Commission Nounish Art from 1-of-1 Artists + Nounish Auction

NounsDAO NounsDAO Proposals
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tl;dr
Open submission for artists ➠ Curate & Nouns vote on artists to commission ➠ Winning artists create Nounish art pieces ➠ Auction in an artist/charity split

Description
Commission 5 NFT artists to create artworks which incorporate Nouns in their own way. Submissions will be open for all, and publicly viewable. 12 artists will be curated for vote in a Prop House round. Top 5 will be funded for commissions.

Artist Criteria
Prefer artists with SuperRare sales and/or significant social media reach. We’ll auction off the pieces with all proceeds split between artists and the charity of their choice.

With the final piece, they must include at least a one sentence description on why it is Nounish — no other requirement for the art itself.

Ideally the artists span across multiple styles of work, to get varied results. Artists create the work after they are selected & funded.

open for discussion: should the artwork be required to be CC0? should we trade off missing out on some artists who won’t do CC0?

Budget: 20 ETH

  • Artists: 3 ETH x 5 artists for commission up-front + 100% of auction price going to artists and/or charity
  • Admin/Marketing: 5 ETH to create marketing materials, reach out to artists, curate selections and manage the auctions over a month.

Will work with Max Kulchinsky to curate & source artists. Max is a NY based artist and curator who has previously worked with Zoratopia, NiftyGateway, Bitski, Dcentral, and has put on several of his own art shows.

This is a first run estimate of costs … open to chat. Before going on-chain, I would clear up expectations with the admin/marketing costs & itemize.

Timeline
once funded…
1 week to create submission form & marketing materials & artist reach-out
2 weeks open submission
1 week voting on Prop House
6-8 weeks for artists to create the art (overlap with marketing the auction)
1 week auction

total: 11-13 weeks (~3 months)

Brief Rationale
Artists are the greatest source of joy, excitement, and creativity in the NFT space. This is an effort to say “Nouns see you, we support you” and steer the attention of several incredible creatives to Nounishness and the power of DAOs.

Many of the artists in mind have significant followings that extend far beyond the NFT space, so # of new eyes on Nouns is built in.

Additionally, while I expect this first Nounish Art commission to be online, with an oncyber gallery and contracts likely on Manifold, it could easily extend IRL in future iterations. With collaborations with other Nounish companies (i.e. Zora, Nouns OTG, FWB), we could have a Nounish gallery & auction at major IRL events i.e. NFT NYC, etc. Food for thought.

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Small note — for price comparison of artist commission for Nounish art.

Prop #87 in collaboration with Vector DAO funded 8 artists to create Nounish artwork for posters to be put up around NYC. Average cost per work was $22,500, and did not include any charity contribution afaik. Cost for each of the artworks in this proposal will be < $4,000 from the DAO.

btw, that work from those artists was incredible. It doesn’t get enough attention tbh. check them out: https://nouns.vectordao.com/

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Did this end up going onchain? :slight_smile: sorry if i am catching up too late! Would be happy to help!

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It has not, but I got some feedback in various Discords. But I’ll give a quick update since you’re interested!

  1. I want to lock down artists before coming back for prop edits here. The audience & quality of the artists we’re commissioning is relevant to voters, it would be more appealing to know what artists are participating. If this first round is successful, maybe we can open it up for Prop House rounds in the future. Or we leave 1-2 spots open for Prop House in this round, if that’s what the community wants before we’re on-chain.

  2. Shifting from 1-of-1 auctions to an open edition(s) model. This is more in line with the sentiment seen from Nouns (with thisisnouns mint + Zora support + let’s keep trying it out) and in the broader art community (cheap editions, get art in more ppl’s hands). imo this makes more sense for both sides. We would not mint them all at once, likely one per week, and maybe commission one last piece for people who purchase and hold at least one edition of all of them.

I’m also still considering whether a physical gallery is needed. I personally lean no on this first go, as we try to keep things lean and costs down to prove the concept first.

Would love to get some help on this. Feel free to DM me on Twitter @byhardy or Discord byhardy#8888 and let’s talk it through. – that’s an open invite to anyone seeing this! (:

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Wanted to note this: If we mint at a 50% split, .05 ETH for each edition, and each artist sells 100 editions (imo, a low estimate for artists we are targeting), Nouns would recoup half of their investment on this experiment, with upside being higher.

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For me, as a performance artist, this would be a wonderful opportunity to experience and have fun while working. Of course, such initiatives bring us closer to the real world, going beyond the culture of Web3. If the initiative is approved, I would be happy to participate.

At the same time, it seems to me that in the current realities, artists fade into the background, as AI dominates the media space. I would look at those works that artificial intelligence will generate.

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It seems I can no longer edit my original post. Going to repost with new iteration of the prop shortly.

New post is here