Jamie Martinez: I hope you are doing well during these difficult times. I wanted to find out more about your new NFT work and paintings. How did you get involved with NFT’s?
Noah Becker: Artist Alfredo Martinez was curating an NFT show and it was delayed. Meanwhile, I was contacted by an anonymous person who goes by Rulton Fyder who makes NFT work influenced by Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger. Rulton was the subject of my Whitehot Magazine NFT cover which sold on the Foundation NFT site for 10 Ethereum (approx $30,000 USD).
JM: Congratulations, Noah. Collectors are paying incredible prices for NFT’s. What NFT’s are you working on now?
NB: I do 1/1s on Foundation, which is a platform for NFTs. Currently, I just finished producing a collection of 100 NFTs on Opensea called “Crypto Socialites” which now have 26 collectors actively buying from the collection.
JM: Tell me more about the “Crypto Socialites”. Are they based on real people or are you creating them from your imagination and are they only digital or are you painting them too?
NB: They are inspired by Warhol drawings from the 1950s but mostly from my imagination. They also represent social climbers in the art world and the NFT world. It’s an imaginary group of socialites living on the Ethereum blockchain. The fine art influence is important because I’m not a digital native. I kind of draw like Warhol anyway so this kind of fine art style seemed logical. They start as drawings on paper, with black ink on paper. I color them on the computer but I keep the drawing on paper. The NFT is the digitally finished version of the drawing. I’ll show framed drawings with NFTs on screens in a gallery or auction house.
JM: What do you think this NFT movement says about the state of contemporary art today?
NB: The art world and NFT space have some overlap but are very different spaces. People like Damien Hirst and Urs Fischer have been successful in the NFT space but not many other art world entities have been very popular yet. Most of the major galleries have avoided it. Other than my magazine Whitehot Magazine really embracing the NFT community – the art magazines and critics have been mostly negative and suspicious. This is slowly changing…
JM: Who are your favorite NFT artists at this moment?
NB: In no particular order (and some of them are also regular old art world artists), I like NFT work by Mombert, Claire Silver, Ix Shells, Krista Kim, Justin Aversano, Kenny Schachter, Kevin Page, All-City Collectibles, Guthrie, Lady Caroline Radish, and a few others. Too many to mention. Also, I’m curating another NFT group show in the Metaverse soon. It opens Nov 11th at 7 pm PST link to be shared on Twitter with audio opening via Twitter spaces.
JM: Please tell us more about the show you are curating in the Metaverse. Who are the artists and what is the show about?
NB: The Metaverse is a few places but in this case, it’s a 3D world called Cryptovoxels.com The show is called “Crypto Socialites” and features: All-City Collectibles, Josh Luuvy Harris, Noah Becker (me), Judy Lindsay, Lady Caroline Radish, Tommy Hollenstein, Nat Murray, CryptoK4T, Not For Them, Mombert, Alfredo Martinez, Fiona Ryder, Ayshia Taskin, Diego Bergia, Trizzy Trunk, Voidkross, Trevor Guthrie, Paddy, Simo.
JM: Looking forward to it. Any other projects you are working on that you would like to share?
NB: I have paintings at Monica Reyes Gallery in Vancouver. I’m in a bunch of cool group shows (with my paintings on canvas) in Germany at Pulpo Gallery and a group show on Nov 18 in NYC curated by Donald Kuspit at George Berges Gallery. I’m also in the group exhibition at Filo Sofi Arts in New Jersey and NYC and lastly in the group show curated by Guy Stanley Philoche in Chicago at the Virgil Catherine Gallery.
