Website: https://oliveallen.com/
Linktr.ee https://linktr.ee/oliveallen
- Olive’s website
- Social Media
- Art listed on
- OpenSea
- Nifty Gateway
- SuperRare
- Christie’s online
Time Stamps
[1:02 – 2:32] Olive got into NFTs in 2017 after learning about Crypto Kitties. She delved deeper when she travelled to Asia and heard about ERC 721s. Olive played the game Fortnight in those days and had the idea that it would be great if she could trade skins she held in the game and give those virtual items a status. This gave her the idea for her startup company, Decadent.
[2:49 – 5:04] Decadent was an early version of marketplaces that exist today. The idea was a marketplace to exchange virtual objects such as game items, art, music, film aviators, and more. Olive moved to Silicon Valley and met with VCs to raise money and faced resistance to investing in crypto. She thinks she had bad timing. She decided to focus more on being a creator vs a company founder which tied her up with administrative tasks with less time for being creative. She moved back to New York in 2019.
[5:19 – 6:48] Olive’s career took off when she was 17 living in New York and creating as a traditional painter. At that time she was in a group show that was critically acclaimed. She wanted to be more innovative and create something remarkable. She always felt tech was the future. 13 Dreadful and Disappointing Items was the first drop in the history of the NFT space. This drop got the attention of Duncan Cock Foster and Griffin Cock Foster at Nifty Gateway.
[7:27 – 9:31] Olive thinks the NFT world is about assets and the traditional/fine art world is a tiny facet of that. She says artists have explored technology, but crypto art is more of a movement. She believes the world needs a critic or curator to define this for the bigger art world to better understand it. For now people are acquiring and selling to prepare for the bear market.
[9:32– 11:13] Olive was at Art Basel and showed with Nagel Draxler. They’ve been doing traditional art for 30 years or more. As a well respected gallery in Germany, Olive says Nagel Draxler took a chance on NFTs and younger artists in the crypto space, while other galleries take a cautious wait and see approach. Olive compares NFTs to post-internet where traditional collectors don’t want to miss out. Galleries can be progressive, but the traditional world can be a bit slow in general.
[11:37 – 14:33] Olives talks about a piece she had at Art Basel, Post Death and the Null Address. The piece came from the concept of what happens with digital assets when we die. She says these are immortal and provide artists ultimate immorality.. Olive says at a burn address, NFTs still sit at the null address indefinitely and the image can still be found if you dig for them. She said it’s essentially collecting digital dust in the ultimate place of abandonment, but always there.
[14:34 – 18:20] Olive discusses artists who created NFTs early on versus those who held out. Artists creating more traditional art and thriving don’t need to jump in and create NFTs; Artists can be successful being themselves and not following the hype. Many OG crypto artists were Tumblr artists and others missed the train while some fizzled out. Some artists don’t want to miss out on the NFTs like missing out on Tumblr. Olive references artists Sarah Zucker and Matt Kane as being early to recognize that online communities can be a launchpad for careers. Olive poses the question as to how collectors and art historians assign value to artists asking, is it better to be consistently creating over a long-span, or be early and then disappear? She thinks there’s a combination of the two.
[19:17 – 22:06] Olive and Sabretooth discuss how there are different narratives as to how art being created today is classified: digital, crypto, NFT. Sabretooth believes the term “NFT art” came about from art blocks and generative art. The terms get messy when distinguishing when artists started in NFTs. Olive believes NFT art is an umbrella term for NFTs. Olive mentions her issues with generative art in that it rejects her theory that all art is about meaning.
[23:24 – 26:17] Olive elaborates on her view on generative art. She says art is intentional and has thought behind it. She mentions Duchamp and the thought and intention behind his conceptual art. For Olive, art is imperfect because it’s human with soul. The automation of generative art feels gimmicky and takes away artists’ narrative and expression. Olive thinks we don’t need to rush generative art.
[27:38 – 33:42] Olive, Sabretooth, and Kizu discuss Sabretooth’s perspective comparing the start of art with cavemen drawing on walls to coders creating generative art in that they are both basic and may not age well, but from this a more complex art will emerge. Olive questions the meaning behind generative art. The three discuss the motivation of a paycheck for some artists throughout time.
[33:24 – 35:29] Olive shares a story about introducing Kenny Schachter to NFTs and how he has helped grow the space. She credits Kenny Schacter with introducing the art world to NFTs.
[35:58 – 35:29] Olive says her favorite artists include Richard Prince, Tracy Emin, Joyce Pensato, Gerhard Richter, Edvard Munch, Claude Monet for being the first artist to make an abstract painting.
