Proof of Art: A Short History of NFTs, from the Beginning of Digital Art to the Metaverse

A handbook on the history of NFTs in art, published for what the Francisco Carolinum in Linz billed as the first museum exhibition on the subject.

The exhibition ran from 10 June to 15 September 2021 and was curated by Jesse Damiani. It showed work by about 25 artists in the museum and in the blockchain-based virtual world Cryptovoxels. The book does not work as a conventional catalogue. It places NFTs in their art-historical context, from the media art of the 1950s and 1960s to contemporary positions. Essays come from Daniel Heiss and Margit Rosen, Fabian Müller-Nittel, Georg Bak, Anika Meier, Charlotte Kent, Claudia Hart and the law firm Schoenherr. The text is in German and English.

Alfred Weidinger edited the volume for OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, the cultural body behind the Linz museum, and wrote its preface. Damiani contributed the introduction. The artists represented include Ai Weiwei, Nam June Paik and Lynn Hershman Leeson. It is a hardcover with a dust jacket and runs to 256 pages.