Los Sumergidos at @ICPhotog 🔥 The publishing house I run with @loretdem will be presenting new books by Latin American artists next week in NY. Stop by if you are in the neighborhood pbf.icp.org/

1/ On Collecting A Piece Of Art This is the expanded version of "Buy what you like, at a level you can afford, plan to hold forever" I am going to tell a story I have told before, as context. I was 22 years old in NYC and was sharing an apartment with 2 other "analysts"

NFTs - Prints - Books The Artist Needs to Sell Art to Survive. We are at a pivotal moment, in that the NFT market is creeping closer to the traditional art world where physical objects have for centuries held the value of the art. I am a maxi of both worlds. I am an artist that with 20 years in the art world has found the importance of diversifying my outputs is a crucial thing to survive in this grim market that over and over undervalues us as artists. In my realm of art, Photography, we find several situations that I see collectors "worried" about the dilution of their holdings. I want to address these concerns from the artist side. Why? I feel there is a misunderstanding of what NFTs, Prints and Books can do for us Artists. This is what we do to live and to survive emotionally and economically. The decisions we make are first and for most to protect ourselves from leaving our art careers because we can´t afford to be an artist. Is there a way to look out for ourselves and still protect the collectors? Yes. How? Being professional and doing things the right way NFTs These for photographers and any digital artist are a great use of creating unique digital objects that pair up perfectly in our digital world. For me, photography has always potentially wanted to be an NFT because it has been digital for over 50 years but we had not found a way to authenticate their provenance to the artist. NFTs solve that and I am a maxi of this idea and will back it always. Two good articles that will make you understand the importance of NFTs: e-flux.com/journal/85/156418… e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/… NFTs have a market and Prints have a market. Both exist separate from each other and now we are potentially at the crossroads where they can benefit from each other. There is no standard to this across both markets and we see artist by artist finding their own solutions to this. For me, I was clear from day 1 to my collectors and galleries that represent me, that the NFT is the Digital Artist Proof or "Master File" from which I print prints, books and create the NFTs from. My inventories for all my artworks now have a 1/1 Digital Artist Proof in them (the NFT). I believe the scarcity of a 1/1 NFT has the biggest potential to be the most valuable object in my editions (Prints, Books, NFTs). But it is the combination of these 3 outputs that help my art be more valuable as culture and as art. Each with it´s own market and with it´s own collectors, with now, a big potential for crossovers. Prints Prior to NFTs, prints for photography and digital art was the way to offer value of the artwork to collectors seeking these artifacts. For artists, the print as a limited edition set was the way to make money and continue their art careers. Some artists did limited editions, others did not embrace the idea and sold as many prints as they could. It´s the case of many artists like Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Graciela Iturbide, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and most that printed work prior to the 1980s. In those years when photography started being heavily collected, collectors started asking artists to produce a limited set with a finite number. Even so, un-editioned prints have sold for millions of dollars at auction... I sell most of my work in editions of 5 or 10. These prints have made their way to museums and collections like SFMOMA, MFAH, the JP Morgan Collection, The Getty Museum and many more. Today, for emerging and mid career artists, for prints to be valuable, they need to have a known limited edition. This is the professional side of being an artist. You need to offer certainty to collectors that you will not print more signed-numbered copies than what you say you will. This system is clunky and NFTs have a way better way of tracking provenance and the edition of the works. But it is indispensable for me to sell prints to survive. I am a maxi of 1/1 NFTs only (still trying to understand how editions as NFTs could have value longterm) for various reasons that I wont explain here, so the only other way for my work to be sold, and to reach important collections is via limited edition prints. The more those prints arrive in important collectors and public institutions, the stronger the art will be. Selling limited edition prints does not dilute the value of the artwork as prints nor NFTs (nor does selling books). On the contrary. when done in a professional and controlled way, this is the opportunity for the art to become more valuable. And lastly, again, selling prints let´s me survive while building a community of collectors around the artworks. Books There is a huge book market, and some artists like myself, have a revenue stream via selling limited edition books. I´ve published 25+ books to date. Its the same artwork but translated to a medium that creates a different way of storytelling. Different to 1/1 NFTs or limited edition prints of 10, books come in editions of 500-3000 or more. Do books dilute my Prints? My NFTs? On the contrary. They are consolidating the value of both. The more the artwork circulates in it´s multiple forms, the stronger the art. AND!! us artists have an opportunity to survive as artists. ----- To be an artist as a career, you have to be professional and clear with how you work. You need to help collectors understand what they are holding. You need to look out for yourself and diversify your art making. Dilution comes from un professional art making, not from selling art works in a methodic and professional ways. We are the artists, we should be free to do and sell the art the way we want to. Our commitment to the collectors is that we will do it professionally.

🎙️Join us tomorrow on Friday Happy Hour with @loretdem, this week we're asking the community to pick the topic! Let us know in the comments!👀 📅Friday, April 7th, 5pm ET Set Reminders! 🔗 xitter.cf/i/spaces/1BdGYyRDEQZGX…