Snapshot
Collection Spotlight
Summer Wagner
The Latest
Art3
Magnum
Quantum
Threads of the Week
Luiz DT
Alejandro Cartagena
Photographer of the Week
Karen Navarro
Collector’s Corner
In the growing tensions between legacy photographers and blockchain natives, which way does the alpha lean?
Collection Spotlight
The Parody of a Tangled Thread - Summer Wagner
The photo story of the week very well may be found in Summer Wagner’s collection, The Parody of a Tangled Thread, which has seen a remarkable avalanche of sales occur after photo collector Chikai produced a custom website to celebrate the artist’s work while aggregating visual data to create a filter-tour through the subject matter that appears in Wagner’s work.
As the bear market in the NFT world continues its grind, and as the saturation of photographers in the ecosystem continues to grow, it’s become increasingly rare for photography collections to gain virality. And since the Fall ‘21 photography bull run it’s been rarer still to see a 50+ image collection to sell out in such short order.
The success of Wagner’s collection this week provides great insight into the results that can be found when collectors turn into patrons and go the extra mile to engage with the artists they support. As we’ve written about in previous issues, when collecting becomes more than a practice of acquisition, good things will happen. And Chikai’s initiative helped Wagner’s work cut cleanly through the wall of promotional noise on Twitter, peaking the interest of other collectors and creating a cascade of attention that lead to remarkable results.
View The Parody of a Tangled Thread here
The Latest
Art3
Art3 just announced the opening of a presale window for its newest collection, Psychedelic Pioneers by photographic artist Dean Chamberlain, who is often referred to as the Father of Light Painting. The series, produced over the span of 30 years, features a mix of still life and portrait work that was produced by illuminating subjects with artificial light sources during long exposures, resulting in colorful, painterly, and otherworldly results which, as the title suggests, steps into the realm of psychedelia. The collection is being released at low price points in editions of 6.
View Psychedelic Pioneers here
Magnum
Magnum has officially entered the NFT space with a 75-image drop conducted in sync with the 75-year anniversary of the legendary agency’s founding. The collection, curated by Alejandro Cartagena, features an eclectic mix of work from Magnum’s extensive archive of journalistic, documentary, and fine art imagery. The launch comes as an extension of the agency’s partnership with Obscura, and is the latest in a recent run of larger, legacy photography institutions such as Getty Images, the Associated Press, and LIFE Magazine entering the NFT space.
View the Magnum 75 Collection here
Quantum
Quantum’s next curated drop is by San Francisco-based photographer and filmmaker Jason Hanasik, with a 20-image collection titled I Slowly Watched Him Disappear. The work follows a young man named Sharrod who was photographed throughout his high school tenure as he prepared for a future military career. And Hanasik uses this work to muse upon notions of military fantasy, identity, and the emotional and psychological arenas that military marketing techniques venture into through its recruitment strategies. The collection is presented as the first part of a “multimedia essay” comprised of images, video works, and curatorial projects about the construction of military identity in the broader culture.
View I Slowly Watched Him Disappear here
Threads of the Week
RawDAO founder Luiz DT breaks down his views on the current state of the photography market, compares photography to other NFT categories, and muses on the nature of community building within the space.
Alejandro Cartagena shares his insights on the realities of creating and career-building as an artist, tours us through his own experiences and struggles, and describes the importance of humility in the path toward artistic maturity.
Photographer of the Week: Karen Navarro
Houston-based photographer Karen Navarro has long used her work to explore notions of identity, representaiton, race, gender, and her own indigenous identity. Navarro has exhibited her work widely, been the recipient of numerous awards, and her work has been shared in many high-profile publications including The Guadrian, Photo Vogue Festival Italia, ARTnews, and Rolling Stone Italia.
Navarro recenty released her genesis collection, The Constructed Self, in partnership with Art3. And the collection features 14 collage works that the artist produced by hand to explore and disect the fluid nature of identity and perception.
PhotoVerso: Can you tell us about your background as a photographer?
Karen Navarro: I studied fashion design, then switched to fashion photography and ended up doing fine art photography. I consider myself a fine art photographer and mixed-media artist. I started out as a traditional photographer, but now I use photography to create deconstructed sculptural portraits adding different materials. I also, use other mediums to create art, but it's mostly image-based work (for now).
PhotoVerso: What inspires you as a photographer and what do you hope audiences take away from your work?
Karen Navarro: What drives me to create work is the search for my identity, social injustices, and the colonial gaze over other non-white identities. I hope my work brings these topics to the surface and starts the conversation. I really think we need to start questioning how these bodies have been portrayed throughout history and in the media to understand the effect of how we/they are perceived and the many consequences of it.
In the end, I'm looking for a more tolerant and inclusive world where prejudice and race/class don't determine a person's value.
PhotoVerso: What's the scoop with your latest NFT drop?
Karen Navarro: This work celebrates diversity. It's a collection of 14 pieces of which 4 a Gifs. The movement in the Gifs translates this idea that identity is an ever-shifting and evolving concept.
It's exciting to see collectors like @jeffexcell, @pixelpete and @sashaku.eth support the work.
View The Constructed Self here
Collector’s Corner
In the growing tensions between legacy photographers and blockchain natives, which way does the alpha lean?
Yesterday we ran an informal poll about a topic that seems to be bubbling to the surface of collecting conversations: The dichotomy between artists brought into the space by curated platforms, and independent artists who are actively building their careers in this space themselves.
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