Businessman burned a Frida Kahlo work worth millions to convert it to NTF’s

The Mexican art world is dismayed after millionaire businessman Martin Mobarak decided to burn a drawing of Frida Kahlo to transfer it to digital art in ten thousand pieces and sell them in the form of NFT, an acronym for non-fungible tokens.

The drawing, part of the artist’s personal diary, contains the words “Sinister Ghosts”, the title by which the name was given to the work, according to The country, valued at ten million dollars. The entrepreneur’s goal was to turn it into ten thousand NFTs, which represents a way to permanently record ownership of a collectible or digital work.

Mobarak, who has owned the work since 2015, claims to have destroyed it so he can live digitally and donate 30 percent of its value to organizations with social causes or museums. Meanwhile, the Mexican authorities are investigating the authenticity of the drawing, the original of which the businessman really owned.

The alleged destruction of the work took place in Miami, Florida, United States, on July 30. However, recently it became known through the Mexican media.

According to information from The country, The investor and collector admits that the burning of the drawing is something “strong” and that it can be “misunderstood”, but argues that this is how the renowned Mexican artist can achieve “immortalization”. On the Frida.NFT website, the destruction of the work is described as follows:

The painting was permanently moved to the Metaverse on July 30, 2022.

Both this site and YouTube show the moment in which the supposed work is destroyed, which, according to Mobarak, was authenticated days before and taken to a certified company that delivered it in the presence of more than 200 guests at an event with a parade. of models included.

In the video, Mobarak is seen unscrewing the frame that protected the design, which had previously been digitized on both sides. The small-scale drawing includes, on the reverse, the words “Chromophore” and “Auxochrome,” which Frida Kahlo used to describe herself and her partner, the famous painter and muralist Diego Rivera.

Between applause and ovations, to the rhythm of cute little sky In the background, the Mexican artist’s drawing burned in a martini glass filled with ice.

After the controversy unleashed by the destruction of the work of the Mexican painter, through a releasethe National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL) reported that neither the Palace of Fine Arts nor the Palace Museum will receive any donation from Martin Mobarak as has been publicly disclosed.

Furthermore, according to INBAL, all of Frida Kahlo’s work is listed as a national artistic monument, making deliberate destruction a crime. For this reason, the agency is compiling “all the information necessary to establish with certainty” that Kahlo’s original was included and that it was destroyed.

In Mexico, the deliberate destruction of an artistic monument constitutes a crime in terms of the Federal Law on Archaeological, Artistic and Historical Monuments and Zones.

On the other hand, INBAL emphasized that the creation of NFTs of Frida Kahlo’s work requires a permit, which, to date, has not been issued.

INBAL has not received a request and has not issued a reproduction authorization for the aforementioned work.

sinister ghosts It was created in 1944 in Frida Kahlo’s personal diary during a time when she was bedridden due to multiple health problems. The Mexican painter decided to tear out the sheet and give it to one of her friends, who kept it for a while, and then it became the property of different people, some of whom came to exhibit it in different countries, mostly European.