"20 Minutes" sold at auction? It's Tuesday and it's historic

• 20 Minutes 

  is embarking on the world of cryptos with the auction house Piasa and tells you, in the form of a diary in several episodes, all the stages of the project.

• Every week until October, we tell you how we organized the first sale of a newspaper NFT in France with the house Piasa.

• In this last episode, we tell you how we chose and created the object put on sale at the same time as the NFT and why it upset our conception of art (nothing less).

For 100 ethereum you have nothing.

But will you have the first NFT auctioned in France?

This Tuesday, October 19, at 7:30 p.m., it's the big day.

and the Piasa house are selling a digital copy of the newspaper transformed into an NFT.

If you have followed this soap opera, which has occupied us for several months, you know that the thing was not easy.

In addition to the technical and legal problems, there was a purely material pitfall.

Selling an NFT in France is still prohibited, so it was necessary to add to it, in the form of a lot, a physical object.

For ten plates, you have a plate

So what will the lucky winner of Tuesday's auction leave with besides his NFT?

A splendid offset plate.

What ?

An offset plate is an object created for printing newspapers.

Our printer has therefore designed a plate specially for this sale.

She is beautiful, and above all, she is one of a kind.

The choice of this “work” was the subject of an intense brainstorming of about ten minutes.

We considered printing the PDF with our printer.

Okay, we agree ... Then we thought of a poster.

But it was a hassle because our printer is A3 max.

Then someone talked about this offset plate idea.

Why did this sound smart to us?

Because this plate is certainly an object of high technology but which all the same brings back a little to the past of the press.

An interesting gap therefore between the history of the press and its possible future.

In addition, this plate allows, in theory, to print a newspaper that has never been printed.

And yes, remember,

is auctioning the NFT of a newspaper supplement published in PDF.

"The NFT is looking for itself as an art"

Two questions remain. How much is it worth? And is it art? The first response will be provided on Tuesday evening by buyers. Frédéric Chambre, auctioneer and general manager of the Piasa auction house, refuses to play the game of predictions: “There is no benchmark. There is a lot of money being generated around these new technologies. I don't know how to explain the prices. It's almost unbelievable that an NFT can make $ 57 million when there are maybe 10 Van Goghs in the world who can be worth that price…. But it's also linked to the contemporary market, which is a market that is moving very, very quickly. "

But our NFT, and its offset plate (did I say it was beautiful?), Is that art?

Again, difficult to get an answer.

“For the moment the NFT is in the process of looking for itself as an art, analyzes Frédéric Chambre.

The Impressionist was not born in 15 seconds, neither was Cubism nor Surrealism.

There is always an elaboration, there is always a research.

"

The NFT goes before the object

OK, this is all very well but we still wanted to know more.

Especially once our printer has delivered the item in question to us.

Quadrichromy requires, we could have the plate in four colors to choose from.

We opted for blue because it's prettier (at this point you will understand that the people in charge of this project are not the type to take the lead over aesthetic questions).

We still wondered if all this would not be perceived by the art world as a vast hoax.

The following sentences were pronounced: "Doesn't that sound a bit cheepos anyway?"

"," We frame it to make it more classy, ​​right?

»,« Yeah but the Ikea frame there, doesn't it look a little cheepos?

»….

We may be very very very happy with our idea of ​​an object associated with the NFT, a contemporary art gallery owner doubts our questions: “People don't give a damn about your object there.

It's the NFT that counts, you might as well sell a salad with it.

»Yes, but THE SENSE?

“Yeah, it's fun, that makes sense.

But the really strong story is the creation of the NFT and its sale, which is historic for France.

"

"The NFT is a field of exploration"

Since the few gallery owners interviewed by

preferred not to testify (probably annoyed at not carrying out the sale themselves), we turned to François Pinault. The art collector has just opened the Bourse du commerce in Paris. Would he exhibit our offset plate there? And besides would he buy an NFT? “This question is interesting and François Pinault is of course interested in the development of NFTs, it is a field of exploration for all collectors today, we are told. But we only communicate on the works of the collection that we exhibit and never on acquisitions. " Why ? So as not to distort the very speculative market for very contemporary art of course.

Since the world of traditional art is not very talkative, we went to the side of the crypto-art.

Then again, our offset plate does not excite the crowds.

To make it short, the cyptos, if the object sold is not digital and does not pollute on a large scale with a blockchain with energy-consuming megabits, they don't give a damn… So back to the Piasa box to try to find out how much our offset plate and its NFT can be estimated in the art market.

Between 1,000 and 30,000 euros, emotion is cheap

Even though recent NFT sales have reached record amounts, Frédéric Chambre prefers to be careful: “I think 99% of NFTs are worth less than $ 500… Your NFT is part of an intermediate modern and contemporary art sale, with intermediate prices, that is to say things that are between 1,000 and 30,000 euros, something that will interest young collectors in a new perspective. "A few days before the opening of the Fiac, Paris should be full of" young collectors "a little adventurous. Will our NFT and our offset plate appeal to them? The fear of the belly grips us somewhat.

Frédéric Chambre is banking on the strength of the historic moment represented by this sale.

“For me, art is very basic, it's an emotion.

If I have to have an emotion because someone explains to me for 2h30 why I have to have an emotion, that tires me.

“We will therefore stop our blah on the beauty of our plate and on the liters of sweat that the creation of the NFT claimed.

See you Tuesday evening for the verdict.

Culture

"With the NFT of" 20 Minutes ", we are between the history and the history of art", according to Frédéric Chambre, director of Piasa

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