Andrés Reisinger: Non Fungible Furniture
By Alixandra Rutnik on Apr 16, 2021
Young Guns 17 winner's "The Shipping" collection gives all a look into the NFT craze
Surely at some point in the past 30 minutes or so, you've heard, said or read the acronym "NFT" somewhere. NFTs, short for non-fungible tokens, quickly have become very popular among artists, opening a vast new medium to sell their art to collectors.
One such artist is the incredibly talented Young Guns 17 winner Andrés Reisinger. The Buenos Aires-born, Barcelona-based multidisciplinary designer recently launched his latest exhibition, entitled "The Shipping" — a virtual collection of digital pieces of furniture that perfectly demonstrates why NFTs have become a booming creative and economic space.
While NFTs seemed to have appeared overnight, Andrés has been involved in this world for about one year now. “The whole market blew up last summer, and more and more artists started to appear in the scene. The medium is really interesting — it is changing how the art world works,” Andrés explained. And it is changing; “The Shipping” sold out in under ten minutes on niftygateway.com — a popular site for buying and selling NFTs.
"The whole market blew up last summer, and more and more artists started to appear in the scene. The medium is really interesting– it is changing how the art world works."
But what exactly are NFTs? Andrés has an analogy that might help you conceptualize them. "Think of playing your favorite video game," he explains. "In that game, you can probably buy things for your character — a costume, a mask, a gun, a car, and so on. Those things are NFTs. The difference between those NFTs and the NFTs that we are seeing now is the scarcity. The NFTs you buy in a game are unlimited; you buy it and you just own a license to play with that character or with that car. But it is NOT yours. The brand will sell that item in a game like a million more times.”
Conversely, the type of NFTs that Andrés and other artists like him are selling are limited and unique. “Imagine there are only ten cars, but 1,000 people want that same car – the car will be higher in value because people will fight each other to have it and pay more money to own it," he continues. "Now imagine there is only one car in the whole world. People will pay a lot for that one car. This same situation goes for the art market. People spend a lot of money on beautiful and expensive art, and now they are still buying art, but the art is in NFT form."
One main difference between the physical and digital art space is that physical art can be squirreled away, while the world of NFTs is very open. “NFT transactions are public," Andrés says. "You can see where the money is coming from and how the pieces are growing in value or not.”
“The Shipping” consists of ten custom pieces, five of them are digital only, four of them are digital and physical pieces, and the final one is a custom piece that will be both digital and physical designed by Andrés and the person with the highest bid (which was $67,777.00.) Andrés’ favorite piece in the collection is the piece titled "Complicated Sofa", which is digital only. The design for the custom piece is already underway, which will be a desk. “I have been working with digital for a long time, more than ten years now, so it is very lush and organic for me to create things digitally rather than physically. Lately, I have been trying to explore ways to materialize my designs from digital to physical,” Andrés added.
For Andrés, “The Shipping” really represents the times that we are living in today with this half digital, half physical element. “I think we are heading more and more to a digital space," he opines. "When the pandemic and lockdown hit, we were forced to use all the digital tools that we already had but we weren't paying attention to." He explains how the pandemic has forced us all to look at our tech and go faster, progress further, be better, and do more, pushing us to take the next step into this half digital, half physical space and see what has been right in front of our eyes the entire time. “Three years ago we were all trying to meet everyone in person and now it is the other way around, now we are having a whole day of video calls because we can,” Andrés said.
"I think we are heading more and more to a digital space. When the pandemic and lockdown hit, we were forced to use all the digital tools that we already had but we weren't paying attention to."
Andrés will continue to push the boundaries with his art in this digital space. “The way I am heading is more conceptual, but with beautiful art such as obstruction,” he said. “Now instead of having to work for a brand, for example, a makeup brand that wants their product floating in the air with explosions, colors, glitter, and lights, I just do art. Maybe I don’t always have the same budget to create as the makeup brand, but as an artist I am happier and the people who buy my pieces care about me and care about my art,” Andrés concluded.
"Maybe I don’t always have the same budget to create as the makeup brand, but as an artist I am happier and the people who buy my pieces care about me and care about my art."
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