How much would you pay for nothing?

April 15, 2022 11:02 AM

A receipt written by the French artist Yves Klein auctioned by Sotheby’s in Paris has been hailed as a precursor to NFTs [Grauniad]
posted by chavenet (16 comments total)

Isn't that just memorabilia, or at least closer to it? There's a physical object that's selling, and at least some of the value is in the fact that it's not just a virtual claim of ownership - it's a unique, physical piece in and of itself.
posted by sagc at 11:20 AM on April 15, 2022 [9 favorites]

A recent pertinent AskMe.
posted by zamboni at 11:24 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh I once accidentally auctioned off "nothing" at a charity benefit auction!

This is an auction we hold every year at a scifi con to benefit a literary award. It's meant to be comedic and fun as well as a money-raising endeavor.

At the start of the auction I was demonstrating how the bidding process would work, and I gestured to the overhead projector next to me which would display the item for the audience to see enlarged on a screen. I said, "let's say I was auctioning off ... nothing. THIS nothing, right here --"

and someone shouted out a bid for a few dollars.

I rolled with it and pointed out: It's GDPR-compliant!

Another bid came in.

It'll fit anywhere in your house!

Another bid.

It's zero-calorie!

Another. And so on.

I think the final bid was about $45.
posted by brainwane at 11:43 AM on April 15, 2022 [24 favorites]

Guy Buys NFT For $2.9 Million, Asks for $48 Million, Is Offered $3600".

We have reinvented the Shrute buck.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:53 AM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

"hailed" is a pretty optimistic word to use.
posted by clawsoon at 12:02 PM on April 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

I feel like Yves Klein had a bit more of a sense of humor and whimsy than the NFT crowd does. Also, he spent a lot of time and effort before the invisible paintings making actual paintings, to the extent that if you've seen a lot of his previous work, and then someone asks you to imagine what he did next, it won't be too hard to picture something notably Klein-ey. Like, it'll probably be a particular shade of blue. Klein's invisible works (particularly the Void) are nothing-with-context, whereas an NFT is typically lacking in that context.

I wonder if one could train an AI on Klein's monochromatic paintings and get an approximation of what the subsequent imaginary paintings "actually" looked like.
posted by surlyben at 12:10 PM on April 15, 2022 [10 favorites]

(and then you could sell the AI-produced Klein painting as an NFT.)
posted by surlyben at 12:13 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yves Klein was way ahead of the NFT crowd. He was once lying on a Mediterranean beach, looking up at a perfect azure, cloudless sky, and he thought to himself, and I paraphrase: “If I put my signature in the corner, I can sell this for lots of money”.
posted by Kattullus at 12:26 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Not so much to nitpick but to enter into the joke, I'm not sure it's lawful to claim that Nothing is actually GDPR-compliant. There are some requirements, like having a Personal Data Breach Register and a Data Protection Officer, that might apply even if they only exist to document a big giant zero.

It actually reminds me of the time a physicist and philosopher debated on the nature of nothingness and proceeded to miss each other's points spectacularly.
posted by traveler_ at 1:25 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

So history repeats itself, first as farce, then as tragedy.
posted by adamrice at 2:16 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm just here to say: Fuck NFTs.

That's all.
posted by Pendragon at 2:56 PM on April 15, 2022 [7 favorites]

"hailed" is a pretty optimistic word to use.

I think in the sense of standing on the curb and waving your arms furiously in a futile attempt to hail a taxi.
posted by straight at 3:46 PM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's not quite like an NFT. Seems pricey, but that's the art-world.

I'm a fan of Y Klein. Conceptual yet charming.

“If I put my signature in the corner, I can sell this for lots of money”.

Yes, but he also devised a unique pigment in the process.
posted by ovvl at 7:09 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Klein blue is utterly stunning: ne plus ultramarine, if you'll forgive the pun.
posted by scruss at 8:16 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

J. S. G. Boggs made drawings of money and sold them. There was an awesome profile of him in The New Yorker, probably paywalled.
posted by neuron at 10:00 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's an autograph.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:08 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]