Collectors and the crypto community expressed palpable dissatisfaction with the CryptoPunks collection’s failure to meet their expectations, with implications for woke art looming. Yuga Labs has taken this seriously and decided to back down from its original game plan.
Recently, Nina Chanel Abney, an artist, initiated the initial choice-making pertaining to the Punk in Residence routine and introduced her latest collection, Super Punk World. Yuga Labs, along with Abney, was involved in the NFT release.
The Punk in Residence routine was created to further on-chain associations, which help encourage creative trials related to the routine and NFTs in a wider sense. Abney’s collection reflects her overall personality, with hints of CryptoPunk.
According to Abney, CryptoPunks are a relatively new concept that has been able to contribute to the digital collection scenario. She took advantage of her association with them to amalgamate technology and culture. In recent times, she has been instrumental in introducing an online art-based collection, Super Cool World, which comes with 500 itemized avatars, all of her own selection.
The collection is heavily influenced by CryptoPunks and Super Cool World attributes. Abney herself handcrafted every detail, then digitized and introduced 195 3D-effect pieces, each reflecting 25 personalities. This was a tribute to the archival CryptoPunk initiatives.
According to Nathalie Stone, the General Manager of CryptoPunks, their aim was to showcase wallets, procreative art, the NFT space, and Web3 to both conventional art lovers and collectors, with the theme being CryptoPunks for the masses.
However, the entire exercise did not seem to gel well with the audience, which found the NFT collection to have racial overtones and gender biases, a fact they were not willing to accept. Their disgruntlement was splashed all over social media.
