Eiendom will sell tribute art for the benefit of CARE – Billboard
David Bowie was one of the first musicians to realize how much the Internet would change the music industry, in a way that could give artists more control over their own work. Now the estate of the singer, who died in 2016, plans to sell some of the first NFTs for an iconic legacy.
On September 13, the David Bowie Estate will launch “Bowie on the Blockchain,” a sale of NFTs created by multiple artists, the estate announced today. The sale will take place on the online NFT marketplace OpenSea, with the property’s proceeds going to CARE, the humanitarian nonprofit organization run by Bowie’s widow. I am a acts as global spokesperson. The NFT sale was developed in collaboration with We Love the Arts and film producer Joaquin Acrich, and the artists involved include FEWOCiOUS, JAKE and Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot.
“There was a huge visual component to everything Bowie did, and he was a painter and an art collector,” says Andrew Keller, co-founder of We Love The Arts, as well as artist manager and former record company executive. “So this is about going into this space and engaging with NFT artists in their world.”
To that end, Keller says, all the artists had the opportunity to use items from Bowie’s archive.
“The idea that today’s artists, using the latest technology, were influenced even in the slightest by David would have made him as proud as anything he would have created on his own,” said Bill ZysblatBowie’s longtime business manager, in a statement to Billboard. “And anyone who knew him knows that he would have been one of the early adopters of Web 3.0.”
In fact, Bowie co-founded the Internet service provider BowieNet in 1998 and displayed his own art, and eventually the art of others, on the website Bowieart.com. He also believed that digital media would give artists more opportunities to work independently and own and benefit from their own work. Late last year, Bowie’s estate sold his publishing catalog to Warner Chappell, although this NFT venture doesn’t appear to involve much in the way of rights to publishing or recorded music.
After a boom of about a year, music NFTs lost ground this spring as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell in value. Until now, most music NFTs have not involved the visual arts stars of the NFT world, the way the “Bowie on the Blockchain” sale does. “This was about engaging with the NFT artists in their world,” says Keller. “We didn’t want this to be anything other than creating something important.”
So far, most music NFTs have been created by EDM DJs or hip-hop or pop stars, and few legacy players have even experimented with the idea. Bowie will be one of the first, although his avant-garde sensibility and art world connections make him an appealing candidate.
The NFTs themselves are as diverse as the artists who created them, although they are all original and created as a tribute to Bowie. FEWOCiOUS, an NFT creator who has sold millions of dollars worth of artwork, made a seven-foot-tall statue of Bowie out of steel wire, cardboard and Styrofoam, complete with foam Martian rock – which is also found on the blockchain. The sculpture wears Bowie’s clothes – a ’90s suit and a pair of his painted Levi’s that FEWOCiOUS obtained from the singer’s estate.
“Many people see NFTs as just digital, but I wanted to create this with my hands, a sculpture that is connected to an image so that it can live in real life and on the Internet,” says FEWOCiOUS. “I don’t think many people explore the physical and NFT.”
FEWOCiOUS, a trans artist, grew up a huge Bowie fan — “My parents played him for me” — and was thrilled to hear the property was interested in collaborating. The estate originally asked FEWOCiOUS if the artist would be interested in painting one of Bowie’s suits, but FEWOCiOUS found the idea too nerve-wracking.
If “Bowie on the Blockchain” goes well, it could inspire other legacy acts and properties to explore similar ideas. “I hope it will encourage artists to do more with Web3,” says FEWOCiOUS. “A lot of artists see it as just another business avenue.”
