Art Market 'Metaverse' Get On Before It's Too Late

Utilization of Art Exhibitions, Education, and Sales
Various Experiences Accessible via App
Rapid Increase in Collections Using NFT Technology

The 'Bvlgari Color Exhibition' is being held at the Hangaram Art Museum in the Seoul Arts Center, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Visitors can explore the exhibition hall in a virtual space through the metaverse.

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] An exhibition is being held at A Gallery. The venue is a metaverse that virtually replicates Seoul. Mr. Kim, a wealthy man in his 70s, puts on virtual reality (VR) glasses and accesses the metaverse. His avatar is set as a handsome artist in his early 30s. Kim moves his avatar around the gallery to view the artworks. Later, he purchases a painting worth 500 million won using cryptocurrency and hangs it in his virtual home within the metaverse. The artwork is assigned a unique identification code certifying its authenticity. With this code, it can be sold at auctions held in the real world at any time.

This scenario envisions a future point when the metaverse platform is established and artworks are traded within it. The metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual world where economic, social, and cultural activities occur just like in the real world; the term is a combination of "meta" and "universe." Recently, there has been a significant movement in the art market to actively utilize the metaverse for art exhibitions, education, promotion, and sales.

Currently, the Bulgari Color Exhibition is being held at Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul’s Seocho District Arts Center. The exhibition showcases about 190 Bulgari jewelry collections from the 1930s to the present. Works by famous Korean contemporary artists (Choi Jung-hwa, Lee Soo-kyung, Oh Soon-kyung, Kim Jong-won, Noh Sang-gyun, Lee Se-hyun, and Pakki), who base their work on Bulgari jewelry, are also displayed.

This exhibition can also be viewed by accessing the metaverse through an application (app) installation without visiting the site. Upon entering the virtual space, visitors first customize their avatar’s appearance. They can style the face, body, hair, and clothing according to their preferences. Various Bulgari-designed products such as earrings, watches, and bags can also be tried on the avatar. After setting up the avatar, visitors can move their character around the exhibition hall. They can pose their avatar in front of favorite artworks and take “selfies.” Instant teleportation to specific areas is possible without walking around. Interviews with famous artists are also available.

An interactive web page of "Welcome to Cube Room," a metaverse space created by artist Sunwoo Hoon in the international exhibition "Set Your Profile" at the Coreana Museum of Art.

The Koreana Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition titled “Set Your Profile,” focusing on modern individuals’ self-identity and the phenomenon of “multi-persona.” Multi-persona refers to the “multiple selves” concept, where individuals transform into different people according to situations to express various identities. This is akin to setting a so-called “bucae (secondary character)” on social networking services (SNS), which is a core operation of the metaverse. The metaverse is a space where a person in their 70s can realize the desire to live a life in their 30s.

Recently, metaverse-related exhibitions and event programs have been held one after another in various local regions. The Gwangju ACE Fair, Korea’s largest content exhibition, will be held for four days from the 9th at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center in Seo-gu, Gwangju, under the theme “Metaverse, Beyond Content.” An experiential exhibition where visitors’ drawings are realized in a metaverse art museum is also prepared.

Why is the art world, which has traditionally valued the physical originals of artworks, now focusing on the virtual world? This is because the “aura” of uniqueness is gradually disappearing due to NFT (Non-Fungible Token) technology. NFTs are a kind of “certificate of authenticity” that grants unique ownership to content through blockchain encryption technology. Recently, cases of purchasing artworks existing in the virtual world via NFTs have exploded. In the future, the physical original of the Mona Lisa held by the Louvre Museum in France may become less important than the Mona Lisa NFT created in the metaverse world and who bought it and for how much.

Lee Jung-bong, CEO of Seoul Auction Blue, an affiliate of the art auction house Seoul Auction, explained, “The domestic art market is worth 400 billion won, but the metaverse market will exceed 1,000 trillion won by 2030.” He added, “NFTs satisfy the collecting desire in the traditional art market while providing opportunities to buy cheaply and sell at a higher price.” He continued, “The metaverse has great scalability as it can incorporate not only art but also collectors, music, fashion, and various other elements. If NFTs are integrated into the metaverse, it will be possible to secure liquidity by utilizing decentralized finance systems.”