Art Brussels 2022 | NFT Speaker Series | How did we get here?

During the 38th edition of Art Brussels, our partner Parallel organised a series of talks extra muros in collaboration with iMAL (Art Center for digital cultures & technology), the leading New Media Art Center in Brussels.

The goal was to immerse the Art Brussels professionals and visitors into various aspects of NFTs, unpacking, exploring, critiquing and harnessing the constellation of concepts that form this new and fast moving space. By bringing together major players of the contemporary art worlds and crypto/NFT experts, they will use this opportunity to build bridges between these two worlds.

In this video, we present the first talk of the series:

HOW DID WE GET HERE? A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLOCKCHAIN ART AND NFTs

Taking a broad perspective, we will explore the historical forces that have led us to the creation and adoption of NFTs, as seen from a cultural and anthropological lens.

Talk by Pierre-Yves Desaive – Art Historian, Curator Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Pau Waelder – Writer and Senior Curator, Niio
Joan Heemskerk – Artist, JODI
Moderated by Nicolas Wierinck – Co-founder Parallel

Pierre-Yves Desaive is an art historian specialized in digital media art, curator for contemporary art at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, and professor at the National Superior School for Visual Arts (La Cambre, Brussels). Former president of the Belgian section of the International Art Critics Association (AICA), former member of the Digital Art Commission of the Ministry of Culture, he regularly publishes in the national and international press, and is the Belgian correspondent for Flash Art.