Now you can acquire NFTs of Frank Stella’s sculptures, like ‘Geometry XVIII’ (2022) pictured here, and print them in 3D. © Frank Stella and Artists Rights Society
The latest one involves getting into the world of NFTs, those non-fungible tokens that act as a certified digital property title thanks to blockchain.
The American artist has joined forces with the Artists Rights Society, of which he has been a member for years, to propose in a September sale 20 or so of his creations in the form of NFTs.
Some of these digital works, or “Geometries,” are inspired by some of the older, monumental sculptures by the American painter, seen as forerunners of minimalism.
For instance, the shape of “Geometry XXI” is reminiscent of the imposing “Fat 12 Point Carbon Fiber Star” that Frank Stella made in 2016.
Each NFT in this series will go up for sale on the ARSNL website for US$1,000, according to ARTnews.
They will be offered in editions of 100, an “affordable and flexible” way to acquire a work by Frank Stella, as Katarina Feder, founder of ARSNL and vice president of the Artists Rights Society, explained to the specialized magazine.
But that’s not the only advantage: collectors of NFT “Geometries” will also receive instructions on how to 3D print the sculptures of which they have a digital copy. Only they will be able to reproduce them as they see fit.
“If you want to spend US$100 printing a small one for your desk [or] US$100,000 printing it large for your lawn, you can do that,” Katarina Feder points out.
If the initiative may seem somewhat unusual, it is in line with Frank Stella’s constantly evolving style.
The artist used 3D printing to create the rounded sculptures in his “Scarlatti K” series. The octogenarian artist is the first to collaborate with the Artists Rights Society on its new platform, ARSNL.
The US-based organisation, which helps more than 100,000 visual artists manage intellectual property rights, sees the new project as a way to guide its members through the often nebulous world of NFTs.
The fees it collects via ARSNL provide creators with “technical and legal expertise to help [them] navigate the complex processes of NFT minting, promotion and the licensing of artists’ intellectual property on the blockchain and digital spaces,” as stated in a press release cited by ARTnews.