Mega Collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Enters the NFT Game – ARTnews.com

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, a major collector whose holdings range from Latin American art to conceptual art to video art, is getting into the NFT game. Using 3D scans, works from her collection, which boasts over 2,000 pieces, will be made into an NFT tarot deck, hence the name, NFTarot.

The first fourteen NFTarot cards in a 44-card deck are scheduled to be sold on LiveArt, an NFT marketplace, on October 6. Half of the cards feature works by Gustavo Perez Monzon, a Cuban artist whose geometric drawings and installations made with wires and thread are credited with bringing conceptual art to his homeland. The other seven cards feature works by Glenda León, a Cuban artist known for her video art.

A portion of the royalties from the NFT sale will benefit the artists who created the original works, while the majority of the sale’s proceeds will be used to support her eponymous foundation, known as CIFO, in its commissioning and grant programs for artists.

The sale will inaugurate Cisneros’ new initiative, eDigital.ART. In a release, eDigital.ART is described as a “new NFT initiative [that] connects collectors to works by artists represented in the renowned Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection.”

“The collaboration with eDigital.ART builds on my lifelong mission to advocate for Latin American artists and raise global awareness of their practice,” Fontanals-Cisneros said in an email to ART news. “Not only can we expand the range of collectors for these artists through the NFT format, but we can also strengthen the impact of the critical support that CIFO provides to Latin American artists around the world and directly support artists through the ongoing royalties made possible by NFTs. “

It’s a new way for Fontanals-Cisneros to extract value from her collection without having to sell her prized works, which include the likes of John Baldessari and Olafur Eliasson alongside the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vik Muniz, as well as Lygia Clark and Luis Camnitzer. In 2018, she announced that she would donate around 400 works from her collection to the Spanish state, but that deal was canceled after a change of government. Earlier this year, Fontanals-Cisneros partnered with Ars Electronica to create a new grant program to support Latin American artists working in technology.