The Belvedere Museum is not done reimagining Gustav Klimt’s works for the 21st century. After giving the painter’s infamous Faculty paintings an AI-powered boost for a Google Arts & Culture project last October, the Viennese institution is now turning a contemporary eye onto one of Klimt’s most beloved (and loved-up) creations.
“The Kiss,” completed in 1907-1908, represents the final painting Klimt completed during his so-called Gold Period, marked by his use of gold leaf in his oils, and bathes his signature eroticism in a romantic, almost tender, glow. For more than a century, it’s been a centerpiece in the Belvedere’s permanent collection, and from February 14, it’ll also have a place on the blockchain.
What happened
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In the Belvedere’s first NFT sale, a digital edition of Klimt’s “The Kiss” will be fractionalized in 10,000 unique digital tokens, each priced at around €1,850. Image: artèQ
For its first NFT sale, the Belvedere Museum has teamed up with NFT investment fund artèQ to fractionalize a high-resolution digital edition of “The Kiss” into 10,000 unique NFTs, with each 100 x 100 grid priced at around €1,850. The official drop has been timed for Valentine’s Day, after which holders of the Klimt fractions can register as owners of their pieces or append a dedication of love to their segments on thekiss.art, where the digital painting can be viewed in its entirety.
Why it matters
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With “The Kiss” NFTs, Katharina Steinbrecher, the Belvedere Museum’s Director of Communications & Marketing, says, “We aim to reach NFT collectors, art lovers and digital romantics worldwide.” Image: Ouriel Morgensztern / Belvedere, Vienna
The Belvedere is not the first and won’t be the last museum to mint NFTs of works in its collections. However, the choice to fractionalize Klimt’s painting might offer a draw for buyers looking to make their first investment in a unique NFT, as “each section becomes a new image,” Katharina Steinbrecher, the museum’s Director of Communications & Marketing, tells Jing Culture & Commerce, “which makes each part a particularly valuable object.”
Further, fractionalized NFTs (or F-NFTs) best capture the blockchain ethos of democratizing ownership, allowing smaller or first-time collectors to invest in a single and often highly priced asset at a lower cost. It’s an approach undertaken by companies like Rally and Particle, which recently fractionalized Banksy’s “Love Is In The Air.”
For creators, F-NFTs also facilitate monetization — a fact that’s friendly to the Belvedere’s purposes here. Besides engaging the crypto art community, the Klimt drop further serves as a source of revenue for the museum. According to Steinbrecher, “The proceeds help us to fulfill our mission: collecting, researching, preserving, and communicating the treasures of the Belvedere.”
More so, for a historic museum founded on modernity, the Belvedere’s NFT debut demonstrates a readiness to evolve its collection — and the idea of collecting — for the digital realm. “The rise of NFTs has given fresh impetus to the intriguing question: What does it mean to own a work of art in the digital age?” says Steinbrecher. “It is an interesting new technology that, in financial terms, should be taken seriously, yet can also be viewed playfully.”