2021 is the year that NFTs have gone mainstream.
An NFT, or a non-fungible token, is technology that's built on a blockchain that certifies a digital asset. NFTs have been used in the digital collectables space through companies like NBA Top Shot, which lets you buy and sell player highlight videos and digital trading cards.
NFTs have also been used to sell memes like the "Disaster Girl," who sold an NFT of the popular photo of her looking at the camera while a house burns for $500,000.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold an NFT of his first-ever tweet for almost $3 million.
NFTs have struck a particular chord in the art world, where digital artists are finding new ways to sell their creations — with some works fetching millions.
Beeple, a digital artist, sold an NFT art piece at Christie's for $69 million in March, which was seen as a watershed moment for the industry.
A digital avatar known as a CryptoPunk sold at Sotheby’s for more than $11.7 million earlier this month, and in May a group of nine CryptoPunks sold for almost $17 million at Christie’s.
Now a new group in Chicago is taking NFT art from the virtual to the physical world with a new gallery dedicated to the emerging art.
Dubbed imnotArt, the brick-and-mortar space is Chicago's first physical NFT art gallery, founder Matthew Schapiro says.
It's holding its official grand opening Thursday night, when it will showcase pieces from digital artists around the world.
The space, located at 1010 N. Ashland Ave., will showcase works of NFT art imnotArt has curated on its virtual gallery on Cryptovoxels, where it's been housing NFT works since March.
Schapiro, his co-founder Chase McCaskill, and six others on the imnotArt team launched the virtual and physical galleries to help connect the NFT art community and amplify their work.
The group hasn't made any money from the pieces yet, but eventually imnotArt plans to work with artists to launch new pieces, house their works, and make a commission from the sales.
Schapiro said pieces that imnotArt has featured have sold for as much as $20,000.
"NFTs are going to be a fundamental, game-changing technology in terms of how assets are bought and sold in the future," Schapiro said. "Art NFTs are the evolution of how the traditional art world is working."
Schapiro said one advantage to selling digital art is that the artist can get a cut of sales each time the piece changes hands.
"It's a better way to authenticate and track and trade an asset, while including the artist in the compensation," he said.
There are just a handful of physical NFT art galleries around the world, and even fewer in the United States. Schapiro said imnotArt's advantage is its online and real-life presence, making the art more accessible to the masses.
"It's a hybrid physical, digital experience," he said. "We want the gallery experience to be immersive and engaging. We see an opportunity to be really educational."
imnotArt, which is currently only doing showings by appointment, has signed a multi-year lease on the Ashland building and eventually plans to open the space to the public.
Schapiro said Chicago has an emerging NFT art scene.
"We love Chicago. We think it can definitely be a hub for this type of stuff," he said.
"What we’re looking at with NFTs right now is a massive digital art boom," said Adam Sarkis, the co-founder of Chicago and Milwaukee-based Spree, an NFT platform. Spree is among a new crop of startups that have launched alongside the NFT space. It lists its own digital art collections and is working to become a place where people can turn their social media content into digital assets.
Earlier this year as interest in NFTs spiked, collectors and crypto experts wondered if we were entering a new art boom.
"What a moment," Sarkis said. "The last few months, the way it’s exploded — it's absolutely insane."
NFT art sales have come down from their highs this spring. NFT art sales are down from their seven-day peak of $176 million on May 9, to $8.7 million on June 15.
Even still, Schapiro believes NFT art is here to stay, and the technology will continue to make its way into other verticals as more people become aware of its uses.
"I think the average understanding of what an NFT is and what it really means is really surface level," he said. "We believe in the technology. Art is just one example of what NFTs can do."
