The Paris Center Pompidou breaks new ground by acquiring 18 NFTs

The Center Pompidou has announced the acquisition of a series of 18 NFTs from 13 prominent French and international artists. The works are set to join France’s National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, one that has acquired ground-breaking “new media” art since the late 1970s, including works by Nam June Paik, Valie Export, Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola and Vito Acconci.

The acquisition – the first of its kind by a major French public museum – came as a result of a joint effort between scientific and administrative teams from the French Ministry of Culture and Pompidou’s director, Xavier Rey.

“Web3 is an innovative territory that artists are now seizing to create original and daring work,” says Rey, “and this collection reaffirms our support for artists in their conquest of new modes of expression, which are the foundation of contemporary art.”

The new acquisitions span practices and cultures such as crypto art, plastic art, online art and generative art, the museum said in a statement

The artists whose NFTs have been acquired by Pompidou are Aaajiao, Emilie Brout and Maxime Marion, Claude Closky, Fred Forest, John Gerrard, Agnieszka Kurant, Jonas Lund, Larva Labs, Jill Magid, Sarah Meyohas, Robness, Rafael Rozendaal and John F. Simon Jr.

As part of the acquisition, Pompidou will take on Kurant’s NFT Sentimentite-Mt. Gox. Hack—one of Sentimental series produced in collaboration with the platform Zien, and based on the infamous Mt Gox. crypto exchange collapse in 2014 – which can be redeemed for a physical twin. Lund donated a work called Smart Burn Contract—Hoarder (2021), a code-based artwork that self-destructs if the instructions written on it are not followed. While Larva Labs, creators of the wildly successful OG NFT series CryptoPunks (now owned by Yuga Labs), donated CryptoPunk #110.

According to Greg Solano, co-founder of Yuga Labs. “See CryptoPunk #110 shown at the Center Pompidou, arguably the world’s most prestigious contemporary art museum, is a great moment for web3 and the NFT ecosystem, and we are honored to help drive this cultural conversation.”

Pompidou has not commented on the procurement budget, nor whether they have established a centralized wallet to store the NFTs, but data from the chain shows that CryptoPunk #110as well as Kurants Sentimentite-Mt. Gox. Hack, has so far not been transferred to any new wallets. The situation has even spawned some hilarious memes on Twitter.

However, the museum told The Art newspaper that full details of the acquisitions will be announced in April 2023.

Pompidou added that they hope the uniqueness of these digital goods will find a long, fruitful home in the museum, doubling down on the institution’s hope that NFTs will eventually help artists free themselves from the shackles of economic exploitation.