Indian artists sell expensive NFT art. Are the galleries ready?

Karan Kalra, a 30-year-old multidisciplinary visual engineer, woke up to a flurry of emails, an unusual start to a seemingly ordinary day at home in Delhi. Just a day before that he had embossed his NFT ‘Dreamers’, an illustration of love for his dog Zelda enjoying a car ride. He had managed to sell a few pieces of art before, but he was still waiting for his first “big” sale. That day came in 2021. A sense of confirmation and triumph coursed through his veins as he realized that the artwork was bought for around 600 WazirX – an India-based cryptocurrency – valued at about Rs 80,000 at the time. Kalra hasn’t looked back since.

But what is NFT? It’s hard to explain these virtual digital resources without dipping your brain cells into a bowl full of technical jargon. In simpler terms, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are digital assets that use blockchain technology. It acts as an authentic proof of ownership of both digital and physical objects and is non-fungible, traceable and immutable. An NFT can be anything – an image, video, GIF, song or tangible object.

And what is something you can trust and must guarantee the authenticity of? Art. In the last two years, the Indian art industry and artist collectives have bought into the NFT idea. Be it Kalra’s Rs-2000 note paintings or Siraj Hassan’s ‘Caged’ series, ‘crypto art’ gives artists a new canvas – it’s digital, unique, non-transactionable and perfect for the Metaverse era. It guarantees that you have an artist’s original work because it comes with their digital signature. Artists who have used software to produce art for years had no way to ensure afterlife or exclusivity to a buyer. Crypto art has changed that. Now an NFT painting can hang on your digital wall and become yours. Signed, sealed, delivered – on the blockchain.

Kalra, who has spent many years as an artist for large companies, swears by the great wave of change NFT has brought to the art space.

“You always feel like a second-class citizen in art,” he says of life before NFT. He is not the only one.

Over the past year or so, a virtual army of artists has emerged from the invisible dungeons to claim their worth using blockchain technology. Artists no longer have to rely on middlemen or wait years to make their first sale. The advent of free-flowing digital creation such as NFT has democratized the art market for artists of all ages. “I’m selling art from a sleepy coastal town like Udupi! It’s a level playing field, says Shreya Daffney, a 29-year-old artist and architect, who has sold over 30 works of art in the past five years.

And when Christie’s sold Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” in 2021 for a stunning $69 million, making it the first NFT art to be sold by a major auction house, the crypto art industry both at home and abroad received its validation and boost needed.

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Art and the NFT artist

Vimal Chandran, 35, a visual artist from Kerala, started creating digital artworks alongside his analog artworks in 2010. His blind date with NFT in 2021 helped him scale his art to unimaginable heights.

“I had been working on a new series of ‘Folk SciFi’ and I remember stamping May 31, 2021 – my first ever NFT for sale. I was shocked to see that it sold within 24 hours, says Chandran of the artwork ‘The Arrival’, which re-enacts the characters from ‘Kuthira Vela’, a procession of three-decorated horses often seen during temple festivals in Kerala.

“With sparkling lights, balloons and colorful characters, temple festivals have always been fascinating to me since I was a little boy. As a child, these horses seemed enormous in size and I used to think of them as a giant spaceship visiting the earth,” he wrote about the artwork’s conceptualization, part of his elaborate ‘Folk SciFi’ series.

While art for Chandran is often a love letter to the place he grew up in and a tribute to his roots, Daffney uses art as a medium to vent, cope and celebrate, something driven by her mood. “I like to make narrative-driven art. Things you see every day but wouldn’t really notice. I often add choppy animations to give it some life, she says of the process. Daffney has been making art for as long as she can remember – her works are an extension of her mind space and personality.

In a serendipitous moment, Daffney’s artwork was the first to be sold on the WazirX platform when it launched last year.

Called ‘Chasing Sunshine’, the artwork was conceived on “a particularly difficult day” during the Covid lockdown.

Even for Kalra, the encounter with the NFT was gradual. Growing up, he always found it difficult to fit into conventional boxes. After studying animation, motion graphics and film in the US and working there for a few years, he returned to India after H-1B visa issues during the Donald Trump era in 2019.

Kalra was selected as a “spotlight artist” at WazirX in June 2021. Many of his artworks take months to complete, given the intricate details and Easter eggs he sprinkles in. A self-proclaimed Bollywood fan, one of his latest pieces has over 26 film references ranging from the classics such as Andaz Apna Apna and Hera Pheri.

“I’m a big chaos guy, which is also reflected in my artwork,” he says, talking about one of his most successful pieces, “Organized Chaos” — an isometric tribute to his hometown, Delhi.

But things are not all in the world of art. A futuristic rendering of the Rs 2,000 note is, according to Kalra, his most controversial artwork. MK Gandhi can be seen wearing a Bluetooth earphone and VR goggles while cryptocurrency swims in the background of the illustration. “The concept was to showcase the endless opportunities that lie ahead for India to move forward and take charge from the West in fields such as robotics, space travel and blockchain. The only roadblock I see is the money, hence the choice of a currency note,” he says.

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Are the art galleries ready?

New Delhi and Mumbai have been cultural hubs for many years now, and the contemporary art space has flourished since the 1990s. But the booming NFT industry has developed as an alternative for young artists who may not easily find their way into the traditional, high-walled galleries. NFTs make art accessible to a larger and virtual audience, paving the way for a generation of collectors.

“Since NFTs are new to our vocabulary, there is a buzz about them and the art they are associated with,” says Parul Vadehra, director of Delhi-based Vadehra Art Gallery.

But NFT art is not only about democratizing the art space and leveling the playing field for artists, it also has the potential to storm the mainstream art market. “Beyond the hype surrounding NFTs, we are seeing how digital technologies, especially blockchain technology, are helping to reshape how we buy, sell and even create and enjoy art,” says Jaya Asokan, Fair Director, India Art Fair. However, Asokan also pointed out how no medium is “better” than another, and it is important to promote diversity and dynamism in the market.

At the 2022 edition of the India Art Fair, Terrain Art exhibited works by NFT artists such as Amrit Pal Singh, David Young and Laya Mathikshara. They have developed unique artistic languages ​​that are new amalgamations of technology and art. Earlier this year, as an initiative to educate aspiring artists and discuss the future of NFT art in India, India Art Fair also held a talk ‘NFTTEASE’ with some prominent figures in the field.

Vadehra Art Gallery, a prominent name among the traditional art galleries in Delhi NCR, is yet to showcase any NFT artwork. However, Vadehra insisted that they would support any of their represented artistes if they decided to take the plunge into NFT.

Despite the accelerating trajectory of crypto art since 2020, the contemporary art space appears to be as “vibrant” as ever. “I feel nothing can replace the experience of seeing a physical work of art in person, it is intrinsic to making and viewing art,” said Vadehra, while acknowledging the importance of NFTs.

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NFT — art or money?

Amitabh Bachchan, Yuvraj Singh and Manish Malhotra all have one thing in common – they have launched their own NFT collections. In the past year, India has witnessed a bunch of emerging digital creators and thriving NFT marketplaces like BeyondLife.club, WazirX, Bollycoin and others.

A common assumption around the NFT art world is that it is a quick escape to fame and money. But is it for the art or for the money?

“My theory is that perhaps art became the alibi through which crypto became mainstream,” says Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, curator and faculty at Ashoka University.

But with a sudden boom in 2021, has the “NFT moment” passed?

Kalra agrees that certain aspects of PFP projects “have stagnated a bit compared to last year”, but the art side of NFTs, which Kalra and his fellow artists are “actively a part of, is still progressing steadily upwards”. On the other hand, Mopidevi believes that there is no definitive answer, since NFT is “so much dependent” on the ups and downs of the market, and a certain sense of stagnation right now could be washed away with a new wave waiting around the corner. . “One has to be familiar and also used to the changing pace of the market and how it is going to define and consolidate the NFT scene,” he says.

Mopidevi advocates much-needed critical thinking to understand the nuances of the digital art world. “The reason the world is going crazy over it, or how can crypto that wasn’t even legal tender in 22-24 months or less suddenly become mainstream? What is the relationship between the proximity of Meta launching itself and CryptoPunks selling out for half a billion dollars in the same period?”

He also acknowledges that NFT has paved the way for a diverse set of creators and created an artist-artist support system. Amrit Pal Singh, a visual artist, developed into an unofficial spokesperson for the NFT scene in India.

“When he sells, he also buys the work of other young NFT practitioners in India as a way of supporting them. This case is not an anomaly and is a common practice in the Indian NFT sector,” says Mopidevi.

For many artists when the pieces are down, the collector-artist relationship is often a driving factor. Arijit Das, the collector who bought Kalra’s most special artwork ‘Dreamers’, has developed into a good friend over time. Chandran also swears by the thriving community of makers and collectors.

Bengaluru-based Colors of India is one of the many NFT collectives operating in the country. It aims to educate and support young and aspiring artists. Seeing the overwhelming support and conversation around NFT on a global level encouraged Ramesh Gopal, the founder of the collective and a collector himself, to do the same for the South Asian NFT space.

Be it contemporary art or digital art, most creators and experts highlight art as the most important thing. Conversations about artistic factors rather than the economics of appreciation could keep interest and creativity flowing. But according to Mopidevi, there is something more significant than the valuation economy, it is the circulation potential of the NFT space.

“Today, someone sitting in a remote area of ​​Latin America can build artistic solidarity with someone in Delhi, without thinking about what those geographical proximities are,” says Mopidevi. All thanks to NFT.

This article is part of ThePrint Features Tracking Cryptonomy series. Read all the articles here.

(Editing by Neera Majumdar)