The First 10,000: A charity auction from Jerry Saltz and Kenny Schachter

Editorial is open for submissions: [email protected]

We live in a society increasingly dictated by numbers—from the hegemony of money discourse to the recording of every bit of data related to our phone and computer usage. Whether writing for New York Mag, Artnet, going to a museum funded by a nefarious billionaire, working for a gallery, art institution or a not for profit, we are all part of an art economy. Entangled. The foibles of the market are a nuisance artists must contend with each time they offer a work for sale—publicly or privately. I issued my first NFTs in December when it never dawned on me that large sums were being exchanged—none had been reported at that juncture (that I was aware of anyway). When I released digital art in the form of NFTs my expectations remained as they always have been: less than zero. I most assuredly did not do it solely for money in the same fashion Jerry does not write exclusively for a salary. Sure, I hoped for remuneration for my efforts and to reach a wider and different audience for my works, but that was about it. This NFT of Jerry’s Instagram posts is more an intellectual exercise in order to feel a feeling, have an experience he’s written about, judged, and thought about forever. I have never done anything in my career solely for money and this isn’t one of them. Entering an art related marketplace is something to be scrutinized, processed and analyzed. The hypocrisy of the art world is silly and stifling as much of the reaction to the NFT phenomenon has been. 100% percent of the proceeds of this project will be donated by Jerry to Memorial Sloan Kettering and by me to The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. SuperRare will also donate 100% of their fee to charity.

1. As an art-critic who is a former (failed) artist, the best way for me to get a metaphysical and physical handle on something is, if possible, to make, recreate or reimagine it myself – to experience its processes, materials, tools, medium, technology, format, etc. 

2. For me making this NFT was a way of turning a metaphor – the idea of an NFT – into something tangible. 

3. This began as a critique of the Beeple NFT The First 5,000. Having made this NFT, it now feels strangely “real” to me. Not good – but as “a thing in itself.” (See 3^rd century BC Greek philosopher Pryyho who said “Nothing really exists” and “Nothing in itself is more this than that.”) This NFT exists for me as much as the smell of roses, a black hole, or a toothache.

4. We went down to the crossroads to see if materiality, immateriality, charisma, laughter, charm, and the unknown might meet. 

5. Many NFTs that have made the news don’t warrant one to look at them for more than one-second – and then to never look at them again. Our NFT fits into these categories. (There are already artists making good NFTs.) For me this NFT is a kind of ghost image in my mind – a form of non-retinal vision – those strange floaters, spots, flashes, vestigial veins, pulsing corpuscles, and glitches that exist as this other wonderful vision. 

6. The title of this NFT is The First 10,000. 

7. This NFT is made up of all 10,000 of my Instagram posts – beginning March 13, 2021 with my first post of a NYC parking meter that didn’t work (and that got me a ticket). 

8. This NFT is not 100% green but the platform, SuperRare, donates to carbon offsets and the developments of ETH 2.0 contributing to an environmentally sound solution. 

9. On April 16 “The First 10,000” will be offered for sale in a three-day auction. The opening bid will be $100.00. The final price will be whatever the last bid is.

10. Jerry and Kenny are co-creators of this NFT. Each will each donate 100% of his 50% share of the final price to a different charity. As will SuperRare (donate 100% of their fee to charity).

11. Jerry’s share will go to Memorial Slone Kettering Hospital.

12. Kenny’s share will go to suicide prevention.

13. Once the files were downloaded and organized from Instagram by @NoelCollo and the measures taken to create a wallet, this NFT took about 45-seconds to produce. 

14. Once the idea arose for this NFT (10-days ago) none of Jerry’s Instagram posts were deleted or edited.

15. It is hoped that each of the images are credited in Jerry’s original Instagram caption. Any uncredited captions can or will be retroactively amended and corrected to the best of our ability. (I may release all 10,000 images with original captions as a book.)

16. An NFT is a tool. Artists use tools.

17. NFTs are a material; artists use materials. (NFT is as much a material as any photograph that exists as a digital-file; digital-files are a material.) 

18. I am not an artist.

19. Kenny is an artist. 

20. Well I got this Instagram, and I learned how to make it talk.