Tezos x Art Basel, Basel 2022: Interview with Contemporary Art Gallerist Saskia Draxler
Find out why traditional art collectors tend to be the most open to collecting new kinds of media, including NFTs.
350 words, 2 minute read
Saskia Draxler is a contemporary art gallerist, based in Germany. Draxler has been involved in the avant-garde art world for decades, and recently became interested in the possibilities offered by Web3. In this interview, she explains how technology opens up new possibilities for art, and why traditional collectors are often the most open to collecting new kinds of media, including NFTs.
You’ll find some extracts from the Blokhaus team’s interview with Saskia Draxler below, and the full video is at the top of this page.
The changing conversation around NFTs:
The last year, most debates about NFT and the NFT space were actually about speculation, money, how much NFTs rise in value, and when to mint them and when to sell them and et cetera, et cetera. I think we are now at a point where we need to get more specific [about] what NFT technology can mean for the art world […]. For instance, digital artworks that are minted as NFTs, they can be static images. They can be time-based media. They can be generative art.
Why Tezos is attractive to artists:
Tezos is a blockchain that is energy efficient, which makes a huge difference, because most artists have ethics. This plays a huge role [in leading] artists to use proof of stake blockchain technologies.
How older collectors tend to be more open-minded about new forms of art:
The older generation, like let’s say the 65 to 75-year-old collectors, [are] actually more open to immediately start a dialogue, because they started collecting in the '60s and '70s where they collected conceptual art. And then there’s this middle generation that thought collecting artist was mainly about collect paintings. Those are actually the most skeptical. And you have the young people who are digital natives. […]
The older people are a little bit more open-minded, I have to say, and a little bit more used to [the idea] that art is not only an asset, but it’s an adventure into the future.