Centre Pompidou, one of the most famous art museums in the world, announced that they will start displaying NFTs.
Yuga Labs, a leading web3 company, announced the next step in its Punks Legacy Project, a mission to bring awareness to the cultural relevance of CryptoPunks, one of the first NFT projects. As part of this project, Yuga Labs donated CryptoPunk #110 to the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris’s leading contemporary art museum.
This donation is the second one from Yuga Labs as part of the Punks Legacy Project. The first donation, CryptoPunk #305, was given to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami during Art Basel 2022. This new donation signifies that CryptoPunks is gaining recognition as an important art movement in the industry.
Created in 2017, CryptoPunks is a collection of generative art, inspired by the London punk scene. Today, CryptoPunks remains one of the most popular NFT collections. Many consider CryptoPunks as the leading example of NFTs as contemporary art.
Revolutionizing Contemporary Art
Xavier Rey, Director of the National Museum of Modern Art, said that the inclusion of CryptoPunk #110 in its collection shows Centre Pompidou’s interest in digital art and the blockchain. Rey also mentioned that web3 is an innovative territory that artists have seized to create original and daring works. He stated that Centre Pompidou supports artists in their pursuit of new means of expression.
Greg Solano, Co-Founder of Yuga Labs, said that the Punks Legacy Project aims to build a cultural bridge between the traditional art world and the web3 industry. This way, people can pave the way for a collective understanding of how digital art works. Moreover, that way, people can appreciate it more. Solano also stated that seeing CryptoPunk #110 displayed in the Centre Pompidou is huge for the NFT ecosystem. He also said that Yuga Labs is honored to help drive this cultural conversation.
CryptoPunk #110 will be unveiled and installed at the Centre Pompidou this spring as part of a digital art exhibition. In the coming year, Yuga Labs will continue to donate CryptoPunks to museums around the world.
But, besides CryptoPunk #110, Centre Pompidou will display NFTs from other collections as well. To illustrate, Larva Labs, the creators of CryptoPunks, donated Autoglyph #25 to the museum. They announced that they are “honored” that they joined Yuga Labs in the donation toward the museum. This donation aims to revolutionize the way we look at contemporary art through Web3 integration.