🖖👽 02 - Zero to Two

We are back at it. Building the foundation.

Nov 1, 2021

Last week we launched v01 of this community letter on what’s happening in art and web3. Thanks for all the kind notes and shares. You’re helping us make this better.

It’s really hard to keep a routine like this going.

But routine is so important in art and in life.

The habits we create stack to become the foundation for what we want to build.

This newsletter is the same thing — a routine that we collectively keep.

If you haven’t already - submit some links for next week’s newsletter to keep this routine alive!

A few of us are in New York for NFT.NYC. If you are here, make noise in our discord so that we can all link up.

In this week’s edition of the Art Brew we’ll read about:

interesting art and web3 news
notable tweets

Let’s get into it.

🎨 Art News

"It is a breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work," according to Jens Haaning, the Danish conceptual artist who accepted $84K for a museum commission and in return produced two empty canvases. Is this legal? Is it art?

Beeple’s back and wants to break his $69M record art sale. Will he do it? Christie’s expects to attract bids in excess of $15M for his new creation, “Human One" -- a seven-foot cube of LED screens featuring a humanoid walking with purpose through a shifting, shiny landscape. But is it enough to eclipse his landmark NFT sale?

Krew, Is That You? Don’t be fooled by the Krew’s mundane LinkTree account. Start exploring the visual architecture and you’ll very quickly find yourself challenged to decode the mysterious discovery of an alien object in March 2021. Abstract images and NFTs play a starring role in this weird and wonderful digital narrative, told courtesy of the Krew’s artist collective.

💎 Web3 News

Will Adobe’s New Photoshop Tool Solve the Question of Digital Provenance? Explore the new feature promising digital creators a verifiable (and wallet-linked) digital signature on their work, and wade into the debate as to whether or not open source has a say in industry standards.

Friends With Benefits (Podcast Recommendation). Author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss discusses Web3 in all its magical and messy potential, as well as crypto regulation pros and cons, and the untapped potential of the almighty Non-Fungible Token.

Feeling is Seeing: Sean Scully & Abstract Emotionalism. The BBC provides an intimate and honest look at abstract artist Sean Scully -- both the man and the work. Scully, dubbed "an artist whose name belongs on the shortest of shortlists of major painters of our time" by famed philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto, gets a closer look as readers are invited to his work, his studio, his mind, and his art.

How to Adapt your Web2 Job to a Web3 World. Wilson K Lee (@willxlee) of NFTs Made Easy offers a series of snappy and clear tweets in this helpful guide on how to transition your skills and work into ”the decentralized web of the future.”

A CryptoPunk sold for $500M. Or did it? Unravel what’s really going on for yourself in this brief snapshot of this bananas transaction -- theorized to be the result of a flash loan smart contract transaction in which the NFT owner sold it to… their own wallet.

Crypto-traded Art & Unrepresented Artists: More obstacle or opportunity? Don’t feel like reading? Listen to this podcast for more on whether or not Crypto Art is breaking down barriers (or creating additional ones) for artists.

What The Robots Are Up To: Uncovering Hidden (and Recovering Lost) Art Through AI Artificial Intelligence trained to replicate famous artists like Picasso ushers in a new age of technical understanding. Is this the future of art restoration?