When Dutch-born Nanne Dekking came to New York in 1996, he quickly realized he needed to be “nimble.” The humble portrait specialist surprised even himself when he found himself getting to the root of problems with provenance (painting origins, particularly in the wake of Nazi seizures during World War II), eager to share the core truth beyond his own research. In the more traditional art world before today’s technology, provenance was exceedingly subjective and hard to trace, but Dekking found himself drawn to the world of blockchain, later encrypting old master artworks as NFTs through his own company, Artory.
NFTs took on a new energy when they started becoming group-shares. Investors could buy a fraction of a masterwork as part of a collective, interactive ownership community on the blockchain. Places like OpenSea continued to fractionalize digital, cryptocurrency fueled NFT artworks like Cryptopunks, whereas a regular artwork was traditionally owned by one collection at a time.
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