For famous artist™Jeff Koons, NFTs (non-fungible tokens, indicating ownership of something as recorded on a blockchain) seem to be win-win:
Liftoff! Jeff Koons has announced that he will send a group of new sculptures to the moon later this year. Works by the world’s most expensive living artist are set to reach the earth’s only natural satellite in July and will remain there in perpetuity.
They are being sent on board a lunar lander known as Nova C, developed by the private American company Intuitive Machines. The spacecraft, which will be launched at the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, will touch down on Oceanus Procellarum, a region of the near side of the moon (the hemisphere facing the Earth). It takes an average spacecraft around three days to travel the 240,000 miles between the Earth and the moon.
Upon their landing, the sculptures will be permanently housed in a transparent, thermally coated cube. Further details of the works will be revealed via a dedicated website in the coming weeks, but only one Nova C lander carrying the works will be sent. With a load capacity of 100kg and measuring two-by-three meters, it is therefore unlikely that Koons’s lunar-bound works will be as large as his most famous sculptures.
Alongside this lunar expedition, Koons will also release his first group of NFTs as part of the project Jeff Koons: Moon Phases. [Kabir Jhala, The Art Newspaper]
Yep. He gets to put artwork on the Moon, which should be a PR bonanza, while still having the financial advantages of selling the artwork.
I suppose, at some point in the future, the then-current owner of the art could fly up to the moon and collect what he’s bought.
Maybe. First, Intuitive Machines has to get them there. I wonder if the NFTs are sold pre- or post- launch? And how valuable are artworks lost in a launch accident?
