Fractional non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which have the crypto community all agog, have the potential to make fine art popular among youngsters.
To be clear, fractional ownership of fine art doesn’t allow anyone to hang an entire painting in their home. Rather, NFTs have democratised popular works of art through fractionalism, whereby a collective can own a piece of art by dividing the cost. It thus allows each member of the collective to own a piece of the artwork, unlike earlier, when they had no other option but to watch someone else take it if they didn't have the money to buy it outright.
In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, noted British artist Sacha Jafri, an ardent believer in fractionalism, summed up its potential, “If you fractionalise a physical painting you can actually enable millions of people to own a fraction of that painting… but it's not really about owning a fraction of the painting. It's about being part of that community. That's the key.”
“If you can be part of an artist's journey then you're part of something much larger than the artist himself or the painting itself. You're part of the journey of that artist, and you're part of that community. And with that comes a lot of interesting benefits for both artists and collectors,” said Jafri.
Collective ownership and accessibility
Explaining the fractionalism concept, Arijit Mukherjee, founder of NFT marketplace Yunometa, says, “Imagine the joy and pride of NFT owners in being able to claim some part of a historic piece of work — Monet’s water lilies, for example. They can be proud owners of works that only art historians and an elite class had access to until now.”
Mukherjee says this will lead to more promising artists being discovered and artwork
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