June 17, 2024

Robert Alice (this is the market pseudonym of Benjamin Gentilli) is an artist, enthusiast and researcher of NFT and blockchain technology, as well as a lecturer and author of numerous publications on the subject. In 2019, he presented to the world the digital work “Portraits of a Mind”, consisting of forty parts forming an image of the source code of the first version of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. It is a kind of a generative “portrait” of the mysterious creator of the digital currency, Satoshi Nakamoto. “The nature of Bitcoin is that once version 0.1 was released, the core project was established forever for the rest of its existence,” Nakamoto said... and disappeared in 2011, two years after he gave Bitcoin to the world. Fans of decentralisation became fascinated by the currency, while Nakamoto was recognised as an inspirational hero.

On the eighth of March this year, Robert Alice announced that the Pompidou Centre, the renowned contemporary art museum in Paris, acquired his BLOCK 10 work, one of the forty “components” of the whole that is the digital “Portraits of a Mind” series. The official US launch of Alice’s book took place on the same day: “On NFTs.” Four days later, on 12 March, Christie’s, the renowned auction house, presented a collection of 400 unique works by this artist, entitled SOURCE [On NFTs]. What is typical about these events? Nothing. And innovative? Everything!

After Robert Alice shared the news that his BLOCK 10 had made its way in physical form to the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the premiere of the artist’s next book, “On NFTs”, took place in the US the same day. It is a rather huge book – a study of the history of digital art. Telling the story of NFT’s roots and the history of digital art, as well as showcasing the creators of this space is already uniting the rapidly growing community of NFT enthusiasts, building its shared identity. But Robert Alice has done more than that: the “On NFTs” book is fully scalable and editable by the author himself. And on top of that, it is part of a new collection by the artist, who is fascinated by science and numbers, which was shown by a famous auction house four days after the book’s launch.

On 12 March, Christie’s auction house presented a collection of 400 unique NFT works by Alice, entitled SOURCE [On NFTs]. This is the first collection of generative art of the auction house that opened up to it in a bold way. Less than four years ago, in October 2020, it was at an auction at Christie’s that one part of Alice’s aforementioned “Portraits of a Mind” series, BLOCK 21, was sold for $131,000. This was an unprecedented event in the history of NFT and Christie’s. Today, Robert Alice is enjoying another success, with works from the SOURCE [On NFTs] collection selling like hot cakes.

“This is an exciting time for me. I focused on deep projects that require several years of commitment. “Portraits of a Mind” took more than three years to create, the book “On NFTs” and the SOURCE [On NFTs] collection at Christie’s required a similar amount of working time,” says Robert Alice. He is one of the pioneers who has consistently developed generative art. Thanks to the constant evolution of AI, he is sure to surprise his fans more than once. The presence of NFT art in auction houses and physical digital art galleries is a growing trend today. It is worth opening up to this space and reap the benefits – spiritual and material. Technology, culture and business meet here in a direct, modern and transparent way. What else will this year bring? This is the perfect topic for our next story.