The first NFT artwork sold for $69 million in March 2021, kicking off a frenzy of (a) investment in NFT art and (b) ridicule by everyone else. The critics couldn’t believe people were spending massive sums on works that weren’t worth the price, especially since the buyers didn’t own the actual art, just a digital proof of ownership that resides on a blockchain. 

Two-and-a-half years later, a group of investors in the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT artwork are suing Sotheby’s Holdings Inc., along with some celebrities that endorsed the collectibles, arguing the auction house “misleadingly promoted” the artwork. As Mashable noted, a Bored Ape NFT that was listed for six figures at the height of the NFT artwork frenzy is now going for $43,000. Critics would argue that’s still about $43,000 more than it’s worth.

All this means NFTs are pointless, right?

While I never bought into the NFT-art-as-investment craze, that represents just one use of the one-of-a-kind tokens. Many other applications have real utility, from event ticketing to storing medical records and clinical data. Even enabling true ownership of digital art has value. It’s just aesthetic value instead of investment value.

My friend J.D. Lasica, an author (of both fiction and non-fiction) and entrepreneur, is leading an effort to make digital art for display as common as mounting a canvas painting on a wall. Part of his project is live now at Expressions.com, where NFT ownership of some stunning artwork by Caribbean artists will soon be for sale. 

During a recent Zoom call, J.D. showed me how the art looks on a Blackdove digital canvas. Blackdove is one of the companies designing, manufacturing, and selling gorgeous frames that display digital art in vivid color. They come in sizes from 43 inches to 98 inches. Blackdove is just one company selling digital frames designed specifically for displaying art (as opposed to snapshots you took with your phone).

There are advantages to displaying digital instead of analog art. There are some talented digital artists producing work that incorporates motion, something that cannot be replicated on a canvas. And, if you get tired of looking at one work, you can simply load in a different one. You can even have your digital frame cycle through multiple works.

Because they are NFTs, you could be the only person to display that art, or you could be one of a limited number, just as artists produce a limited run of prints.

One tangible upside of digital art, though, is exposing the works of some accomplished artists that the public might otherwise never see.

That’s J.D.‘s mission. He recently relocated from the Bay Area to Puerto Rico to be closer to the community of Caribbean artists he planned to showcase with his Expressions project. These artists have traditionally toiled in obscurity with few outlets to make their work visible to the art-loving public. Through the Expressions website, though, anybody can browse their works and buy NFTs, enabling them to enjoy the art on their walls.

The point is not to earn a hefty return on investment. The point is to revel in the beauty of some spectacular art by a worthy artist you helped lift out of obscurity.

You can, of course, display all kinds of images on digital frames without paying for an NFT. Images from The Hubble Space Telescope grace my Google Home Hub. But these are available to anybody, the digital equivalent of a paper poster of a famous painting available for $19.99 in a museum gift shop.

The problem is—and will continue to be—that the NFT label provokes an immediate and negative reaction. When J.D. announces an NFT drop is coming, there are too many people whose minds will immediately conjure those Bored Ape images, leading to thoughts of inflated values and soured investments and lawsuits. When I buy a work by one of the Expressions artists—as soon as Expressions drops its first batch of artwork and I get my hands on a good digital frame—it won’t be because I hope the work will increase in value. It will be because I really, really like it and want to see it on my wall, maybe next to the artist-embellished Peter Max that currently hangs above my fireplace.

You can read more about J.D.‘s views on digital art on the Expressions blog.

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