AR/VR
Blessing Ngobeni enters the metaverse
The renowned SA artist offers collectors a rare opportunity to own both physical and digital versions of his work.
Blessing Ngobeni, the world-renowned South African visual artist, is exhibiting a ground-breaking collection that combines physical art pieces with non-fungible token (NFT) digital versions.
Accessible in a virtual reality gallery, the collection comprises eight art pieces that are available as pairs, with each set including a physical piece and a digital NFT.
Motivated by social injustices experienced by the majority of people in post-Apartheid South Africa, Ngobeni’s large-scale mixed media paintings are fiercely critical of the country’s political elite and the abuse of power.
His exploration of NFTs follows the likes of Frank Miller, KAWS, Maylee Todd, LaTurbo Avedon, and Gary Vee, who have embraced the medium internationally, and Norman Catherine, who debuted his NFT collection in Africarare in 2021.
This seminal collection features both new works and celebrated works of Ngobeni, such as Anatomy of an Insurrection, Lust I, Lust II, Lust III, Shitting Trump and Tribute to African Portraiture. The NFT collection is currently on exhibit at the Mila Gallery in Ubuntuland, in Africarare, Africa’s first metaverse, and can be viewed here.
In addition to having exhibited in several group and solo exhibitions, Ngobeni has been the recipient of many awards such as the Reinhold Cassirer Award 2012 as well as the Gala Ex-Offenders Awards and the ImpACT Awards for Young Professionals. He also sponsors the Blessing Ngobeni Art Prize.
