E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

January 29th, 2024



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in Abu Dhabi/Dubai
  3. Cover Interview: Shaikha Al Ketbi on Darawan
  4. Rapport: Public Art in the Gulf and a Case Study of Manar Abu Dhabi
  5. Hashel Al Lamki’s Survey Exhibition Maqam Reflects on a Decade of Practice in Abu Dhabi
  6. “You Can’t Stand on a Movement”: Michelangelo Pistoletto Interviews Benton Interviewing Pistoletto

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024



About ––

    What We Do
    Mission
    Calendar
    Editorial Board
    Contributors
    Contact

Interviews ––

    Selected Archive

Open Call ––

    Policy
    E-08 Seoul

Newsletter ––




Chronological Archive ––

    Selected Archive

Artist Interview November 18th, 2016
AUH Raed Yassin in Abu Dhabi

Editorial March 1st, 2018
AUH Abu Dhabi Is The New Calabasas

Exhibition Listing May 22nd, 2018
DXB Christopher Benton: If We Don't Reclaim Our History, The Sand Will

Artist Interview June 15th, 2018
TYO An Interview with BIEN, a Rising Japanese Artist

Artist Interview July 17th, 2018
TYO Rintaro Fuse on Selfies and Cave Painting

Artist Interview August 28th, 2018
BER Slavs and Tatars: “Pulling a Thread to Undo The Sweater”

Artist Interview September 1st, 2018
NYC Shirin Neshat In Conversation with Sophie Arni and Ev Zverev

Artist Interview September 1st, 2018
PAR Hottest Spices: Michèle Lamy

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

August 1st, 2020



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in the UAE
  3. Pop(Corn): Hashel Al Lamki
  4. Tailoring in Abu Dhabi
  5. Rapport: Dubai
  6. Michael Rakowitz From the Diaspora


E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21


Artist Interview August 23rd, 2020
LHR/MCT Hanan Sultan Rhymes Frankincense with Minimalism


Artist Interview August 24th, 2020
DXB Augustine Paredes Taking Up Space

Artist Interview August 26th, 2020
AUH Sarah Almehairi Initiates Conversations

Market Interview August 28th, 2020
AUH/DXB 101 Pioneers Ethical and Curious Art Collecting


Exhibition September 1st, 2020
DXB Alserkal Arts Foundation Presents Mohamed Melehi


Market Interview September 4th, 2020
DXB Meet Tamila Kochkarova Behind ‘No Boys Allowed’


Artist Interview September 7th, 2020
DXB Taaboogah Infuses Comedy Into Khaleeji Menswear

Artist Interview September 10th, 2020
LHR/CAI Alaa Hindia’s Jewelry Revives Egyptian Nostalgia

Curator Interview September 14th, 2020
UAE Tawahadna Introduces MENA Artists to a Global Community

Exhibition Review September 24th, 2020
MIA a_part Gives Artists 36 Hours to React


Artist Interview September 27th, 2020
AUH BAIT 15 Welcomes New Member Zuhoor Al Sayegh

Market Interview October 14th, 2021
DXB Thaely Kicks Off Sustainable Sneakers


Exhibition Review October 19th, 2020
DXB Do You See Me How I See You?


Exhibition October 22nd, 2020
TYO James Jarvis Presents Latest Collages at 3110NZ


Exhibition Review October 22nd, 2020
AUH Ogamdo: Crossing a Cultural Highway between Korea and the UAE


Book Review October 28th, 2020
DAM Investigating the Catalogues of the National Museum of Damascus


Exhibition Review November 13th, 2020
DXB
Kanye Says Listen to the Kids: Youth Takeover at Jameel Arts Centre


Exhibition Review November 16th, 2021
DXB Melehi’s Waves Complicate Waving Goodbye


Exhibition Review November 19th, 2020
DXB Spotlight on Dubai Design Week 2020


Exhibition Review November 21st, 2020
DXB 101 Strikes Again with Second Sale at Alserkal Avenue


Exhibition Review
November 23rd, 2020


AUH SEAF Cohort 7 at Warehouse 421


Exhibition Review December 9th, 2020
SHJ Sharjah Art Foundation Jets Ahead on the Flying Saucer


Curator Interview January 25th, 2021
DXB Sa Tahanan Collective Redefines Home for Filipino Artists


Exhibition Review February 21st, 2021
GRV MIA Anywhere Hosts First Virtual Exhibition of Female Chechen Artists  

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020


November 1st, 2020
1. What is Global Art Daily? 2015 to Now

November 16th, 2020
2. Where is Global Art Daily? An Open Coversation on Migration as Art Practitioners


November 29th, 2020
3. When the Youth Takes Over: Reflecting on the 2020 Jameel Arts Centre Youth Takeover

December 20th, 2020
4. Young Curators in Tokyo: The Making of The 5th Floor

January 27th, 2021
5. How To Create Digital Networks in The Art World?

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

February 21st, 2021



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in NYC
  3. Pop(Corn): Zeid Jaouni
  4. You Can Take The Girl Out Of The City
  5. Rapport: NYC
  6. Kindergarten Records Discuss The Future of Electronic Music
  7. Sole DXB Brings NY Hip-Hop To Abu Dhabi
  8. Wei Han Finds ‘Home’ In New York
  9. Vikram Divecha: Encounters and Negotiations

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

Exhibition Review March 3rd, 2021
DXB There’s a Hurricane at the Foundry


Exhibition Review March 7th, 2021
AUH Re-viewing Contrasts: Hyphenated Spaces at Warehouse421


Curator Interview March 21st, 2021
DXB Permeability and Regional Nodes: Sohrab Hura on Curating Growing Like a Tree at Ishara Art Foundation


Exhibition March 28th, 2021
DXB Alserkal Art Week Top Picks


Exhibition Review April 1st, 2021
DXB A ‘Menu Poem’ and All That Follows


Exhibition Review April 5th, 2021
DXB A Riot Towards Landscapes


Exhibition April 16th, 2021
RUH Noor Riyadh Shines Light on Saudi Arabia’s 2030 Art Strategy


Artist Interview April 26th, 2021
CTU/AUH/YYZ Sabrina Zhao: Between Abu Dhabi, Sichuan, and Toronto


Exhibition Review April 27th, 2021
TYO BIEN Opens Two Solo Exhibitions in Island Japan and Parcel


Artist Interview April 28th, 2021
DXB Ana Escobar: Objects Revisited


Exhibition May 9th, 2021
LDN Fulfilment Services Ltd. Questions Techno-Capitalism on Billboards in London


Artist Interview May 11th, 2021
BAH Mihrab: Mysticism, Devotion, and Geo-Identity


Curator Interview May 20th, 2021
DXB There Is A You In The Cloud You Can’t Delete: A Review of “Age of You” at Jameel Arts Centre

Market Interview May 26th, 2021
TYO Startbahn, Japan’s Leading Art Blockchain Company, Builds a New Art Infrastructure for the Digital Age

Exhibition June 11th, 2021
TYO “Mimicry of Hollows” Opens at The 5th Floor


Exhibiton Review June 20th, 2021
AUH “Total Landscaping”at Warehouse 421


Artist Interview June 30th, 2021
OSA Rintaro Fuse Curates “Silent Category” at Creative Center Osaka


Exhibition Review August 9th, 2021
DXB “After The Beep”: A Review and Some Reflections

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

October 1st, 2022



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in TYO
  3. Pop(Corn): Nimyu
  4. Ahmad The Japanese: Bady Dalloul on Japan and Belonging
  5. Rapport: Tokyo
  6. Alexandre Taalba Redefines Virtuality at The 5th Floor
  7. Imagining Distant Ecologies in Hypersonic Tokyo: A Review of “Floating Between the Tropical and Glacial Zones”
  8. Ruba Al-Sweel Curates “Garden of e-arthly Delights” at SUMAC Space
  9. Salwa Mikdadi Reflects on the Opening of NYU Abu Dhabi’s Arab Center for the Study of Art

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22


Market Interview October 6th, 2021
RUH HH Prince Fahad Al Saud Discusses Saudi Arabia’s Artistic Renaissance


Exhibition October 7th, 2021
RUH Misk Art Institute’s Annual Flagship Exhibition Explores the Universality of Identity


Curator Interview October 15th, 2021
IST “Once Upon a Time Inconceivable”: A Review and a Conversation


Exhibition Review October 16th, 2021
AUH Woman as a Noun, and a Practice: “As We Gaze Upon Her” at Warehouse421



Exhibition Review February 11th, 2022

Artist Interview February 26th, 2022
TYO Akira Takayama on McDonald’s Radio University, Heterotopia, and Wagner Project


Artist Interview March 10th, 2022
DXB Prepare The Ingredients and Let The Rest Flow: Miramar and Zaid’s “Pure Data” Premieres at Satellite for Quoz Arts Fest 2022


Exhibition March 11th, 2022
DXB Must-See Exhibitions in Dubai - Art Week Edition 2022


Exhibition Review March 14th, 2022
DXB Art Dubai Digital, An Alternative Art World?

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

March 15th, 2022



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in IST
  3. Pop(Corn): Refik Anadol
  4. Rapport: Istanbul
  5. Independent Spaces in Istanbul: Sarp Özer on Operating AVTO

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022


Curator Interview March 21st, 2022

Market Interview March 28th, 2022
DXB Dubai's Postmodern Architecture: Constructing the Future with 3dr Models


Exhibition April 23rd, 2022
HK Startbahn Presents “Made in Japan 3.0: Defining a New Phy-gital Reality”, an NFT Pop-Up at K11 Art Mall


Exhibition May 6th, 2022
IST
Istanbul’s 5533 Presents Nazlı Khoshkhabar’s “Around and Round”


Artist Interview May 13th, 2022
DXB
“We Are Witnessing History”: Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian On Their Retrospective Exhibition at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery

Artist Interview June 13th, 2022
DXB “Geometry is Everywhere”: An Interview and Walking Tour of Order of Magnitude, Jitish Kallat’s Solo Exhibition at Dubai’s Ishara Art Foundation


Exhibition June 21st, 2022
DXB Art Jameel Joins The World Weather Network in a Groundbreaking Response to Global Climate Crisis

Exhibition June 27th, 2022
UAE
What’s On in the UAE: Our Top Summer Picks

Curator Interview July 9th, 2022
IST Creating an Artist Books Library in Istanbul: Aslı Özdoyuran on BAS

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

September 5th, 2022



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in VCE
  3. Pop(Corn): UAE National Pavilion
  4. Rapport: Venice
  5. Zeitgeist of our Time: Füsun Onur for the Turkish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale
  6. GAD’s Top Picks: National Pavilions
  7. Strangers to the Museum Wall: Kehinde Wiley’s Venice Exhibition Speaks of Violence and Portraiture
  8. Questioning Everyday Life: Alluvium by Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian at OGR Torino in Venice

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23


Market Interview June 28th, 2022
HK
How Pearl Lam Built Her Gallery Between China and Europe


Exhibition November 11th, 2022
TYO
“Atami Blues” Brings Together UAE-Based and Japanese Artists in HOTEL ACAO ANNEX


Exhibition December 2nd, 2022
TYO Wetland Lab Proposes Sustainable Cement Alternative in Tokyo

Artist Interview December 9th, 2022
DXB Navjot Altaf Unpacks Eco-Feminism and Post-Pandemic Reality at Ishara Art Foundation

Artist Interview January 8th, 2023
TYO Shu Yonezawa and the Art of Animation

Artist Interview January 19th, 2023
NYC Reflecting on Her Southwestern Chinese Bai Roots, Peishan Huang Captures Human Traces on Objects and Spaces

Exhibition Review February 9th, 2023
DXB Augustine Paredes Builds His Paradise Home at Gulf Photo Plus

Artist Interview February 22nd, 2023
DXB Persia Beheshti Shares Thoughts on Virtual Worlds and the State of Video Art in Dubai Ahead of Her Screening at Bayt Al Mamzar

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

April 12th, 2023



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in the UAE
  3. Pop(Corn): Jumairy
  4. Rapport: Art Dubai 2023
  5. Highlights from Sharjah Biennial 15
  6. Is Time Just an Illusion? A Review of "Notations on Time" at Ishara Art Foundation
  7. Saif Mhaisen and His Community at Bayt AlMamzar









DXB Christopher Joshua Benton to Debut Mubeen, City as Archive at The Third Line Shop in Collaboration with Global Art Daily

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Mark

Startbahn, Japan’s Leading Art Blockchain Company, Builds a New Art Infrastructure for the Digital Age


Interview by Sophie Arni
Transcription by Sherry Wu

Published on May 26, 2021

        “Imagine a future where art affects every aspect of society, and various parts of the society go back to art,” opens the mission statement of Startbahn, a Tokyo-based art blockchain start-up. With 2020 behind us, we have entered full-speed ahead towards the art world’s digital acceleration. Many curators and artists have been reticent of this digital turn: how will artists get paid for their virtual labor? How will we protect artists from copyright infringements when access to art is completely democratized? To recall Walter Benjamin, can the aura of the artwork be preserved in an age of digital reproduction? With the current craze about NFTs aside, I got more and more interested in the opportunities offered by blockchain technology for the betterment of the art market, an essential component of the well-being of artistic practices in our contemporary era. After hearing about Startbahn Cert. blockchain certificate with an IC tag used to secure authenticity at this year’s Art Fair Tokyo and hearing the news about their successful USD $10 million Series B funding, I knew I had to interview Taihei Shii, Founder and CEO of Startbahn.

1. Founder and CEO of Startbahn, Taihei Shii. Image courtesy of Startbahn.

Shii is not your usual tech entrepreneur. An artist himself, he created Startbahn as a solution to his own difficulties creating and selling artworks in an unreliable, inefficient, marketplace for contemporary art. Only after meeting him did I realize the extent to which blockchain technology could finally be the key to the never-ending question: how to make the art market more reliable?

While the traditional players of the global art industry might hesitate to take the digital plunge, I got convinced, as I am certain you will too, that blockchain – in particular – acts as the perfect accelerator of the existing art infrastructure. With the normalization of royalty fees and sharp detection of copyright infringement. it offers the possibility for visual artists to be on equal footing with their musical counterparts. As you will read in this interview, blockchain also offers a rare opportunity for collectors and the future generation of art historians to normalize provenance research. Previously only conducted by large museum institutions and auction houses, the practice of archiving every artwork with its exhibition and ownership histories will soon become a democratized, automatic, and seamless affair. 
 
With a German name evoking an airport’s departure runway, Startbahn has all the tools at its disposal to make us fly towards an optimistic vision of digitized art, permeating all our human activities. It is no coincidence that the start-up originated in Japan – after all, it is rumored that the first bitcoin was invented by the now-infamous Satoshi Nakamoto, supposedly of Japanese nationality. I got the rare chance to interview Shii at Startbahn’s pristine headquarters located inside The University of Tokyo’s campus. The following conversation followed.


2. Claude Monet, Prairie, Ciel, Nuageux, 1890. Oil on canvas. Cert., a blockchain certificate provided by Startbahn, has been issued for this artwork. Exhibited at ART FAIR TOKYO 2021, March 18-22, 2021. Tokyo International Forum B2F. Image courtesy of Startbahn.

Sophie Arni: You are the Founder and CEO of Startbahn, one of Japan’s leading blockchain art companies, whose mission it is to ‘build an infrastructure for art distribution and evaluation for the digital era.’ I’m also interested in your background as an artist. For our readers, could you describe how you got involved in blockchain, and introduce the opportunities blockchain technology provides for the art world?   

Taihei Shii: This whole process started in 2006. I graduated from Tama Art University in 2001, and the project leading to Startbahn started in 2006. At the time, I was beginning my career as an artist and the main question driving me was how I could become a memorable artist of our contemporary era. I found out that every memorable artist was synonymous with a symbol. When you look at the artists who hold their place in the art-historical timeline, whether it’s Da Vinci, Andy Warhol, or Picasso – they were all products of their time. They all had profound, and uniquely different revelations in their respective society. So when I thought about myself as an artist, I looked at how I could make an impact on my current environment. I thought I should be an artist who can face these revelations, and make art that would become symbolic. It was a long period of thinking.


When I thought about myself as an artist, I looked at how I could make an impact on my current environment.



Before 2006, my artistic practice focused on projects related to the internet. I made many artworks and exhibitions using digital tools and computerized systems. I made a haiku online, and I showed art projects based on a web application in an exhibition at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and Mori Arts Center Gallery. The works were shown on computers but visitors did not really interact directly with the devices. There was a computer exhibited in the museum space but no visitors interacted with it the way I had expected them to. This made me stop and think. What is the influence and what is the impact of this kind of art project? Memorable, symbolic artists do not create these kinds of artworks. So I thought of two ways I would express and distribute my artistic practice. The first was to show artworks in a gallery or museum setting that convey the concept of technology but would not directly use technology. This bookshelf, for example, which I made in 2006, called IT, was exhibited in Takashi Murakami’s curated event "GEISAI". The second was to build a symbolic infrastructure for art in this digital age. This is when the idea for Startbahn was born.  

In 2006, I started to use technology to facilitate art infrastructure. When I talk about art infrastructure, I’m talking about distributing, managing secondary distribution, managing archives – the entire system built for artists, art professionals, and art enthusiasts to access information about artworks and the artworks themselves. I had many ideas at first. One of my first inventions was to create a royalty fee system for young artists’ secondary market because young artists suffer in the art market. There is a lot of pressure for emerging artists to create their career paths and multiply activities to reach the status of a ‘good artist.’ The biggest gap in the contemporary art market was how to evaluate and fairly sell the newly-made artwork or the emerging artist. So I thought about a system to give a royalty fee to the artist for the secondary distribution of his/her artwork by tracing it on a computerized network.


The biggest gap in the contemporary art market was how to evaluate and fairly sell the newly-made artwork or the emerging artist.



That was our patent in 2006, which we registered in Japan and the U.S. I lacked funding in those days, and I spent three years of profit to obtain the patent. I felt propelled to do so because of several Japanese artists I admired: Daido Moriyama, Yasumasa Morimura, and Yutaka Matsuzawa. The challenge is that what they have done ahead of the world in their respective fields has not been widely known. There are a lot of similar episodes in the Japanese art industry and one thing I did not want to do is to become another artist who claims he was ahead of his peers.

In 2014, I finally established Startbahn, Inc. In 2015, with a team of engineers, I finally launched the service called Startbahn, a platform for collectors and artists to sell and resell artworks, with royalty fees. Even the art writer, the art critic, could get a fee out of this transaction if they wrote a critique of the artist.

It worked well but when the collector would buy an artwork through Startbahn and resell it at another auction, it would go out of trace. So we started launching our own tracking system at the beginning of 2016 and fundraised with the start-up incubator at The University of Tokyo. This was the very beginning of Startbahn as it exists today. 

Looking back, I was lucky enough that a lot of people in the art and technology industry talked about reselling artworks online. It’s still very much a current topic. We were lucky that we had the right team at the right time to face a big challenge. It was very hard to develop our technology, and it was very hard to convince the traditional art market to adopt digital tools: artworks have traditionally been sold by individuals and auction houses. There are many existing spaces for art distribution and for art exhibitions, but one missing link was a reliable, secure space for art tracking. It is not easy to track an artwork after it has been sold, to trace ownership, and to send royalty fees to artists from secondary distribution after their artwork has been resold. It was a challenge but we were lucky enough to have a great team to bring this vision to life.


There are many existing spaces for art distribution and for art exhibitions, but one missing link was a reliable, secure space for art tracking.




3. Startbahn Cert., IC Tag Card, Front and Back. Images courtesy of Startbahn.


4. Future Artists Tokyo 2021(@future_artist_tokyo2021),  happening in parallel as Art Fair Tokyo 2021 (@artfairtokyo). Cert., blockchain certificates provided by Startbahn (@startbahn) were issued for the artworks in this exhibition. March 18-22, 2021. Tokyo International Forum B2F. Image courtesy of Startbahn.

S.A.:
Could you give us more information about the Startrail system? It seems like a foolproof way to authenticate artworks and view the provenance of an artwork.
 

T.S.: Startrail is a blockchain system built for the public benefit. It is designed to last forever, with an organization structure of decentralized governance. This means Startrail will continue to exist in the event Startbahn goes bankrupt.

We believe the Startrail network will expand like an open-source. In the future, we are thinking to keep innovating our governance. If art galleries, artist estates, auction houses, and art collectors use the network, they could vote for the future of the network. [Startrail] is really designed for decentralized governance – this is something we stressed in our white paper, because people may misconstrue that we are trying to monopolize the art blockchain network and become a tech giant. We had to clearly announce that this network works not only for our benefit but for the public’s benefit. We know that Christie’s and Sotheby’s want to protect their client and sales information. The whole industry is thinking of new ways to incorporate blockchain technology to make a better, more efficient, and more productive art market.


Startrail is a blockchain system built for the public benefit.




5. HILO NAKATSUGAWA (@hilo_nakatsugawa), Fossil Series, 2020-21. Mask, UV resin, acrylic, watercolor, hologram, morpho butterfly, lapis lazuli. Unique Work. Cert., a blockchain certificate provided by Startbahn, has been issued for this artwork. Exhibited at ART FAIR TOKYO 2021, March 18-22, 2021. Tokyo International Forum B2F. Image courtesy of Startbahn. 

S.A.: Who can input information on Startrail?

T.S.: Startbahn Cert. is our new app to easily visualize data on Startrail. It connects blockchain information to artwork thumbnails. You can input information through Startbahn Cert. If you are representing MoMA for example, you have access to MoMA’s secret key to be able to write down that the work in question was actually exhibited at MoMA. This makes the data very secure.


6. Startbahn Cert., 2021. Courtesy of Startbahn.

In terms of individual collectors, the names and locations are hidden but they can be made public if the issuer wishes to disclose it. Basic information about the work’s title, artist's name, size, medium, and date is disclosed, and for the more complex information – including the history of conservation and repair work – this access to information is highly customizable. You can tell on which platform the work was bought. For example, if an artwork was sold at Sotheby’s, it would be considered a more reliable transaction than if it was a private sale by an individual seller with no track record.

S.A.: From your experience, are collectors enthusiastic about digitizing their collections? How do you deal with collectors who wish to remain anonymous and are reticent about putting their collections on a database?

T.S.: We are very careful about hiding private information. Nobody likes to disclose when, to whom, and at what price an artwork was sold. Startrail does not store this information, but supports the reliability of transactions at the same time. The name of the party issuing information and the date of issuances are automatically recorded and can become proof in court.

S.A.: Do you foresee that the current generation of artists will be empowered by this platform, that they will take responsibility to archive exhibition history and provenance of their past works?

T.S.: For the artist, Startbahn Cert. will be providing an easy tool to make a resume. At the MoMA and the Met, every artwork has its history clearly labeled and publicly available, including provenance and exhibition history. You have to be a top-tier artist in the current art industry to maintain this kind of archive, but using Startbahn Cert., this information is automatically recorded. This makes it very easy to archive an artwork’s history and share it in all reliability.

S.A.: What do you think of the future of the traditional auction art market, especially in the contemporary art sector and the boom of the NFT market? Do you think Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Poly Auction, and Phillips will still dominate the market in the decades to come, or NFT marketplaces will attract the younger generations of collectors?

T.S.: That’s a big question, and there are several aspects to the market boom of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Startbahn Cert. is blockchain connected to “real,” physical art. The current bubble is happening between digital art and blockchain technology. The technology is the same in both cases: we do not store digital artworks on Startrail, only the connections of ownership. As with any marketplace, the data is stored in distributed storage or cloud servers such as IPFS. We already connected thumbnails to the Startbahn Cert. The thumbnail itself is an example of an NFT. “Digital art” or “crypto art” are just different terms to explain the same concept, and we are already planning some projects to connect more digital art to the network.


Startbahn Cert. is blockchain connected to physical art. The current bubble is happening between digital art and blockchain technology.



In terms of Beeple’s auction record, I think his work sold well over its highest estimate because it had an element of traceability and reliability. This means what adds monetary value to the work, what makes it expensive, is the infrastructure itself surrounding the NFT. In the physical art market, industry experts have claimed that 50% of all art sold is fake. If you want to buy an artwork, there is a 50% chance that it is fake, it doesn’t matter if it’s a $500 million Da Vinci or a $10,000 painting for a young artist: you have a 50% chance of buying a fake work. These types of transactions are unreliable, untraceable, and ultimately unsafe.

Blockchain is a tool to easily manage inventory and fluidize existing artworks. As the creator or sole collector of the work, you can claim copyright and automatically receive income every time somebody prints your artwork on a t-shirt. We can do almost anything through smart contracts, and they are automatically executed. Sometimes copyright is claimed after an artist’s death, other times there is an estate taking charge of the artist’s career and royalty fees after the death of the artist. If an artist dies, the artwork will remain forever – that is the concept behind Startrail.
                                                                                                         

We can do almost anything through smart contracts, and they are automatically executed.

    

In terms of when and how NFT marketplaces will take over traditional auction houses as the leading art-selling platforms, I have mixed thoughts about it. On the one hand, NFTs marketplaces are saying that they want to grow and overtake the whole art market. But there is no compatibility between each platform. If you issue an NFT on a platform like Rarible, you can set a royalty fee on secondary distribution. But this only works if you sell the NFT on the same Rarible platform. This lack of compatibility between different platforms is a problem we faced 5 years ago when starting Startbahn. We are trying to build a universal, standardized platform for NFT marketplaces but also tools for art investors and auction houses. That’s our next step in the NFT movement. We are focusing on the secondary market: the secondary use as well as secondary distribution. Startbahn Cert. is not only issuing NFTs or certificates but also protecting the secondary market as a whole. We are protecting the artwork.


We are trying to build a universal, standardized platform for NFT marketplaces but also tools for art investors and auction houses. That’s our next step in the NFT movement.



And when it comes to Christie's and Sotheby’s and their future in the NFT art market, I only have to point to the speed at which they pivoted and embraced digital art. These auction houses originated 250 years ago. I talked to people working there and the speed at which they reacted to this new movement was noteworthy. The fact that Beeple’s record was set at Christie’s also tells you about the power of the auction house’s brand. It made people realize that the auction houses and their specialists have the final say in determining an artwork's value. No matter where the art was born, no matter what shape it takes, they make the final price.


S.A.: Is Startbahn collaborating with museum institutions or mostly partnering with private collectors and galleries? Are museums in Japan interested in providing Startbahn Cert. for the works in their collection? 

T.S.: We had a lot of layers when it comes to our customer base. We thought at first that our blockchain technology was going to support young artists, but it turned out to be highly effective and important for high-value artworks. We collaborated with e-commerce platforms, galleries, auction houses, and manga publishing houses. We are proud to have collaborated with Shueisha, one of Japan’s leading manga publishing houses [One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, and Naruto were all published by Shueisha]. We provided Startbahn Cert. to their rare manga prints archive, as part of Shueisha’s plan to bring more artistic value to manga. In Japanese society, manga is not considered a form of high art, so archiving is rarely taken seriously. But Masashi Okamoto from the Digital Business Division at Shueisha believed that Shueisha’s manga archive can become the Hokusai ukiyo-e print of the future. He wanted to bring the manga archive into a luxury version of art, with high-resolution printing and a blockchain certificate to authenticate provenance.

7. Shueisha Manga+Art Heritage, 2021. Cert., a blockchain certificate provided by Startbahn, has been issued for these rare manga prints by Eiichiro Oda published by renowned Japanese manga publishing house Shueisha. Images courtesy of Eiichiro Oda and Shueisha Inc.

We also have other collaborating partners such as SBI Art Auctions, an important auction house for Japanese Modern & Contemporary Art. Most of our business is in Japan right now but we are entering an international expansion phase. We changed our internal company language to English and we are expanding overseas. The company is at a turning point right now.

8. SBI Art Auction’s 44th auction “Modern and Contemporary Art”, Tokyo, April 21-24, Daikanyama Hillside Terrace. Image courtesy of Startbahn.


The company is at a turning point right now.



S.A.: What do you think about Japan’s contemporary art market? What does blockchain technology solve in the current gallery system? And what do you think of Tokyo’s place in the growing NFT and blockchain art industry? It’s a global phenomenon but it seems that China, Singapore, Japan, and the U.S. are leading this movement.


T.S.: It’s important to think of Modern & Contemporary Art in the U.S. and how much they have expanded in market value. America had an inferiority complex towards European cultural tradition. They did not have a long art history, so they had the motivation to build it. It’s a similar phenomenon right now. Countries in the Arabian Gulf are interesting. We are looking forward to the future of blockchain infrastructure in countries like the UAE for example. They are building new museums without the heavy heritage of Western art history, or a longstanding art industry itself. There are so many opportunities to create a new infrastructure for better and more efficient art transactions. The same goes for China. They have built a lot of new museums but the art market is not mature enough so we see a lot of growth potential for blockchain x art there. In Japan, the government is finally opening up to the idea of growing the art industry and using technology to do so. I hope the art industry will expand in Japan in the coming years.

For blockchain, an important factor to consider is the specific laws in every jurisdiction. Legal issues differ from country to country. In this sense, Singapore and Switzerland stand out as leading the basic legal structures for blockchain technology to flourish. In terms of NFT, there is a big movement in the U.S.

S.A.: Lastly, I know that Startbahn sponsors physical exhibitions, including exhibitions at Tokyo University of the Arts curated by students of the Graduate School of Global Arts. As the CEO and a practicing artist yourself, do you feel Startbahn has a responsibility to sponsor young artists and exhibitions?

T.S.: We are still a start-up, but absolutely, we are looking to sponsor physical art exhibitions and artworks to the best of our capacity. We always try to make the art ecosystem and the art industry better.


9. Kazuki Takakura, Circle, 2020. Acrylic mount. Cert., a blockchain certificate provided by Startbahn, has been issued for this artwork. Image courtesy of Kazuki Takakura.



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Sophie Arni is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Global Art Daily, an independent publication covering global contemporary art with editors based in the UAE, U.K, U.S., and Japan. Her experience in the arts includes interning at Sotheby's in London and Christie's in New York, assisting gallery booths at Abu Dhabi Art and The Armory Show, and curating in independent venues in the UAE and Japan. Her past curatorial projects and publications have been shown at the NYU Abu Dhabi Project Space, Sharjah Art Foundation, CHI-KA Space, MoMA PS1, Komagome Soko, and The Chinretsukan Gallery. She graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi with a B.A. in Art & Art History and from Tokyo University of the Arts with an MPhil in Arts Studies and Curatorial Practices. 


Many thanks to Risa Mizuno.

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