© Amanda Lopez
We speak with photographer, curator, publisher and now NFT leader Kris Graves about how his new platform Quantum Art is helping artists make a living.
While many naysayers (including Wikipedia!) are convinced that the NFT market is a form of “the emperor’s new clothes,” for many artists, it’s creating new revenue streams that were previously unheard of.
At the forefront of NFT photo sales is Quantum Art, a platform led by Kris Graves, Jonas Lamis, and founder Justin Aversano (with curatorial leadership from Humble’s Roula Seikaly) who are on a mission to put money in the hands of artists who have too often seen their work used for "exposure" rather than money in their pockets.
All of Quantum's “Season 1 and 2” artist drops have sold out in twenty minutes or less, earning the artists five-figure incomes (or more!) that are deposited immediately to their virtual wallets.
I spoke with Kris Graves over Zoom to learn more about Quantum Art, the mystery behind NFTs, and how to harness this new product to help artists everywhere.
Jon Feinstein in conversation with Kris Graves
Jon Feinstein. Woah - did you hear that? I think Siri picked up that we were recording…..So anyway, thanks for your time an openness. NFTs are one of the biggest love/hate/meme-it buzzwords right now, and admire what you‘re doing with Quantum. I’d love to use this conversation to shed some light on what, for many, is still an abstract mystery.
For those who are still confused after Googling it, what is an NFT? And why is it important to you?
Kris Graves NFT is a licensed digital asset.
Feinstein: Can you break that down for me?
Graves: It’s akin to having your own personal stock library or some sort of aggregator of your images and other content that can be sold in perpetuity forever.
Images, moving images, music anytime, or any sort of digital content that you can create, now has a marketplace, when before it didn't.
We’re so used to sharing our images on Instagram or Facebook and pretty much giving away all of our rights for free. And now with the NFT world, we can start to keep our own income and make money off of our digital files.
Feinstein: Cool. How does that differ from a stock photo/music/video library where you were licensing a digital file or access?
Graves: You do it yourself now, if you want to. So, you don't need a gatekeeper to make money in this space. You can make those decisions for yourself and figure out how you want to interact with your community and public so that you can continue those sales without needing a gallery or anybody else to make enough money to survive, so that you can keep making art. That's pretty much what I'm here for, to, to make enough so that I don't need a day job, right?
Feinstein: And Quantum’s role is less of a middleman and more of a kind of facilitator?
Graves: We're a platform that’s looking at photography, and trying to put some stuff on the blockchain, but also has to make income so that we can still be a company. We're still a business.
So, we're working our way through that, and we have a lot of initiatives so that we can get more people on board. What we're doing is trying to build a community and keep our people interested in photography and learning through the work we sell, and looking at these works from these masters of photography. Hopefully, everyone becomes a better photographer. Also, we’re here to help educate folks who are more in this kind of tech space and appreciate art but don't necessarily have that background.
Feinstein: Can you talk about some of the artists you’re working with who speak to this?
Graves: We just launched Richard Renaldi’s pieces a few weeks ago - the photo world has seen those pieces for years now, but often without access…..
Feinstein: What’s confusing to many folks is how ownership actually works. I constantly see people making comments (and memes) about how NFTs are a hoax of ownership….or they’re mystified about why they aren’t getting an actual print…..mostly questioning what an NFT actually is…. So, to back up a bit, what does that actually look like?
Graves: Owning an entity is pretty much owning a piece of the Ethereum blockchain. That sounds super abstract, but Blockchain is essentially a network of connected computers that create a “smart contract.” Smart contracts are essentially super-secure, unchangeable digital contracts that cannot be changed.
It is something that exists forever. You cannot alter the contract once the file is sold, once it is given to another person.
Feinstein: How does this benefit artists?
Graves: Unlike the traditional market/print sales, where a collector can resell a print for however much without any money going back to the artist the artist always gets a percentage back with NFTs. With Quantum, the artist also receives 5% of each re-sale.
Feinstein: So, for a collector, with these being digital files, what does ownership actually look like? When somebody buys an NFT of Mona Kuhn’s work, for example, what are they actually getting?
Graves: They own a smart contract that's connected to a JPEG, or image file on the Ethereum network where they can now sell it or keep it, they can hold on to it or collect it. They can hold forever, or decide to sell tomorrow and either make a profit or not make a profit.
Anytime it sells again, profit or not for the person who bought it, the artist gets the percentage. It’s a new way of thinking about digital files where artists can actually profit off of their images circulating digitally.
Kris Graves by Kris Graves
Feinstein: So, it removes the issues of the secondary market, where an artist doesn't benefit? To clarify, I think what you're saying is that we're so used to the old mode where someone would sell their work and then couldn't really profit off it beyond that, and now they can every time it’s resold?
Graves: Correct.
Feinstein: But the final object, albeit virtual, is this idea of a unique, digital “original,” kind of like a digital signature ascribed to the work?
Graves: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, the artist still has to make sure that they're giving you a file that is useful for a long period of time. So with Quantum, we try to make sure that we give people large enough file sizes to be safe for the next generation of screens, like, at least 4k or 6k files.
Feinstein: Ah, ok!
Graves: We give a person a large enough file so that maybe they can make their own print if they want to, as long as the artist is ok with that in the smart contract. Artists can also write things into the contract like, “you do not have the rights to make a print personally” or “ you're not allowed to profit off of non NFT sale.” The smart contracts are there so that people are all on the same page, the owners, the collectors, the artists.
Feinstein: How else is this different from the traditional brick and mortar model – what we grew up on? Do you see it pushing against or “disrupting” that? Or, is it something that's existing kind of in tandem? Is this the future of all “content” related transactions? Or, is it just a nice supplement to it?
Graves: I think that it's an addition. I think that all of the traditional galleries should be involved, because if their people are selling images on NFTs, those galleries should then try to sell the prints to the people who bought the NFTs. If they're buying one, they should be buying the other if they really want something physical.
Feinstein: Do you see the relationships that you as a “broker” have with artists and that other NFT platforms have as having a level of exclusivity the way a traditional gallery might? Or is it pretty much because it's breaking down those rules? Anyone can do anything anywhere? As far as an artist without worrying about keeping a commitment to a specific gallery or platform? Is the idea of exclusive representation kind of eliminated with it?
Graves: Artists can become their own representatives. They can work through their galleries – there's artists and we are working with galleries to onboard their artists, in a way. So it works both ways. I think it works any way you want it to work, there are no rules beyond the smart contracts the artists develop.
Feinstein: What do you say to people who think NFTs set up an illusion of owning a piece of art?
Kris: The real illusion is that you can sell prints for enough money to live off of your artwork. I went to school to be a photographer, yet it’s almost impossible to make a living solely from selling work. Was the education a farce? Prints are the illusion. They exist in museum basements or on private walls, at best. They exist on gallery walls for a month; seen by hundreds. On the internet, your images can be seen by billions of people, if you're fortunate, and with NFTs, instead of just getting the views and “exposure” for these digital files, you can make a living.
Also important to think about: How many 30-year-olds will be able to own houses, and how many of those people will be able to ever afford a photographer’s work? This makes everything more accessible.
Feinstein: So let’s get into the art! You’re working with some amazing, super established artists like Mona Kuhn and Richard Renaldi, and Julie Blackmon. Have the galleries that represent these artists been open and receptive so far?
Graves: We don't talk to the galleries.
Feinstein: Ha!
Graves: The artist comes on board. And it depends, there are galleries we are talking to with artists, and there are people that will just contact us and want to work with us, no matter what. The way to get around the gallery system is to say these are essentially selling your image to a publication or a magazine. This is not a fight, it can be considered a fine art sale, because it is your image, but it's also not a print or anything like that.
Feinstein: Where's the long term stickiness of NFTS? And, and why is right now the time to kind of get into all that?
Graves: As artists, what option do we have? Are we just going to give all of our images away for free on Instagram for the rest of our lives, until that closes down? It will be around for as long as artists want to participate. We're nine months into photographers even knowing this existed for them for the most part.
I started in February 2021 and Justin Aversano, my business partner, also started in February. We thought that we'd be the first of many that came onto the chain. It's very difficult for us to even talk to our photographer peers, because no one wants to hear it, or they just don't want to do any research.
Feinstein: People jump to criticize, but no one wants to just look it up. Social media is bumping with these kinds of empty critiques.
Graves: They see a lot of artists see the money and say “oh, well, people are making a lot of money, maybe I should be a part of that.” But, then they still don't do any research to figure out. It doesn't cost money to have an NFT. You can put an NFT online for pretty much free. So if you want to, do a little bit of research.
Feinstein: Are there concerns about how this might compete with existing valuation of artists’ work? Of their print sales or price points?
Graves: If you're making a ton of money in the fine art world on print sales, it’s important to respect that when working with NFTs. You don't want to mess with your clients. But, I don't always know my clients, my collectors, or people that my galleries have found. I don't know who they are.
But with NFTs, I know exactly who everyone buying my work is. I know what they're about, I can follow them, I can see what their progression is.
Feinstein: Do you have a sense of who the people that are buying this work? I'm guessing it skews a little bit on the younger, more tech savvy end of things? Are traditional art collectors getting into it?
Graves: I think it's a mix. Pace Gallery has NFTs now. You know, there's a lot of people out there that you may not even think have NFTs who are very high in the game. They're doing a lot of work. So there's people here. People who are ready to buy.
Feinstein: Can you talk a little bit about how and why Quantum started, how you got involved?
Graves: The story behind Quantum is: Justin Aversano had a really good year in the NFT world. He's built huge communities, and has been able to get his communities to support him through a lot of growth. He started with $1,000 images in February and now he sold one at Christie's a few months back for $1.1 million. And he wanted to give his following something, a community to stick. So he start this company named Quantum. He asked me to be the curator so that was really really great of him. I really appreciate how he trusted me in that way.
Feinstein: Awesome.
Graves: We were working with the development team out of the UK and other parts of Europe run by a dude named Alex Shadow. And we have Jonas who, who is incredible at putting people together and organizing everybody. So, we have some good people on our team, which is a pleasure. And you obviously know Roula, who is doing an amazing job curating and bringing in new artists.
Feinstein: And what’s the long term mission?
Graves: Bringing diversity to the blockchain. Like most other spaces, it’s very white. It's important for us to be diverse. It's important for us to show work that has some sort of cultural significance. I think that that's big on our list; that we would rather work with people that are trying to work with culture, in any sense.
I'm not so interested in just basic big landscape photographs – pictures that don't mean anything to most people that are just beautiful. We're not a decorative platform. And as long as I'm there, we won't be a decorative platform.
(But I also am part owner in the business, I'll always be there.)
Feinstein: Ha! Are there any artists coming up that you're super excited about, who aren't yet live that you want to kind of drop in or hint at, or get people excited about?
Graves: Kiliii Yuyan! He makes some of the best photographs on the on the planet. And, you know, people should, you know, people should look at that work very closely. Because it's really important for the world to understand that work.
So, there's gonna be some work that you've seen, there's gonna be some work maybe that you haven't seen.
We can't tell people who's next because that's part of ensuring our system gains momentum, but we’re booked out through much of the year. We only tell people about 10 days in advance who is going to be on our platform.
Feinstein: How important is the collection element of it? It’s not a single image per photographer, always a large body of work, specifically set up for the NFT…
Graves: The collections are what we sell, and we sell. We're a collection selling website we're focused on. Hopefully 50 or more images for the most part, and, yeah, that's what we'll do.
Feinstein: This is a little bit of a boring question and might be a bit early, but, I think helpful to artists and people to get a better sense of the market. Can you talk about what types of content are selling better? Portraits, landscapes... I’m guessing it’s a bit different than the traditional clichés around what “looks good above the couch.”
Graves: You know Alejandro Cartagena. He’s sold some portraits, he's also sold some landscapes. I've sold portraits and landscapes. I think it's all over the place. If you have momentum behind you, then you can probably make some sales in whatever you're making. If it's interesting to people, then that's what will sell. You don't have to be as decorative here to make sales.
And if you do the right research, then you'll figure out exactly where you fit into the space, and what you want to do. Maybe you want to start doing something different as a photographer, like, three dimensional stuff, or just anything else that you can do on the chain.
And, you know, if we want to own something, it's not going to be big paintings or big photographs, because we can't store or take care of them.
We want to move around a little bit more in the future as humans, you know, people might not want to settle down in places where we have to consider art as storage. But, when you have an 85 inch flat screen that costs $800 on your wall, and you can display any work you want vertically or horizontally, then you can have displays in your house that are for your art.
Feinstein: Cool. So, we've covered a lot and I'm really excited with what you're doing. And I think you’ve helped shed some confusion on the process. Do you have any closing advice?
Graves: I would tell people that you're still early now, but you won't be early for long. And it's really important for you to be early at things like this. Right now, there’s maybe hundreds of photographers who you’ve heard of doing NFTs. Soon, it will be 1000s of people you're heard of on the chain. We're super early.
So, if you get involved early, you'll reap the benefits of being an early adopter. If you don't, then it will be hard for you to sell anything. That's pretty much how I see it.