Rembrandt Mystery // A Decentralized Art Museum // Stolen NFTs // A piece of Keith Haring Wall

Hello everybody, welcome to the first episode of By Amara, a, hopefully, weekly new show where I'm going to discuss all things contemporary and old historical things in the art and history worlds. This is very weird. I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew.

For this show, I wanted the format to follow the rhyme traditionally used by Western brides, something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. I don't know why, I just thought that would be an interesting take, so we'll see where this goes. This week we're going to be discussing a Web3 museum, a mystery ingredient that was found in a Rembrandt painting, a piece of wall from a childhood home, and some stolen art.

All that coming up on this week's episode of By Amara. Let's get started. Also, this podcast is going to be available on my YouTube channel.

Just search Amara Andrew on YouTube and you'll see my lovely little face pop up and you can click and watch the video of it. This podcast is going to be available wherever you get your podcast, so just FYI. So, today we're going to start talking about something old.

Most of us have seen the painting, Night Watch by Rembrandt, but just to refresh your memory, it's a very, very, very large painting. It measures 12 ft x 15 ft, which when it was painted in the 17th century, I think like 1642 is when it was completed, was very big, especially for a commissioned piece. So, very expensive, very big, very big.

So, this is also one of the most famous paintings from the Dutch Golden Age for a wide variety of reasons, not only just for its size, but also for the subject matter that's portrayed in a very different, kind of unique way, and also for its tenebrism, its dramatic showing of light and shadow. So, the subjects of this painting are the company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and his lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch.

The two men are central in the composition and they're portrayed with the most light on them. The rest of their company surrounds them in a sort of organized, but also very chaotic fashion. And there's a surprising amount of motion in this piece.

Normally, military paintings at the time, whether a singular figure or the whole company, were very kind of stolid and just not a lot of action going on. This painting, however, has tons and tons of motion and action going on, which is really interesting. Now, like I mentioned, this painting is famous for its tenebrism, meaning that dramatic light and shadow.

In the 1940s, though, it was discovered that this painting actually wasn't supposed to be that dark. There were years and years of varnish that were put onto the painting, onto the canvas, to cover it and protect it, which saved it from being damaged by a lot of different events throughout history. I'm not going to go into that right now, I have another point that I'm trying to make, but in the 1940s, conservators actually removed that varnish, the years and years of varnishes that were layered upon layered on that canvas, and they realized that the painting actually wasn't that dark.

There was a lot more light to it. I think they even noticed a few more figures and things like that. So this past week, conservators at the Rijksmuseum, where the painting lives, also learned something very interesting about this piece, a very, very weird, interesting sort of tidbit.

So in addition to uncovering some preliminary sketches that were done to kind of figure out the layout of the piece by Rembrandt himself, conservators also noticed a weird ingredient that was used. They detected egg yolk in, quote, "one tiny square of paint smaller than a crumb." What? Why is there egg in this painting?

So at first, the researchers believed that Rembrandt had mixed egg with linseed oil and lead oxide to create a thicker paint. This, however, doesn't really make any sense because Rembrandt wouldn't have needed egg yolk for his signature impasto look. Like that just wouldn't make any sense for his methodology and things like that.

So, TL;DR, the jury's still out on why Rembrandt actually included egg in this piece. Hopefully we'll get some answers in the, in the near future or even in the distant future as to why. Was it just because Rembrandt dripped his 11:00 AM breakfast, lunch, or dinner onto his painting, and then it just kind of was included for some reason?

Or is there a more practical sort of reason for this? Hopefully we get to find out soon, but only time will tell.

Okay, so this week, something new is so new that many people might not understand what the hell I'm about to say, but I'm going to try to break it down as best as possible as I can. So, this idea is really interesting and fascinating. There is a group called Arkive, A-R-K-I-V-E, and they're looking to do something kind of shocking, but still amazing in the art world.

They're actually looking to decentralize the central core of the art world, which is the art museum. When I say that, they essentially are looking to serve as the repository or kind of like the storage facility, in a way, for both physical and digital art. By being the repository for this collection of artwork, they get to choose how the art is loaned out and to which institutions and things like that.

It's an interesting idea, I'm not quite sure what this can even entail in the future of the art world, and what this kind of means, but there's also another really interesting part to their methodology and what they're going to be doing. They actually have a series, so they have a membership where basically, you have to apply to be the member.

I applied last week, so we'll see if I get accepted, probably not, but we'll see what happens. Where you just fill out a very simple application and you talk about your interests in the field and things like that, and you provide your social media handles and blah, blah, blah, I don't know why, but there you go. So, if you're a member of Arkive, you actually get to vote what gets included within this decentralized museum.

So, they're trying to make it a more democratic sort of approach, instead of just having, you know, a traditional art museum, you have the curator, and they along with their assistants and possibly the director and all the, a few, like let's just say a handful of people get to select what gets included in the permanent collection, what gets to be displayed, all these different things, yada, yada, yada.

If you know anything about the museum world in general, it's a very contested subject because not a lot of voices get represented, not a lot of different people get represented. That's why you have all the old masters and they're all a bunch of old white European guys. So, this is supposed to sort of help with having more inclusive sort of artwork and different dynamics and things like that.

We'll, we'll see how this goes. As of this recording, there are only a few hundred members that have been accepted. But you can't really tell, there's no member directory or anything like that to see actually who's being included and how many people exactly, but allegedly it's a few hundred.

I really hope that this works out in the long run, but we will see what is in store. I think it's a very neat, interesting idea, just my own personal perspective. I think I'm very curious on how people are going to be selected and who are the people that are doing the selecting, because it's kind of a similar thing within the museum world where you have the hierarchy, you have the one person who's choosing who all these different people are that get to inhabit the museum space.

So, I like the thought. It's still kind of falling into the same trap, unfortunately, in my opinion, I mean I'm not saying anything really, but I feel like it can fall into the similar trap where it's like, "Oh, okay, you have these like three people who are making all the decisions about who gets to be accepted." 'Cause I don't think the membership thing is a cumulative group activity where you get to vote on new members.

Maybe it should be, maybe it shouldn't be, but that is all I know for now. So, stay tuned, we'll see if I get accepted, and if not, then I will still talk about it, I guess. So, we'll see what happens.

But all that to say, I'm very curious to see how it goes in the long run, and yeah, we will see where that goes.

So, next this week, our "something borrowed" is actually going to be something stolen. And yes, I'm sorry, I will be talking about NFTs. If you don't care about NFTs, you don't like NFTs, you can zoom ahead to our final section, but for those of you who care or are just curious at all, I have a very interesting, little tidbit for you to know, a little factoid if you will.

This week, this just came out, there was a report that was created by the blockchain analysis firm Elliptic. They stated that over $100 million worth of NFTs were stolen this year, 2022, between January and July. 100 million dollars!

That's a fuck ton of money! Sorry, that was very loud, but that is a lot of money. So how are these stolen, you may ask?

If you're in NFTs at all, or kind of are familiar with how it works, you can get spammy phishing links which you click on, and then it can like go to your wallet if it's connected, and then just take all your money and take all your NFTs. That is not very fun. That's probably the most common way that NFTs are being stolen.

Also, apparently, it's through hacking into people's social media accounts. I have no idea how the fuck that works, but that is also very terrifying, so make sure you're updating your passwords. The average dollar amount per scam that was stolen by these crypto-thieves was around $300,000.

That's a lot of money. Now, if you know anything about cryptocurrency, it does fluctuate, it kind of mirrors the stock market a little bit, so that can be a subjective 300,000. It's like, "Well, how much was the cryptocurrency at the time?

And blah, blah, blah." But, that's still a very large, scary number. I also learned the most valuable NFT that was ever stolen was a CryptoPunk, CryptoPunk number 4324 that was stolen on November 13th, 2021 for guess how much? $490,000. Could you imagine?

You have your 1/2 million dollar artwork in your wallet, you think it's safe, you click on a stupid fucking link, and it's stolen? That is insane. That's amazing.

I just I would be so irritated. Also, I thought this was interesting. The largest single heist from an individual, so one person from their one cryptocurrency wallet, was on December 28th, 2021, and resulted in the loss of 16 blue-chip NFTs worth over 2 million dollars.

It's amazing. It's amazing that So, I have a conflicting, thought process on how this goes, 'cause if you're silly and kind of stupid enough to click on things that you don't think are safe, I kind of don't really have that much, sympathy for you. I do a little bit, but not as much.

If, however,

2022, between January and July. $100 million! That's a fuck ton of money! Sorry, was very loud, but that is a lot of money.

So, how are these stolen, you may ask? If you're into NFTs at all, or kind of are familiar with how it works, you can get spammy phishing links, which you click on, and then it can like go to your wallet, if it's connected, and then just take all your money and take all your NFTs. That is not very fun.

That's probably the most common way that NFTs are being stolen. Also, apparently, it's through hacking into people's social media accounts. I have no idea how the fuck that works, but that is also very terrifying, so make sure you're updating your passwords.

The average dollar amount per scam that was stolen by these crypto thieves was around $300,000.

That's a lot of money. Now, if you know anything about cryptocurrency, it does fluctuate. It kind of mirrors the stock market a little bit.

So, that can be a subjective 300,000. It's like, "Well, how much was the cryptocurrency at the time?" and blah, but that's still a very large, scary number. I also learned the most valuable NFT that was ever stolen was a CryptoPunk, CryptoPunk #4324, that was stolen on November 13, 2021 for

Guess how much? $490,000! Could you imagine? You have your 1 half-a-million-dollar artwork in your wallet, you think it's safe, you click on a stupid, fucking link, and it's stolen?

That is insane. That's amazing. I just I would be so irritated.

Also, I thought this was interesting. The largest single heist from an individual, so one person from their one cryptocurrency wallet, was on December 28, 2021, and resulted in the loss of 16 blue-chip NFTs worth over $2

Million! It's amazing. It's amazing that so, I have a conflicting thought process on how this goes, 'cause if you're silly and kind of stupid enough to click on things that you don't think are safe, I kind of don't really have that much sympathy for you.

I do a little bit, but not as much. If, however, you were hacked, that sucks massive ass, and I'm so sorry, like that is absolutely horrible, but if you're stupid enough to click on things, maybe you shouldn't have such a nice, price kind of item. I don't know.

That's just my own two cents. So, take it or leave it, Karma will probably come back and be like, "That's not very nice." And I'll be like, "Whatever, Karma, shut up." So, anyway, that was

That's just my two cents. Currently, there isn't really, I actually don't know if there's really a good way for people to be able to get their to get their NFTs back. I don't really know how that works, actually.

I'll have to ask Geoff. Geoff is my boyfriend who is very much into the NFT space. He actually has a whole NFT project and series and podcasts and things like that, so maybe I will have him have a guest spot on the podcast to talk about that a little bit more, 'cause I'd be curious to pick his brain.

But yeah, for now, all those NFTs are just gone, I guess.

And finally, this week's something blue is actually a very sweet and cute art piece. So, this piece is going to be one of the headliners for the Rago, I think it's Rago, I've actually never said it out loud before. I've seen the name a thousand times.

Rago Wright's, post, so, it's two separate auction houses, their Post-War and Contemporary Art auction on Wednesday, September 14th. It's going to be a piece of wall. Not just any piece of wall, it's going to be a piece by Keith Haring.

Oh, no! Yeah, my camera's about to die for some reason. We'll be with you in a moment.

We are experiencing some technical difficulties. Everything's fine!

And we're back. So, we had a brief technical difficulty. The battery on my camera, for some reason, died even though it said it was full, but I will be talking to Sony.

Anyway, we will we shall carry on with our final piece of art news this week. So, as I mentioned, this is going to be about a piece of wall, and not just any wall, it's a piece by Keith Haring. This selection is an iteration of Keith Haring's famous figure, "Radiant Baby," and this particular piece was taken from his bedroom in his childhood home of Kutztown, Pennsylvania.

So, this section of wall was recently cut out from the home.

Very clearly needs to be stated, I guess, was never available on the market or in any sort of monetary value sort of exchange, so this is a for sure like one-time once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunity if somebody's a very big Keith Haring fan. The current owners of the home, Angela and Scott Gardner, purchased the property in 2004.

They stated that the people that they actually bought the house from, it wasn't Haring's parents, but it was just some other random people, they wanted to paint over the Keith Haring drawing, but then the Gardners were like, "No, don't do it!" They may have been art aficionados themselves, I have no idea. I have no idea who they are,

But now it feels a little interesting to me that they are choosing to sell the piece. I wonder if they're on some hard financial times or what sort of the impetus is to actually sell this piece of home, piece of the home, which in my opinion, it should just remain in the home and you just keep it there, and that's like a selling point for your future buyers or something like that, and that's just originally where it's supposed to be, but that is just my own two cents.

It's still a very interesting thing to also have just a piece of wall on display and to be able to be purchased, but that's just my two cents. It's also been speculated that Haring actually drew this "Radiant Baby" on the wall shortly before he died. So, that to me also has even more significance that, you know, it's in his childhood bedroom, in his childhood home,

Right before he's about to pass, unfortunately, like very untimely passing. It should just stay there, I think. I think it's very weird that they're choosing to remove it.

I don't know, I'm I'm kind of curious more so what the impetus is. I didn't really see anything about that or what the reasoning is, so, I don't know. Curious to learn more.

So, that'll do it for this week's episode of By Amara. It'd mean the world to me if you subscribe to not only my podcast channel, but also to the YouTube channel where I'm going to show, obviously, all these various different images and things like that here. So, it's kind of going to be like a little news show.

Yeah, you can find me on YouTube, YouTube just search Amara Andrew. You can also find all the links to everything on my website, amaraandrew.com. Thank you so much for listening.

I genuinely appreciate it if you actually enjoyed this show and just listened all the way to the end.

Yeah, that's basically it. So, anyway, this is my first try at this. I hope it all went well.

We will see in the post-edit if I actually enjoyed it or not, and I hope this sees the light of day. So, anyway, thank you so much. I truly appreciate it and just don't stop creating, just keep creating.

The world desperately needs art, so just keep creating. Okay, that'll do it. I'll see you next week.

Bye!