Oct 03•3 min read
What is art?
"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see"
What is art? I have been fascinated by this question for some time already. Art is subjective, it can be anything that evokes feelings when appreciated: a painting, a collection of sounds, a performance, a text, the shape of an object, or even an alive being; anything can be art.
Art does not live in a vacuum; its context gives or changes its meaning. It is the context that makes the piece above, special, that inspires and evokes feelings.
This piece by the artist Francisc is called WIP, as in work in progress. This is part of a larger community collection called Proof of Work, a homage to Bitcoin's Proof of Work consensus mechanism, curated by the NFT marketplace Gamma.
In this context, a blank canvas represents endless possibilities. It is a blank canvas, literally or figuratively, that many artists spend most of their time on during the creative process. The blank canvas is the perfect representation of work in progress, it is the brewing of ideas, the contemplation of what could be, a playground for the artist's imagination.
If you have been active in the Stacks NFT ecosystem, you have probably interacted with Francisc, an out-of-the-box thinker without parallels, who always provides witty perspectives and entertaining comments that catch most of us off-guard. Another example of his charisma can be appreciated in the following music arrangement that is part of the NFTs for Peace collection, where Francisc structured the building blocks of his composition in a unique minimalistic way that stands out as something completely different from the rest of the songs in this set.
The following two derivatives of Francisc's WIP are my homage to his creativity.
The first one is called "work-in-Progress" and it doesn't need explanation. The second one is called "pi-is-not-enough", based on the winning bid in the auction of WIP, which made me the proud owner of this historic piece. These 18.006 STX outbid a mathsy one by Nick Sainato that contained the number π within the bid amount.
These two pieces will be auctioned and 100% of the proceeds will be sent to francisc.btc, because WIP is worth a lot more than the 18.006 STX I paid for it, and this will make me feel better.
The first auction is already up on this link.
"The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself"
