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Lot Essay
Noah Davis, Head of Digital Art at Christie’s, discusses World of Women
There is a 1907 painting by the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker in the MoMA which I believe is one of the greatest self-portraits of all time. The picture is modest in scale, the size and shape of a small narrow mirror, and depicts the artist in three-quarter profile with her left hand raised, gently grasping a pair of dusty-pink flowers. The great source of this painting’s pathos, however, is only subtly obvious: the subject’s right hand rests on her pregnant belly, making it one of the earliest self-portraits painted by a pregnant woman (the artist famously painted an imagined nude self-portrait of her pregnancy the year before, in 1906). Deeply serene, with earthy colors and thickly applied impasto, the composition is refined to impeccably balanced essentials. The subject’s intense gaze is reminiscent of the Renaissance, heavy-lidded and celestial, and yet the painting is strikingly modern, radiating a radical, empowering vibe. Representation in oil painting has always been fraught: while women have classically featured as the subjects of portraiture since the very birth of image-making, the authors of those images were for a very long time nearly exclusively male. Indeed, the first few centuries of painted women constitutes a pantheon of practically nothing but Madonnas or the occasional queens regnant. It wasn’t until the relatively recent past that women began taking overt control of their representation in art (and beyond). The spartan Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand is, essentially, the twentieth century’s first great visual precursor to Feminism.
Fast-forward to today: the NFT, our shiniest new toy, has taken pop-culture by storm, captivating and/or disrupting all manner of industry from fashion and real estate to art. Thanks to advancements in blockchain technology and decentralized applications, ephemeral goods—especially digital ones—finally have currency. NFT-detractors will make the ‘right-click-save’ argument, but this betrays their fundamental misunderstanding of the new technology at play; they are still appraising the digital image as nothing more than a JPEG, whereas now the JPEG is only a visual representation of an indelible entry on a public decentralized ledger … it’s worth underscoring the staggering cultural implications of this difference. Formerly unprofitable or even nonexistent art collecting categories are suddenly, explosively on the rise. One of the latter few is the astoundingly popular ‘pfp,’ or profile picture, the origins of which can be traced back to the genesis of social media in the early aughts. Over the last few decades, as Myspace begat Facebook and Facebook begat Instagram, users have been faced with an increasingly important decision: what do I use for my profile picture? Now, your reaction to the following statement will be highly influenced by the era in which you grew up, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that choosing a pfp is the contemporary equivalent of painting a self-portrait, especially in the age of NFTs. But, not unlike the cultural moment in which Modersohn-Becker painted her self-portrait, we are in the midst of a familiar dilemma of representation.
Various emerging reports on the NFT space concur that women are woefully underrepresented, whether as collectors, developers, community managers, artists or project founders. The vast majority of profits in NFTs—of which there are plenty—are enjoyed by men, and usually young white men. This isn’t a sustainable paradigm for the nascent world of Web3 (blockchain-enhanced Internet), nor is it an acceptable one, even in the short term. To that end, I am proud to feature the present lot as the sole NFT in our prestigious London Evening Sale of 20th/21st Century Art: Woman #5672, from the pioneering pfp project World of Women, or WoW for short. Aesthetically, Woman #5672 is a straight-on, square-format avatar of a female-presenting subject with a black bob haircut and triple gold rings in each ear; she’s glamorous in a tuxedo with painted red lips and winged eye makeup and most strikingly, her skin is a cool gradient of night sky purple, with a spray of stars where freckles might be. This last trait, ‘Night Goddess,’ is one of the rarest in the 10k-piece collection, and is only slightly more scarce than the aforementioned ‘Tuxedo’ trait, making Woman #5672 one of the most unique WoWs out there. The ethereal skin tone combined with her crisp formal attire imbues her with the mystique of a René Magritte portrait, magnifying her powerful, otherworldly energy against a backdrop of swirling red and turquoise curves. Notably, WoW token-holders elected Woman #5672 in a vote to represent the WoW collection’s marquee auction debut. This is the first time a collecting community has chosen the artwork to be placed in a Christie’s Evening Sale via decentralized vote, and it’s a perfect evocation of the WoW ethos, built on inclusivity, mutual respect and empowerment.
World of Women was co-founded by the artist Yam Karkai, her husband Raphaël Malavieille, Toomaie and BBA (pseudonyms, of course) in 2021. Together, along with a passionate team of likeminded developers and community builders, they have launched a truly global brand, with the mission of amplifying women’s creative voices and bringing increased equity to underrepresented groups in Web3. Since the initial launch date of 27 July 2021, the 10,000-piece WoW collection has been distributed to more than 5,000 owners and has reached a lofty floor price above 10 ETH (~$30,000 as of this writing). In a testament to the project’s stated goals, the WoW team recently chose to relinquish the NFTs’ underlying intellectual property to their corresponding collectors, imbuing even the tokens themselves with a poetic sort of sovereignty. May the enduring brands of the Web3 era strive to promote this kind of generosity to their communities—and by extension, the audience at large, too. And may the sale of this incredibly special NFT signal to all creative women across the globe that your vision is relevant, valuable and unique. The time is now; the time is WoW.
There is a 1907 painting by the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker in the MoMA which I believe is one of the greatest self-portraits of all time. The picture is modest in scale, the size and shape of a small narrow mirror, and depicts the artist in three-quarter profile with her left hand raised, gently grasping a pair of dusty-pink flowers. The great source of this painting’s pathos, however, is only subtly obvious: the subject’s right hand rests on her pregnant belly, making it one of the earliest self-portraits painted by a pregnant woman (the artist famously painted an imagined nude self-portrait of her pregnancy the year before, in 1906). Deeply serene, with earthy colors and thickly applied impasto, the composition is refined to impeccably balanced essentials. The subject’s intense gaze is reminiscent of the Renaissance, heavy-lidded and celestial, and yet the painting is strikingly modern, radiating a radical, empowering vibe. Representation in oil painting has always been fraught: while women have classically featured as the subjects of portraiture since the very birth of image-making, the authors of those images were for a very long time nearly exclusively male. Indeed, the first few centuries of painted women constitutes a pantheon of practically nothing but Madonnas or the occasional queens regnant. It wasn’t until the relatively recent past that women began taking overt control of their representation in art (and beyond). The spartan Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand is, essentially, the twentieth century’s first great visual precursor to Feminism.
Fast-forward to today: the NFT, our shiniest new toy, has taken pop-culture by storm, captivating and/or disrupting all manner of industry from fashion and real estate to art. Thanks to advancements in blockchain technology and decentralized applications, ephemeral goods—especially digital ones—finally have currency. NFT-detractors will make the ‘right-click-save’ argument, but this betrays their fundamental misunderstanding of the new technology at play; they are still appraising the digital image as nothing more than a JPEG, whereas now the JPEG is only a visual representation of an indelible entry on a public decentralized ledger … it’s worth underscoring the staggering cultural implications of this difference. Formerly unprofitable or even nonexistent art collecting categories are suddenly, explosively on the rise. One of the latter few is the astoundingly popular ‘pfp,’ or profile picture, the origins of which can be traced back to the genesis of social media in the early aughts. Over the last few decades, as Myspace begat Facebook and Facebook begat Instagram, users have been faced with an increasingly important decision: what do I use for my profile picture? Now, your reaction to the following statement will be highly influenced by the era in which you grew up, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that choosing a pfp is the contemporary equivalent of painting a self-portrait, especially in the age of NFTs. But, not unlike the cultural moment in which Modersohn-Becker painted her self-portrait, we are in the midst of a familiar dilemma of representation.
Various emerging reports on the NFT space concur that women are woefully underrepresented, whether as collectors, developers, community managers, artists or project founders. The vast majority of profits in NFTs—of which there are plenty—are enjoyed by men, and usually young white men. This isn’t a sustainable paradigm for the nascent world of Web3 (blockchain-enhanced Internet), nor is it an acceptable one, even in the short term. To that end, I am proud to feature the present lot as the sole NFT in our prestigious London Evening Sale of 20th/21st Century Art: Woman #5672, from the pioneering pfp project World of Women, or WoW for short. Aesthetically, Woman #5672 is a straight-on, square-format avatar of a female-presenting subject with a black bob haircut and triple gold rings in each ear; she’s glamorous in a tuxedo with painted red lips and winged eye makeup and most strikingly, her skin is a cool gradient of night sky purple, with a spray of stars where freckles might be. This last trait, ‘Night Goddess,’ is one of the rarest in the 10k-piece collection, and is only slightly more scarce than the aforementioned ‘Tuxedo’ trait, making Woman #5672 one of the most unique WoWs out there. The ethereal skin tone combined with her crisp formal attire imbues her with the mystique of a René Magritte portrait, magnifying her powerful, otherworldly energy against a backdrop of swirling red and turquoise curves. Notably, WoW token-holders elected Woman #5672 in a vote to represent the WoW collection’s marquee auction debut. This is the first time a collecting community has chosen the artwork to be placed in a Christie’s Evening Sale via decentralized vote, and it’s a perfect evocation of the WoW ethos, built on inclusivity, mutual respect and empowerment.
World of Women was co-founded by the artist Yam Karkai, her husband Raphaël Malavieille, Toomaie and BBA (pseudonyms, of course) in 2021. Together, along with a passionate team of likeminded developers and community builders, they have launched a truly global brand, with the mission of amplifying women’s creative voices and bringing increased equity to underrepresented groups in Web3. Since the initial launch date of 27 July 2021, the 10,000-piece WoW collection has been distributed to more than 5,000 owners and has reached a lofty floor price above 10 ETH (~$30,000 as of this writing). In a testament to the project’s stated goals, the WoW team recently chose to relinquish the NFTs’ underlying intellectual property to their corresponding collectors, imbuing even the tokens themselves with a poetic sort of sovereignty. May the enduring brands of the Web3 era strive to promote this kind of generosity to their communities—and by extension, the audience at large, too. And may the sale of this incredibly special NFT signal to all creative women across the globe that your vision is relevant, valuable and unique. The time is now; the time is WoW.