ART MARKET How African artists benefit from NFTs

Spotlight /Art Scene / Africa

June - August 2022

AFRICA

CHRISTINE XUEREB SEIDU founded Christine X Art Gallery in 2004 after a university degree in Art History and Anthropology. She has returned to Malta after a year in Ghana where she explored African art and culture.

CHRISTINE XUEREB SEIDU

AFRICAN ART IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE OF NFTS

Guest at ART X Lagos’ NFT Exhibition ‘Reloading...’ - Image: Courtesy of ART X Lagos

Crypto-artists have been profiting from their NFT (non-fungible token) artworks since 2014, following Kevin McCoy’s first minted NFT ‘Quantum’ artwork, which sold for 1.4 million US dollars at a Sotheby auction. While the history of NFTs is captivating, endless opportunities are in the pipeline, especially for digital artists, and this has been especially so for African artists who now have an added platform where to sell their content to a global audience.

Spotlight /Art Scene / Africa

June - August 2022

AFRICA

Continued

A-FIL-LIATION-2-2021, Angéle Etoundi Essamba. Image: Courtesy of Cameroon pavilion, Venice Biennale 2022 I n October of 2021, Nigerian artist Osinachi (Prince Jacon Osinachi Igwe) was the first contemporary African crypto-artist to sell his work, a series of 5 NFTs ‘Different Shades of Water’, through Christie’s (in collaboration with 1-54 African Art Fair at Sommerset House in London). Made entirely through Microsoft Word, his work was inspired by the work of David Hockney and sold for 68 thousand dollars, even less than the sale of the painting ‘Becoming Sochukwuma’ which he sold for 80 thousand dollars earlier in the year. This artwork depicted a black dancer in a tutu.

Art X Lagos, West Africa’s largest art fair, also had an NFT art presence with the exhibition ‘Reloading ...’ at its last fair in November 2021 in partnership with SuperRare. Osinachi, co-curator of exhibition, was once again present at his home city together with Nigerian multidisciplinary artist /photographer Niyi Okeowo and Nigerian digital artist Abdulrahman Adesola Yusuf (aka Arclight.jpg). Together with other NFT artists from the African continent and its diaspora, they displayed an NFT wave throughout the continent. Ghana was represented by Nyahan Tachie-Menson and Senegal was represented by Linda Dounia. East Africa was represented by Rwandan digital artist Mucyo Daniel Dylan (MDD) and North Africa was represented by the self-taught artist, researcher and cultural worker Youssef El Idrissi. Rendani Nemakhavhani (aka PR$DNT HONEY) and Thapelo Keetile represented South Africa, whilst Zimbabwe was represented by Canadian-based artist Moonsundiamond. A Jamaican artist by the name of Idris Veitch was also one of the participating artists.

Osinachi spoke of great success selling NFTs on the crypto art market, even mentioning the return on investiment for those buying his work to sell soon after. This was also the case for a 19 year old Zimbabwean artist YKHulio who sold his artwork featuring HipHop star Drake eating pasta from one of his award plaques, together with his father and son, for 10 thousand dollars and later seeing it listed for more than 50 times that amount. Art X Lagos’ founder Tokini Peterside talked of problems they encountered when it came to African art collectors trusting the future of NFTs so they created talks on NFTs for the Art X Talks programme hoping to get people to understand it better.

Despite the usual African art collectors having to deal with the unknown when it comes to the future of NFTs, the opportunities for African artists in the global marketplace when it comes to the digital art market passes the level of success in the traditional art market by far. When in the traditional art market African art sales accounted for only 1% of the 50 billion dollar global art market, the African NFT market already exceeds that proportion. This is why we are now seeing so many digital artists of African descent minting their art on several NFT platforms as well as a rise in African digital art communities, which serve as platforms to promote collaborations, share resources, challenges, ideas and online events to help up and coming artists. These

Pool Day II, Osinachi. Image: Courtesy of Christie’s Images Limited 2022

include the Kenyan NFT club, the Nigerian NFT community, the Afro Future DAO, the Network of African NFT Artists, Black NFT Art, African Digital Art and the Africa NFT Community.

South African art world is now entering the NFT space with Latitudes’ first NFT offering, the Out-of-Africa collection at their online art fair. This online art fair, which started during the Covid lockdown after the physical fair was hampered by the pandemic, has a curated selection of just under 50 South African artists which include some of their top NFT artists- Phumulani Ntuli, Musa Nxumalo, JP Meyer and Lerato Lodi. This is only the beginning of NFTs and we are likely to hear of so much success from African artists in the near future. We could only keep an eye out and watch the success of the African NFT artists mentioned together with other top creators like Anthony Azekwoh, Paul Ayihawu and Odion Tobi from Nigeria and Rich Allela from Kenya. If you are at the Venice Biennale this year, do check out Cameroon’s first ever pavilion, which is also the Venice Biennale’s first NFT Art exhibition, with the Cameroonian artists being Francis Nathan Abiamba, Angéle Etoundi Essamba, Justine Gaga, and Salifou Lindou.