ARTNET AG The two-part sale will include a single-edition NFT and a "dynamic," open-edition NFT meant to draw in a larger pool of collectors.
Sarah Cascone, February 2, 2022
The anonymous crypto artist Pak is teaming up with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for a collaborative NFT project titled "Censored," to be released on February 7.
The date has particular significance for Assange, as it is the deadline for his lawyers to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the extradition case that the U.S. government has filed again him.
The two-part sale at a yet-to-be-determined venue will include a single-edition NFT and a "dynamic" open-edition NFT, reports the Crypto Times.
More hints and details about Pak's project with Assange are expected in the coming days. Reached by Artnet News, Pak declined to offer further comment.
When Wikileaks announced the team-up on Twitter, it shared the news with the hashtag #FreeAssangeNOW. The project's title, "Censored," also suggests the NFTs are being sold in support of Assange's legal battles.
Pak, as one of the first artists to achieve major success in the NFT arena, first made big waves by selling two artworks at prices approaching the $1 million mark: Finite for $809,789.40 on Foundation, and Metarift for $904,413.47 on MarkersPlace.
Sotheby's later tapped Pak as its answer to Christie's blockbuster $69 millionBeeple sale, collaborating with the artist and Nifty Gateway on a $17 million sale that included The Pixel and The Switch, both of which sold for $1.4 million. (The former was a one-by-one gray pixel; the latter gave the buyer the option to "switch" the image to an unknown alternative artwork.)
Censored is a collaboration with Julian Assange.
It's about you.
It consists of two parts, a dynamic 1/1 and a dynamic open edition, for you all to participate.
It will be here on February 7th. https://t.co/QvKlk3oIs8
- Pak (@muratpak) January 30, 2022
Pak returned to the auction house in its "Natively Digital" sale in October, selling a work titled Fade for $528,000, and Rubik's Lure, an animation meant to invoke a futuristic Rubik's Cube, for $1.1 million.
The artist later sold 266,445 shares of his NFT Mergefor $91.8 million on Nifty Gateway, suggesting that if one collector were to eventually own every share, they would own a work more expensive than the priciest Jeff Koons or David Hockney.
Pak, Metarift Image courtesy MakersPlace.
Assange has been held in a maximum-security prison in London since April 2019, when the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had taken refuge in June 2012, stopped offering him asylum.
In December, London's High Court ruled that Assange could be extradited to the U.S., where he faces charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 for his role in leaks of confidential documents provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Editors from the New York Times and the Washington Post are among those who argue that prosecuting Assange for his Wikileaks activities violates his First Amendment rights, which guarantee freedom of the press.
Among those who have been outspoken in their support of Assange is Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who in December launched a social media campaign protesting the extradition decision.
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artnet AG published this content on 02 February 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 02 February 2022 16:48:01 UTC.
