{"id":20040,"date":"2019-05-28T20:15:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T20:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe63b00526c3"},"modified":"2019-05-28T20:15:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T20:15:13","slug":"gallery-selling-indigenous-australian-art-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/gallery-selling-indigenous-australian-art-bitcoin","title":{"rendered":"This Gallery Is Selling Indigenous Australian Art for Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Things you can buy with bitcoin: AT&T\u2019s services<\/a>, airfare<\/a>, pretty much anything using gift cards through Bitrefill<\/a>, pizza<\/a>, drugs (duh) and now, Indigenous Australian art.<\/p>\n

Yes, you read that right. The Indigenous Fine Art Gallery (IFAG)<\/a> in Australia now accepts bitcoin for its \u201cmuseum-quality art from Australia\u2019s most collectible Indigenous artists.\u201d This puts the IFAG in the company of a growing list of art galleries that accept bitcoin for their wares, but it\u2019s the first ever to accept the cryptocurrency for art created by Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n

Sounds pretty niche, right? Accepting payment in the world\u2019s first cryptographic currency for indigenous art, while it still remains difficult to purchase everyday items with bitcoin, may sound a bit too<\/em> novel to be true. But, in the eyes of the IFAG, the method of payment is more novel than interest in the objects of purchase.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis form of indigenous art is not necessarily a novelty as such,\u201d IFAG partner David Meese wrote in an email to Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>. \u201cIn fact, it has been traded as a precious commodity for the past 200 odd years, since the very first European settlements in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

For two commodities that may not appear to share much, bitcoin and Australian Aboriginal art have more in common than meets the eye. Specifically, both have seen a surge of interest in recent years and an accompanying jump in value. Figures shared with Bitcoin Magazine<\/em> indicate that, over the past three decades, certain rarer pieces of Indigenous Australian art have appreciated over 600 percent per annum, an absolute moonshot in the realm of fine art.<\/p>\n

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri\u2019s Warlugulong<\/em>, for instance, sold for a measly $140 AUD ($96 USD) in 1977. Thirty years later, this same artwork went for $2.4 million AUD ($1.66 million USD) at international art auction house Sotheby\u2019s in Melbourne. Another, Emily Kame Kngwarreye\u2019s Earth\u2019s Creation 1<\/em>, sold at the Cooee Art Auction in Sydney for $2.1 million AUD ($2.45 million USD) in 2017; 10 years earlier, in the same city, the work was auctioned for just over $1 million AUD ($690,000 USD).<\/p>\n

According to a 2004 report for the Government of Australia Senate Committee, indigenous art sales in Australia were valued at $100 to $300 million AUD in 2002. Current figures estimate this value is now \u201cwell into the billions of dollars,\u201d Meese states, a clear illustration of the genre\u2019s \u201castonishing appreciation as an art movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meese believes that the \u201centhusiastic passion\u201d infused in each piece of art, which invokes an ancestral connection to the ethereal and the physical worlds, makes them \u201chighly infectious\u201d as collectors\u2019 items and so drives demand. The same motifs infused in each piece of art, though, make them more than a hot commodity; they\u2019re also sociocultural artifacts which embody generations of Aboriginal heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralian Indigenous art is steeped in a proud and wonderful history,\u201d Meese said. \u201cEach magnificent painting depicts a story or \u2018dreaming\u2019 inspired by a rich tapestry of cultures and customs \u2026 As a race of people, the Aborigines\u2019 affinity with the earth, and respect for its elements, leaves a lot for us \u2018more educated\u2019 to ponder. They truly are at one with the land and have a definite \u2018sixth sense\u2019 or \u2018additional dimension\u2019 when it comes to the environment, the sky and the telling of dreamings through their art.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the art is about more than just fetching a pretty penny, Meese emphasized, and while it provides \u201cvery significant economic\u201d benefits, it provides a wealth of \u201csocial and cultural benefits\u201d as well.<\/p>\n

Part of the gallery\u2019s decision to accept bitcoin was a desire \u201cto offer individuals all around the world a tangible and concrete investment opportunity using their bitcoin,\u201d Meese explained, giving bitcoiners the chance to tap into a unique genre of art.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We wanted] to bring this beautiful, yet raw, powerful and expressive product to as many people around the world as possible,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are big fans of Australian Aboriginal art and are very proud of this art movement and its originality and endurance. It is the oldest continuous art movement in the world and in the history of art itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meese continued to stress that each piece of art comes with \u201cimpeccable provenance\u201d and certification to prove its authenticity. But, in the future, smart contracts and blockchains could offer even more reassurance with immutable attestations to each piece’s validity. The IFAG sees great promise in blockchain technology for the future of authentication, Meese said, though it has its limits. Namely, it works better as a proactive instead of retroactive solution; case in point, you can\u2019t rewrite authentication errors for pieces like Salvator Mundi<\/em><\/a>, a $450 million painting which experts now say was likely painted by Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s assistant and not the Renaissance man himself.<\/p>\n

But blockchains can keep the record straight for pieces like this going forward, and Meese mentioned novel applications like allowing collectors to own a share in a piece of artwork like they might in land, stocks or other assets. Or, more probably, something like bitcoin could open up direct payment to artists, potentially rendering Meese\u2019s job and galleries themselves obsolete, he wisecracked.<\/p>\n

For now, though, Meese and the IFAG will focus on what they do best: selling art. He\u2019s confident that the art\u2019s atavistic lineage will make it an attractive investment for no-coiners and bitcoiners alike, and he\u2019s also sure that IFAG\u2019s pairing of cryptocurrency and art is the beginning of a sure-to-last symbiotic relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis art form has been with us for the past 60 to 80 thousand years; it has and will continue to have a longer \u2018investing shelf life\u2019 than most things,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are confident that the art and Bitcoin can continue to grow side by side to have a very long and prosperous life together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Indigenous Fine Art Gallery in Australia now accepts bitcoin for fine art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2566,"featured_media":20041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[74,275,1883],"class_list":{"0":"post-20040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-gallery"},"author_data":{"id":2566,"name":"Colin Harper","nicename":"colin-harper","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/MjEwMTYzMzc3Njg5ODYzNjQ2-96x96.webp"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/this-gallery-is-selling-indigenous-australian-art-for-bitcoin.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}