snowden nft selfportrait sells million charity

 

A former CIA agent and fugitive Edward Snowden has unveiled a work of art that incorporates a selfie of himself in his living room, with the title "snowden nft selfportrait". The artwork is part of an auction where the price can rise to as much as $1m. It is being sold by online charity Good Art to raise money for victims of war.

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"I wasn’t just going to let my story die," Snowden said. "As long as the surveillance state continues, I want to be able to use these experiences - these artworks - not only in protest but in celebration."

The self-portrait was drawn on a light-blue card using blue ink and markers. The image of Snowden is a sharp contrast to the depiction of the CIA, which appears in his full-length self-portrait.

"The more you depict yourself, the easier it is to illustrate yourself," he said. "I wanted to make it clear that I am still alive." 

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He added that he will donate the proceeds from his artworks auction to charity The Freedom of the Press Foundation and Internet Archive who have been researching and archiving all manner of leaked documents, which they refer to as "the largest-ever information leak in history".

There are 1,012 works on offer at this week’s (13th January) auction at Sotheby's in New York. This includes photographs, videos, homages to the Brothers Grimm and Warhol, an acrostic poem and a series of drawings from his days at school. 

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Snowden’s previous requests to be able to return home were denied by President Donald Trump. His lawyer is still attempting to get him home after spending years hiding in exile in Russia.

It has been five years since Snowden leaked thousands of classified government documents. He was keen that his first appearance at auction would include the opportunity for others to buy into a piece of history.

"I’m not a professional artist," he said. "But I don’t think artists are ever truly amateur. I think I’m a little different."

The proceeds of the auction will be split equally among Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Internet Archive and the ACLU. The online auction house Christie's has sold for $1.4 million the art work called "self-portrait" by American street artist Banksy, which depicts a childlike drawing of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden. The painting portrays Snowden as a young boy in and orange jumpsuit, with an apple in one hand and his other arm extended behind him as if he's shooting a gun at the US flag from clothespins on the wall.

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The event appears to be a mockery of President Barack Obama's Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to Snowden during his last days in office.

Banksy is an ironic street artist whose works have been tagged as the most successful of their kind. The British artist, who has never revealed his pseudonym, began his career in Bristol, England, but quickly gained recognition across the globe.

In 2013, he announced that he was self-publishing books and began to sell limited edition prints at auction. Since then he has garnered more than $170 million from his work which includes pasting fake advertisements on London's walls and selling canvasses from doorways to wealthy collectors around the world. "The piece is based on an illustration Banksy did for a book about the NSA and appears to be a critique of the US's surveillance practices of its own citizens," said Christopher White, director of Contemporary Art at Christie's. "This is one of Banksy's most beloved works and it's flattering to think that it will find a permanent home in some prominent public space where people can enjoy it for years to come."

Christie's said the auction house would keep 5 percent of its profits from Monday sale. The buyer – which remains anonymous – plans to display the painting on public property in New York or Los Angeles. He or she chose Christie's over a competing bidder which offered $1.42 million.

The auction house said it was the third highest amount of money ever paid for a work by Banksy. Only £1.04 million for a signed original print of "Bandaged Heart" and $1.87 million for the artist's "Keep it Spotless" – from his month-long New York street campaign in October 2013 – were higher.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art included several works by Banksy in its blockbuster show "Art in the Streets" earlier this year–the first major US survey of graffiti and street art–and also purchased multiple works by other artists on show, despite legal challenges from collectors arguing that the museum overpaid for those pieces.

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Banksy, who was born in England, made clear that a well-curated museum collection of his work was not his goal. "This is not about money," he told the New York Times in March. "It's about doing something that seems political but is not political and just trying to have fun."

'art as a form of activism'

Expounding on Banksy's work in July this year, White said: "It's art as a form of activism. As we see with Amnesty International, you can use art to inspire social change. It can be used in so many different ways.