Tulip fever (Tulipsmania)
Tulip mania (also tulip hysteria) is a period in the Dutch Golden Age when tulip bulbs became an object of speculation.
In 1637, the price of a tulip bulb rose to the equivalent of a farm before the market abruptly collapsed.
The tulip fever counts as the first documented stock market crash of mankind.
"With every sale of the artwork,
a part of it is destroyed"
The discussion about this is very old:
Are artworks bought as speculative objects or are collectors concerned about the art?
A new technology always attracts certain groups of people:
Early adopters, visionaries, developers...
...but also speculators.
Speculators are interested in the quick profit - not in the artwork itself.
How can these people recognize?
The series "Tulip mania" is an experiment.
A self-destruction mechanism is built into the artworks by smart contract.
With each resale, a piece destroys itself. One by one, the colorful tulip fields turn into a white ash landscape.
The decay of the pictures is irreversible: the former state cannot be taken back.
No one knows how many sales are left until the final destruction of the image.
In this exhibition, the responsibility for a work of art is transferred to the collector.
The collector must decide: is he interested in the quick buck, destroying the work irrevocably.... or does he want to preserve the artwork for future generations?
The technology of smart contracts makes it possible to document how this experiment will turn out.
