PhotoVerso #32
The Collector's Guide to Blockchain Photography
Snapshot
Collection Spotlight
Vaughn Meadows
The Latest
Twitter Spaces Talks Abound
Overheard
Unknown Collector on influencers and responsibility
Alejandro Cartagena on separating the image from its technology
Collector’s Corner
The Great Royalty (non) Debate
Collection Spotlight
Desert Oddities by Vaughn Meadows
Vaughn Meadows’ Desert Oddities is a 40-piece collection produced in the American South that have achieved a unique voice that is not often found in landscape series. Throughout Meadows’ sun-soaked scenes we find a specific color character, warm and inviting, which almost betrays the relative emptiness of the views he sets before us. In Desert Oddities we find much evidence of human development in this place, but rarely see any of its occupants, giving the series an eerie feeling of emptiness, perhaps even abandonment. The tension between the emotional warmth and conceptual coldness creates a seesaw of experience that is subtle at first but grows more glaring as we dig deeper into the work.
Further on, there are other particular elements in this work that lends to an idiosyncratic and memorable reading. The exclusive presence of classical cars and vintage signage in this work, for example, distorts our sense of time. The clean and tightly-considered compositional structures of this work lets it be known that Meadow’s enjoys playing a range of visual games. And when we do encounter human figures in two of these pictures, distant and obscure, they provide no comfort of company but only make us more weary of this place as one we ought to be spending time in. From all these factors, Desert Oddities lives up to its title by transporting viewers into a place that the more we explore the more alien we feel. Somehow, there may be more to this story than meets the eye.
Desert Oddities was minted four months ago, and only 14 works remain from the 40-piece collection, making it an attractive project that could flip from under to on the radar at the drop of a hat. With primary offerings listed at a flat .25 ETH, we think it’s a solid, memorable collection at a great price point.
Find Vaughn Meadows’ Desert Oddities collection here
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The Latest
Twitter Spaces Talks Abound
While this has been a quiet week in respect to new drops, the time has been filled with a fun mix of Spaces talks. Maybe in the clutches of a bear market, the best thing to do is chat with each other. Here’s a roundup of the best Spaces chats we heard this week.
Obscura begins a new Twitter Space series called Radio Obscura


Danielle Ezzo interviews prominent photo collector Pixel Pete for Art3

Barry Sutton and Alejandro Cartagena continue their Photo Alpha chat series

Fellowship hangs out with the night shift for the second in a new series of chats with artists, led by Co-Founder Chadwick Tyler, who chatted with Niall O’Brien
And of course we at PhotoVerso held our own Twitter Space early this week with Summer Wagner

Overheard
Unknown Collector muses on the nature of influencers and a plea to legitimate collectors to work towards pushing a healthier discourse.

Alejandro Cartagena with a thoughtful thread on the relationships between artists, their tools, aiming to distinguish photography from its technological identity.


Collector’s Corner
The Great Royalty (non) Debate
Yesterday the NFT marketplace X2Y2 announced it was allowing users to decide on their own what royalties creators should receive on NFTs bought and sold on their platform. What does this mean?
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