Artwork, Market and Commodity Form

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between NFTs, digital art, and their existence as commodities through three interconnected analyses. In the first step, the article investigates how the ERC-721 standard shapes monopolistic market structures and transforms digital artworks into commodities. Secondly, it explores theoretical questions about artistic labor from a Marxist perspective, particularly examining problems in a value-form based analysis of artworks and questioning whether artistic work can be considered productive labor in the classical Marxist sense. Finally, the article analyzes artistic practices that engage with smart contracts as a medium, proposing a unique convergence of commodity form and artistic expression. The aim of the article is to highlight how this convergence both reinforces the artwork’s status as a commodity but how it also creates opportunities for artists to critically examine and reconstruct notions of commodity and value in the artistic production process.