyramid. The works are available for purchase through OpenSea since April 28.
A group of artists whose works have been shown at The Louvre, Venice Biennale, Guggenheim, and other prestigious institutions decided to challenge their self-perpetuating pursuit of recognition by completely removing names, genders, status, and other social assets—creating a collection of anonymous 58 pieces of digital art, each accompanied by an NFT certificate of ownership and authenticity.
According to Twitter and the official website, the project is managed by NFTMASTERS, who describe themselves as a collective of experts in the world of art, culture, finance, technology, law, and project management.
One day after the launch of the project, the number of people interested in the project can be judged by the number of Twitter followers. NFTMASTERS’s Twitter account presently has only seven followers, so it will be intriguing to watch if great artists’ work retains its value once the hype, recognition, context, and popularity have faded.
The artists’ identities are masked behind the moniker “The Pyramid,” and the drop is accompanied by a statement describing the idea. A pyramid of human needs, discovered by the artists in some type of ancient manuscript named “The Book of Pyramid,” serves as the collection’s beginning point. Each level of the pyramid corresponds to a certain one, such as instinct, fortress, heart, status, purpose, beauty, and glory.
Every artist in the group picked the “level” to explore inside this project and as a topic for their digital work. Simultaneously attempting to answer pressing problems such as how those desires evolve in an alternate digital universe. Could art also help us understand ourselves and our needs in a digital world? All of the NFTs have unlockable content that links to the source file used to build the artwork.
Curiously, Beeple, whose work sold for a whopping $69 million last year, is one of the few artists who the NFTMASTERS Twitter account follows. The casual observer might conclude that some of the artwork posted on The Pyramid website resembles Beeple’s style, but due to the experiment’s concept, there is no way to verify it for sure. Furthermore, considering that the painters are meant to be anonymous, this is most likely a hoax.
It is uncertain how well-known the artists engaged in this project are. However, if they have been shown at the famous museums mentioned by NFTMASTERS, this will be an intriguing topic to follow.
