Why Pest Supply is Not Fake Banksy But Historical Contemporary Art That Showed Censorship in Decentralized NFT World (The New Richard Mutt Case)
Bonjour my old and new friends,
GalerieNFT is a project started by me, a second-generation (some may call me a boomer) contemporary art dealer from Paris who was joking with my gallerist friends during a nice catch-up dessert session at Carette about how we can bring more fine art to the currently booming NFT art market. Because for us contemporary art gallerists who have been getting booths at Art Basel, Frieze, Armory, FIAC, and equal-caliber fairs and also having deep connections with exquisite museums and collectors worldwide, we think the current NFT art world is at its infant phase, with not so much good art present and more about memes and cartoons jammed together and a quick flipping ground in the disguise of “art.” Also, many platform founders have no background in fine art nor come from fine art collecting families who may require generational wealth to start an exquisite collection. Also, the art “advisors” in those NFT platforms are, to be honest, third-tier museum staff or gallery interns who may be periphery players of the art world and do not know much about how fine art world works. (You know who you are, ex-museum residency paper-fetcher and interview compliers and alike, a nicely edited Elon-Musk type headshot will not pass the eyes of good fine art world insiders regarding your knowledge and status in the world of art.)
Anyways, I started GalerieNFT to bring more spotlight to good things in the NFT art world, how NFT is an amazing technology for the art world’s long foes of provenance and royalty for artists and how currently it’s being managed by mostly non-art world tech people, hence the humorous and almost-eye hurting curations of garbages throughout. Oh, and also ex-NFT project staffs posing as “whales” of some sorts with a below $10M crypto collection. Dear, you should see what we collect and deal with on a daily basis (maybe google Vija Celmins and see if they will even sell you one); your $10M will not earn you a cult-status in the fine art world…
So this place, we will cover artists, crypto platforms, NFT galleries that catch our attention with their exquisite fine art or simply phenomenal ideas that will be beneficial for the art world in the long run.
One of such artists that recently caught our eyes is Pest Supply. We first learned about Pest Supply on CoinTelegraph article like many others:
Banksy is already quite a controversial figure in the fine art world due to his stunts and certain dealing practices from his studio management, Pest Control. (If you know, you know) And Banksy’s team (yes, it is a team) never shy away from appropriating the works of others.
We read the article, while you can clearly tell it is written by crypto world people, not fine art world people. First of all, Banksy is not the most famous living artist. Many others like Ed Ruscha, Gerhard Richter, Barbara Kruger are more famous and more respected if the Cointelegraph writer actually reads an art history book or two or ever bought any artworks more expensive than $50k USD in real life.
Second, we take a look at the Pest Supply’s Rarible. From both the artist’s short bio and within the artwork, we did not see a single mention of Banksy or Pest Control, not a single one, no stenciled “Banksy” names, no “Pest Control” logos, no, not a trace. Then we look back at the CoinTelegraph article, and seeing the writer calling the art fake is almost humorous and sad for the whole fine art world. If the artist never claimed to be another artist and adopted a style that is not exact copies of another artist, how can that work be fake in the first place?
If the artist never claimed to be another artist and adopted a style that is not exact copies of another artist, how can that work be fake in the first place?
Also, from a dealer who has dealt Banksy at a higher level before (even though not too much of a fan, but in the line of business called fine art, I do have to cater to some of my younger clients’ not-so-polished tastes), the works from Pest Supply are quite different from Banksy in any trained artist or art dealer or collectors’ eyes.
I personally think what makes Pest Supply interesting is the perception of value from the NFT crowd, a crowd of mostly non-art collectors and predominantly flippers and young overnight ROI seekers who will FOMO (Fear of missing out) anything they see as an opportunity to make a quick buck.
I personally think what makes Pest Supply interesting is the perception of value from the NFT crowd,
a crowd of mostly non-art collectors and predominantly flippers and young overnight ROI seekers who will FOMO (Fear of missing out) anything they see as an opportunity to make a quick buck.
The artist Pest Supply did not mention anything Banksy nor Pest Control, yet people jump in as if they are going to pass out if they do not get an NFT from the artist. The assumption created by people’s feverishness is very similar to the effect caused by Maurizio Cattelan’s banana.
If you are non-art world people, you will think the banana is the most ridiculous thing in the world and utter bullshit. But if you ever read a little bit about art history and learn of the history of Readymade and Marcel Duchamp, you will realize how the banana is a brilliant piece of contemporary art that both captured the over-commodification of the art world and also the post-internet over-sharing culture of our society. Every people’s selfie, retweet, and rant online regarding the banana has made the banana a very relevant piece of art that raised a dialogue about what art is. The banana is endowed with a new school of thoughts and meaning the moment it showed taped at the booth wall of Art Basel and begin generating conversations.
If you ask any knowledgeable gallerist or any sane collectors and museum curators at a certain level, they will give you an equivocal definition of art: Art is about the archival and documentation of the moment and contextualization of thoughts in a designated setting, let it be the present, the past or the future.
If you ask any knowledgeable gallerist or any sane collectors and museum curators at a certain level, they will give you an equivocal definition of art:
Art is about the archival and documentation of the moment and contextualization of thoughts in a designated setting, let it be the present, the past or the future.
Cattelan’s banana achieved that through the sheer ridiculousness to the untrained eyes and ignorant brains of the common people but amazed good art world people like me who see the banana as a vessel to capture the current crazy internet age, the moment in our society where we are oversharing anything online and quick to make assumptions and judgments and share to the entire world without knowing too much about the certain topic. I’m curious as to how many contemporary artists, alive or dead, can this CoinTelegraph writer list, or if he ever heard of the name Ed Ruscha or Gerhard Richter or Marcel Duchamp or Maurizio Cattelan and know what appropriation art is.
From a gallerist’s perspective, I think Pest Supply’s NFTs have achieved the same effect and status as Cattelan’s banana and Duchamp’s Fountain. The NFTs from Pest Supply, without mentioning anything related with Banksy, have generated such a feverish response from the NFT art market and such frenzy over acquiring works. This sheer reaction and people buying those NFTS has become a part of this conceptual art and performance art, and has made the NFTs from Pest Supply more interesting as to capture the frenzy within NFT art world where many are flipping emojis and cartoonish frogs and cats to pass as art to generate a quick buck. If we look back 5–10 years, or 50–200 years later if humanity still exists and want to know about the NFT frenzy in 2021, we will look back to Pest Supply’s NFTs as significant documentation and archival vessels, which make them phenomenal artworks.
And the icing on the cake that will make Pest Supply important in fine art history is the amount of censorship the artist exposes from the decentralized NFT art platforms such as OpenSea, who blatantly took down Pest Supply’s artist page and artworks without offering an explanation. We already mentioned in the article earlier that Pest Supply is an entirely new artist whose artworks and artist statements have no mention of Banksy. Yet, the NFT collectors’ feverish responses and buying frenzy made Pest Supply’s NFT artworks even better and more meaningful as significant conceptual and performance art pieces that question people’s reaction to art and their understanding of art.
In the physical fine art world, we have Marcel Duchamp challenged the art world and society with the Fountain back in 1917. Maurizio Cattelan challenged the art world and society with the Comedian banana back in 2019. Now in the NFT art world, we have Pest Supply that is challenging the censorship of decentralized NFT platforms and acceptance of conceptual and performance art with one brilliant conceptually-intriguing NFT at a time. Only a matter of time, more people from the fine art world take notice and realize that art history has been made in our NFT space.
In the physical fine art world, we have Marcel Duchamp challenged the art world and society with the Fountain back in 1917. Maurizio Cattelan challenged the art world and society with the Comedian banana back in 2019.
Now in the NFT art world, we have Pest Supply that is challenging the censorship of decentralized NFT platforms and acceptance of conceptual and performance art with one brilliant conceptually-intriguing NFT at a time.
Only a matter of time, more people from the fine art world take notice and realize that art history has been made in our NFT space.
