Beeple Donates Censored NFT to Castello di Rivoli

Digital artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) has donated his controversial NFT 'FTX BOARD MEETING, DAY #5676 11.13.2022' to the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin, Italy. The work, which includes both an NFT and a large oil-on-canvas painting, enters the museum's permanent collection. The image satirizes disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed FTX exchange, depicting him in an explicit office orgy scene. The donation was requested by museum director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, who wanted to update the collection with digital art. The museum uploaded the work to YouTube but it was immediately censored for nudity, prompting the museum to display a self-censored version on its website with a statement defending the work as a critique of tech culture. The official donation event is scheduled for July 6, 2023. Christov-Bakargiev drew parallels between the crypto crash and the Lehman Brothers collapse, and noted that the work comments on the fragility of technology and the privatization of public space by social media platforms.