.ART

Above: Banksy’s ‘Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge’ CREDIT: Banksy

1. Charlie Bit My Finger video to be auctioned as an NFT

Titled “Charlie bit my finger – again !” the 2007 video featuring a young boy’s finger being bit by his baby brother has racked up more than 881 million views and was one of the earliest videos to be deemed “viral.”

Now, the 55-second clip is set to be removed from YouTube on Sunday and auctioned. The winner of the auction will also be given “the opportunity to create their own parody of the video featuring the original stars, Harry and Charlie,” according to the Davies-Carr family’s website. Auctioning the video as an NFT means that the original version of the video can be sold as if it were art.

2. eBay officially opens its platform to NFT sales

The online sales platform eBay is now permitting the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for digital collectibles. The company told Reuters that beginning Tuesday an “NFT inventory will be provided to sellers who meet eBay’s standards.” Users can bid on NFTs as they would for a physical item.

3. Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar offers Ramallah soil as NFT

Artist Khaled Jarrar is selling soil from Ramallah to protest Israel’s creeping annexation of Palestinian land. ‘I’m trying to preserve the memory of this land before we are not allowed in again,’ he said. Jarrah is offering to send a jar of earth to the collector of an NFT listed on the Our Zora platform.

4. A long-lost Kandinsky painting was rediscovered after 70 years

A 1927 watercolor by Wassily Kandinsky, a work whose whereabouts were unknown for 70 years, will be sold at a German auction house next month. Estimated to fetch €250,000–€350,000 ($304,000–$425,000), the work will go on view to the public in Frankfurt starting on May 28 and will then travel to Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Berlin before landing at its final destination at the auction house Ketterer Kunst’s Munich location, where it will be offered during a modern art evening sale on June 18.

“The story is that it came from a collection and nobody knew that it was part of the collection. It then came to us and no one had any background on it. We knew it was in the catalogue of works but only as a small drawing. We knew that it exists but nobody had seen it for the last 70 years,” auctioneer Robert Ketterer says.
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5. Banksy loses second trademark case after refusing to disclose his identity

Banksy’s rights to his own portfolio of work is “at risk” after the anonymous graffiti artist suffered his second legal defeat because he refused to disclose his identity to judges, The Telegraph can reveal. The street artist has been stripped of a trademark for his “best known” artwork called ‘Laugh Now’ because he was found to have acted in “bad faith” and has repeatedly criticised intellectual property laws, a judgment says. Lawyers for Full Colour Black Ltd have successfully argued twice that Banksy cannot trademark some of his images because he never intended to use them for commercial purposes.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) ruling warns he could struggle to copyright his works because to reveal himself as the “unquestionable owner” would “take away from the secretive persona which propels his fame and success”.

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