nft 7023209 1280

The New Art Collection: NFTs and Digital Art

Presented by ArtTable


Date & Time:

Saturday, April 23, 2022
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Location:

Theater


As the art world continues to develop amidst the ever-evolving world of digital art, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies, so too must the established habits of art collectors. The past several years have seen significant developments in the digital realm, both when it comes to digital art itself as well as purchasing art on digital platforms. NFTs have quickly become a mainstay in art world news, with new information and initiatives being announced on a regular basis. Artists are more frequently using digital art to address gender and minority imbalances in the art world; art fairs are launching digital viewing sites and permitting non-physical galleries to show at the fair; and NFT platforms are going green. Where years ago purchasing a work of art online might have been unheard of, now it is a common occurrence. Art, and how we access it, is ever-changing, and we are all just trying to keep up. In this discussion, we will hear from art advisor Claudia Worthington-HessChristina Steinbrecher, co-founder of Blockchain.art, a digital platform for artists and collectors, and Kelani Nichole, founder of TRANSFER, a gallery that explores the friction between virtual studio practice and its physical instantiation.

Speakers:

Claudia Worthington Hess, AAA (Appraisers Association of America), MBA is a certified fine art appraiser and art consultant located in the San Francisco Bay area, who works with museums and clients throughout the US and Canada on insurance, donation and estate appraisals. She grew up in the art world, working with her long-time art dealer mother. A Personal Property Appraiser with a MBA, she is fluent in French and German and conversational in Spanish.  She has lived and studied art and business in Paris and Munich and the US. She ran her own gallery for 5 years, and then she combined her art world expertise and business acumen to pursue certification in art appraising from the AAA/NYU program.  She started Hess Art Advisory in 2010.   She has worked with many collectors on their new media art collections, so when NFTs took the world by storm; she was ready to conquer yet another aspect of the market. She co-founded New Media Art Advisory, in March 2021 with offices in San Francisco and New York City to address NFTs and how they operate in the artworld.  She is writing a soon to be released NFT handbook for art lovers.

Serial entrepreneur Christina Steinbrecher-Pfandt brings more than 15 years of expertise in building art marketplaces to the role of CEO at Blockchain.art (BCA). Blockchain.art (BCA) is a blockchain-supported marketplace and e-commerce solution for galleries, museums and artists. Designed by art world professionals, for art world professionals, BCA makes transacting digital artworks on the blockchain intuitive and sustainable. She was the co-founder and executive director of the art fair Viennacontemporary in 2015, raising over $12 million and securing the fair’s position in the top 10 of must-visit art fairs on the global art circuit. Prior to ViennaContemporary, Steinbrecher-Pfandt was the managing and artistic director of VIENNAFAIR. Steinbrecher-Pfandt has also curated projects with leading international art institutions, including the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France; and the Venice Biennial. A resident of San Francisco 2018, Steinbrecher-Pfandt sits on the boards of Armenia Art Foundation, Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Artbat Fest, and is an advisor to Ars Electronica. In 2018, Steinbrecher-Pfandt was named one of Apollo Magazine’s 40 under 40. Christina Steinbrecher-Pfandt was born in Taldy Kurgan, Kazakhstan.

Kelani Nichole is a technologist, collector and founder of TRANSFER, an experimental gallery focused on simulation in contemporary art since 2013. In addition to founding a leading digital art gallery, Kelani has worked in the tech industry for 15 years with a specialty in UX and product development.  In 2018 she invented a new model for distributed cultural infrastructure with The Current, a non-profit museum collection rethinking patronage and access for Time-based Media Art. Her work over the past ten years has focused on exhibition design and conservation of digital art, through applied research experiments with an international community of artists and institutions.