CryptoPunks Get Physical: How Art Galleries are Showcasing NFTs

Two London galleries take very different approaches.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have taken the world by storm in the past year, with headline-grabbing multi-million dollar sales propelling NFT creators like Beeple into the ranks of the world's highest-paid artists.

Auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have seized on the opportunity, hosting sales of NFT collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes.

How do you display this digital-only art once you've bought it? How do you present something as unique as a digital file in a real-world setting? And what's the best way to showcase an NFT of an animated GIF?

There's no legacy art world here; the first thing to hit you upon entering is a riot of color and light from a wall of video screens, all displaying animated NFT artworks.

The team made a conscious decision to lean towards animated digital displays! They decided you've seen a lot of NFT shows print them out—and that's great if maybe it's still," Wanting to give an experience like this is the file, maybe it's a slightly different resolution, but this is what you're getting.

a large part of the shows has involved educating artists from the traditional art world on the finer points of NFTs.

There's also the question of whether the NFT is part of the artwork. "Are they mutually exclusive? Are they one and the same thing? That's a question, that everyone's still trying to grapple with."