NFT art substituted technological novelty for artistic tradition and merit

Evidence

NFTs initially promised to disrupt the corruption of the art world. As Zachary Small observed, younger generations “embraced NFTs as a symbol of their own rising power in society and a definitive breaking point with older models of cultural production.” Where emerging artists once challenged established norms through aesthetics, now they would use technology to fight the system. But the NFT movement’s marquee moment—Beeple’s $69.3 million sale—epitomized its complete crassness. The transaction was less about creative merit and more about technological novelty. Beeple believed himself to be a true artist, but unlike his predecessors, he refused to learn much about the history of the medium. He admitted to The New Yorker, “When you say, ‘Abstract Expressionism,’ literally, I have no idea what the hell that is.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 729

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s counter-case work: the NFT moment may be the era’s actual signature Marx is circling — techno-crassness as a defining trait. — connects to: Modernity’s cult of novelty masks a sameness produced by industrial reproducibility. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 257
• SEED: The 21st century’s cultural signature could be art made by people proud of having no art history — worth arguing as a positive thesis against Marx’s ‘blankness.’