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An exhilarating voyage into the realm of the digital is in store for the iconic Ab-Ex luminary, Jackson Pollock. Thanks to a riveting inaugural venture into Web3, collectors will soon be privy to a one-of-a-kind NFT and a corresponding hand-numbered, museum-grade print.
Pollock, who danced around easels, transformed his East Hampton, New York, studio into an immersive canvas. Here, he would drape canvases onto the wooden floor, allowing raw household paint to shape his mesmerizing abstract landscapes, dictated by nothing but the free hand and the pull of gravity. As he confessed, the floor rendered him closer to his work, making him feel like a living part of the painting.
It is All an NFT
This vibrant epicenter of Pollock’s creativity was overlaid with tiles in 1953, marking the closure of his most productive era. This unintentionally archived the vibrant brush strokes, splashes, and specks that had drifted off his masterpieces, effectively crystallizing his artistic spirit. Unveiled in 1987, the floor also bore an unexpected find – his cigarette butts, petrified in paint.
The floor has since become a cherished relic, meticulously maintained by the Jackson Pollock Studio, a division of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center.
Helen A. Harrison, the center’s director, shared with Artnet News that while the floor stands as their most prized possession, its stationary nature prevents it from reaching a wider audience. “It can’t go on loan to other institutions. It is where it is.”
Not for long, though! Come July 20, the Jackson Pollock Studio, in association with the cutting-edge Web3 platform Iconic, will revolutionize this limitation by introducing the unique floor onto the blockchain, courtesy of a vibrant NFT collection named “Beyond the Edge.”
This intriguing series reveals four different angles of the floor, each carrying distinctive hues and markings reminiscent of Pollock’s famed creations like Number 3, 1950 (1950), Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952 (1952), and Convergence (1952).
These perspectives, captured in stunning high definition and offered in editions of 100, will gift collectors with both an NFT and a hand-numbered, museum-grade print. The dynamic duo is available at .8 ETH or $1,500.
Harrison expressed her amazement at the precision and intricacy of these perspectives, compiled using advanced A.I. from images taken with a specialized studio-mounted camera. She commented, “They’re quite mesmerizing…You can see the floor in a way that you cannot do with the naked eye.”
The Pollock Enigma
For the first time, the Pollock Studio is venturing into the blockchain world with a bonus Web3 puzzle, named The Pollock Enigma. The one who first cracks it earns additional prints and NFTs. By August, the collection will grow to feature Ordinals, based on the studio floor, along with limited-edition works by modern digital artists.
Profits from the “Beyond the Edge” sale will go towards the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center’s efforts to conserve and uphold the studio floor. The preservation project initiated in the late 80s involved removing tar paper residue and strengthening the floor following a beetle infestation. Yet, conservation tasks and evaluations are always ongoing.
For Harrison, this digital initiative marks a significant leap in sharing the living testament of Pollock’s artistic process with the world.
This offers a novel chance to those unable to witness the floor firsthand, granting them a glimpse into its significance. “We know where certain paintings were lying when Pollock was working on them because of the colors and the gestures that are in evidence on the floor. This is a way of relating the artifact to the art,” Harrison concluded.
Featured image: Jackson Pollock’s studio floor. Courtesy of Iconic and the Jackson Pollock Studio and news.artnet.com
