Groundbreaking Art + FinTech 2.0 summit to launch in June
Webinar series explores innovation, digitization and the online art marketplace
Tech entrepreneurs and global art leaders gather to address today’s pressing issues
UNFOLD Art XChange, the art business conference and summit platform, will launch the second edition of the Art + FinTech art and technology summit as a 14-session digital event across four weeks in June 2020.
Art + FinTech 2.0 will bring together more than 40 global art market leaders and tech entrepreneurs in a series of keynote addresses, conversations and panel discussions about the online art trade, new-media art, virtual reality, blockchain technology and sustainability.
Art + FinTech 2.0 aims to uncover, examine and debate the new age of digital disruption and innovation in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. The summit will be attended by collectors, museum and art fair directors, curators, gallerists, artists, fintech leaders and blockchain technology experts.
Among the event highlights will be an exclusive session with one of the most influential figures in the blockchain industry, Joseph Lubin. He is a co-founder of the Ethereum platform, and the founder of ConsenSys, a decentralized blockchain production studio. He will discuss the potential uses of blockchain in the art market. Lubin will be joined by tech entrepreneurs from OpenSea, SuperRare, dada.art, Nifty Gateway, Cryptovoxels, Mintbase and NonFungible.com.
Millennial collectors, including Astrid Hill, Maria Baibakova and Eugenio Re Rebaudengo, will discuss innovative developments in the art world and new ways of working, while artist Paul McCarthy will talk about his multimedia artistic practice and experiments with virtual reality. They will be joined by leading museum directors and curators, including Sabine Himmelsbach, Alfred Weidinger and Christiane Paul, gallerists such as Johann König, and collectors including Adam Lindemann, Anita Zabludowicz, Masha and Jens Faurschou and Dominique and Sylvain Levy.
Art + FinTech 2.0 runs from June 1st to 29th, with sessions every Monday and on selected Fridays.
After registration, delegates will be able to participate in the live webinars and watch videos of the sessions on the Art + Fintech 2.0 Big Marker platform.
Themes
Online art trade
The online art market has been growing steadily — to almost $5bn in 2018, according to the 2019 Hiscox Online Art Trade Report. The trend has been accelerated by the global pandemic, with art fairs and galleries rapidly developing online viewing rooms. Art + Fintech 2.0 will examine the latest developments in the digitization and virtualization of the art market. Speakers will discuss the potential of augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) for arts businesses. They will also consider how these technologies can ensure future success and contribute to creating a more sustainable art ecosystem.
New-media art
New-media art has been a rapidly developing field, embracing extended reality (XR), VR and AR as well as internet-based work and generative art. With many museums and galleries closed, the lockdown has encouraged greater audience exploration and sharing of screen-based works of art. Nevertheless, the perception remains that new-media art is difficult to display, collect and maintain. The webinar sessions will consider the best ways of exhibiting, collecting, conserving and building new-media art collections. The speakers will also discuss how to build audiences for innovative digital art forms.
Blockchain technology
Distributed ledger technology — or blockchain — has been widely discussed in the art market since 2018, particularly its potential to establish ownership, provenance and authenticity, smooth out transactions and create secure “smart contracts”. Art + Fintech 2.0 will discuss recent developments, including initiatives such as Art Identification Standard, which aims to make it easier to trace, identify and protect works of art. Joseph Lubin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, will speak about the possibility of blockchain creating a new, more transparent art economy.
Other speakers will discuss the evolution of blockchain collectibles, also known as non-fungible tokens, to create unique, irreproducible works of art, and the rise of crypto art and blockchain-powered virtual reality realms. Meanwhile, Christiane Paul from the Whitney Museum of American art will explain how the museum is experimenting with blockchain to encourage new models of art patronage.
Quotes
“UNFOLD Art XChange was conceived as an innovative art business conference and summit platform. It aims to become one of the largest multicultural art exchanges, bringing together diverse voices across local, regional and international art landscapes.
In light of the current global situation, with nearly a third of the globe in enforced isolation and the art world at a standstill, UNFOLD Art XChange has decided to examine the need to speed up the global transition towards a digital art economy.
At Art + FinTech 2.0, we will explore how the coronavirus pandemic is pushing the art world into an era of digitization and online. I hope this webinar series will offer a new and stimulating virtual experience, bringing together thought-provoking leaders in the art and tech worlds to share best practice, help us to innovate and come out stronger when the pandemic ends.”
Rachel Rekkab, Founder of UNFOLD Art Xchange
“We are facing a great moment in the history of art and the art market. Nobody would have thought six months ago that digitization could be adopted so quickly across the whole art industry. Art + Fintech 2.0 is offering a unique platform to guide us through a broad variety of current technological developments which will significantly change the market and the way we experience art in the near future.”
Georg Bak, Art Advisor & Curator, Crypto + Blockchain Art, Curatorial Advisor, Art + FinTech 2.0
Speakers
Maria Baibakova Founder & Director, Baibakov Art Projects
Masha and Jens Faurschou Co-founders, Khora Contemporary
Astrid Hill President & Founder, Monticule Art
Joel Kremer Partner, Moyasa Media, Director, The Kremer Collection
Dominique and Sylvain Levy Co-Founders, dslcollection
Adam Lindemann Founder, Venus Over Manhattan
Eugenio Re Rebaudengo Founder, ARTUNER
Anne and Michael Spalter Co-founders, The Anne + Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection
Anita Zabludowicz Founder, Zabludowicz Collection
Georgina Adam Journalist & Author
Nanne Dekking Founder & CEO, Artory, Chairman, TEFAF
Sabine Himmelsbach Director, HeK (House of Electronics Arts, Basel)
Johann König Founder, König Galerie
Paul McCarthy Artist
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy Multimedia Artists
Sophie Neuendorf Vice-president, Strategic Partnerships, Artnet
Christiane Paul Adjunct Curator of New-Media Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art
Serena Tabacchi Founder & Director Museum of Contemporary Digital Art
Alfred Weidinger New Scientific Director, Upper Austrian State Museum
Alex Atallah Co-founder & CTO, OpenSea
Jason Bailey Founder, Artnome
Bernadine Bröcker Co-founder & CEO, Vastari
Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster Co-founders, Nifty Gateway
John Crain Co-founder & CEO SuperRare
Pari Ehsan Founder & Creative Director, Pari Dust
Annika Erikson Founder & CEO, Articheck
Devin Finzer Co-founder & CEO OpenSea
Nate Geier CEO, Mintbase
Niko Kipouros Founder, 4ARTechnologies
Joseph Lubin Co-founder Ethereum, Founder ConsenSys
Marianne Magnin Managing Director, Arteïa, Chair, Art Identification Standard
Judy Mam Co-Founder, dada.art
Ben Nolan Founder, Cryptovoxels
Anders Petterson Founder & Managing Director, ArtTactic
Adriano Picinati di Torcello Director, Global Art & Finance Coordinator, Deloitte,
Robert Read Head of Art & Private Clients, Hiscox
Magnus Resch Founder, Magnus App
Christina Steinbrecher-Pfandt Co-Founder, Blockchain.Art
Aaron Wright Co-founder, OpenLaw
Gauthier Zuppinger Co-founder & COO NonFungible.com
Full speaker list: unfoldbrics.art/art-fintech-2-0/speakers
The New Age of Digitization and Innovation sessions
Monday June 1
• Art & technology: digitization and virtualization of the art market
• Globalization & democratization of the art market: the growth of the online art trade
• The millennial generation: how are young collectors driving the online art marketplace?
Monday June 8
• Collecting in the digital age: building a new-media art collection and challenges for conserving and exhibiting
Friday June 12
• The uphill battle: will VR finally go mainstream?
• Transcending perception: the rise of virtual 360-degree landscapes versus VR
Monday June 15
• A new force in identification: how can an Art Identification Standard help digital integration and establish greater data trust?
Friday June 19
• The decentralized future: a new art economy powered by Ethereum blockchain infrastructure
• Art & blockchain non-fungible token (NFT) report: market capitalization of the NFT economy for art
• Evolution of blockchain collectibles: pushing new frontiers for digital art through NFTs
• Crypto art and VR: tokenization via blockchain VR-powered realms
Monday June 22
• The blue-chip art market: can blockchain help the art world build trust and achieve maturity?
Friday June 26
• Arts patronage via the blockchain ledger: the “Public Key/Private Key” project
Monday June 29
• Crisis versus opportunity: is digitization the answer to a sustainable art ecosystem?
Full program: unfoldbrics.art/art-fintech-2-0/overview
Media partners
ARTnews
Art in America
Artnet
Cointelegraph
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