The world’s first NFT registered as a ‘work of art’ is Atatürk’s photograph
The negative copy, combined with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s photograph that he gave to journalist Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın 70 years ago, became the first non-fungible token (NFT) to be registered as a work of art by a state.
The NFT Atatürk image received a registration certificate from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, signed and presented his photograph to the journalist Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın to be printed in the newspapers when he did the first interview with him after the Battle of Gallipoli.
Also a poet, writer and journalist, Ünaydın served as Afyonkarahisar Deputy Speaker for the second, third and fourth terms of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, as Secretary General of the Presidency and as Ambassador. Ünaydın also allowed Osman Atilla, a poet and writer like himself, to take the picture of the gifted image.
Osman Atilla, who published the negative copy in some local newspapers in the 1950s and early 1960s, gave it to journalist İbrahim Küçükkurt before his death. Then Küçükkurt handed the negative image to journalist Onur Bayram in 2007. Bayram kept the negative version for 14 years in a specially made box so that it would not be damaged by light, moisture and time.
He created the digital artwork by transferring the negative image to the computer during the COVID-19 lockdown and juxtaposed it with the positive version. Transforming the new image into NFT, Bayram said: “NFT artworks have become popular during the pandemic. Simply put, NFTs can be explained as digital additions to artworks. I converted this historical photograph into NFT named ‘Photo1918.'” Bayram added also to the fact that he wanted to create such a project with a fear of deformation of the negative image, with the aim of perpetuating it.
Bayram emphasized that color negatives can lose their color in 30 years, and said there is a risk that all negative photographic images could be erased over time.
He also prepared a website in Turkish, English and German to tell the story of the photograph.
“Hundreds of thousands of photos, videos and similar digital images are converted to NFT every day. However, the NFT Atatürk photograph stood out from millions of other NFTs. For this reason, I applied for registration to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Directorate-General for Copyright last year and received the ‘Registration certificate for works of art.’ Thus, the NFT for Atatürk photography became the first work in the world to be certified as a work of art,” he added.
