LACMA Announces NFT Acquisition

In February, just three days after Centre Pompidou’s NFT acquisition announcement, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced their own significant acquisition of NFTs. The move was a further indication of the growing acceptance of blockchain-based work in the world’s largest art institutions. This collection included a gift from prominent collector Cozomo de’ Medici featuring noteworthy new media artists such as Monica Rizzolli, Dmitri Cherniak, Justin Aversano, Cai Guo Qiang, Matt DesLauriers and Claire Silver. It also saw works enter through individual donations by John Gerrard and Tom Sachs’s Rocket Factory. Work by Erick Calderon also entered the collection in this bundle. The previous year, LACMA, in collaboration with of all people, Paris Hilton, launched a fund to acquire digital art by women, including works by Nancy Baker Cahill, Shantell Martin and Krista Kim. LACMA also partnered with Cactoid Labs to commission digital artists to create pieces inspired by the museum’s collection. This series featured works by Monica Rizzolli, Ix Shells, Jen Stark, Emily Xie, Sarah Zucker, 0xDEAFBEEF, William Mapan and Tyler Hobbs. The growing collection reflects LACMA’s lasting commitment to exploring new media and expanding its collection to include cutting-edge forms of artistic expression. The bundle acquisition underscores the growing recognition of blockchain-based art within the traditional art world, especially juxtaposed to the acquisitions by Buffalo AKG and Centre Pompidou.