Vincent Van Dough Talks Disrupting Galleries & the Power of Pepe

The pantheon of pseudonymous NFT collectors options no scarcity of enigmatic characters, however few benefit from the crypto-native cult following of Vincent Van Dough.

Considered a serious proponent of the digital artwork ecosystem, the 2023 NFT100 honoree is well-known for his NFT spending sprees and eclectic initiatives, which now embody the web3 gallery Art of This Millennium (AOTM), the Notable Pepes sequence, TungstenDAO, and extra.

Whereas he has been lively in crypto since 2013 and was among the many authentic claimers of CryptoPunks, Van Dough’s present alias dates again to 2021. In an interview that yr, he claims to have spent over $20 million on NFTs.

It’s becoming that Van Dough’s digital identification is extra fluid than lots of his contemporaries. There’s no recognizable CryptoPunk to hold your hat on. It’s an ever-shifting array of avatars that every one one way or the other carry the identical memetic vitality, from a tuxedoed Pepe the Frog and Che-Yu Wu’s Sea Hams to the “Moonbirds” he made to troll Kevin Rose. You understand it once you see it.

As a collector, Van Dough can distill his thesis right into a easy assertion: “Accumulate items of artwork that resonate.”

“Past simply aesthetics, it’s a mixture of instinct and data of web tradition, figuring out promising artists, retaining a pulse on the up to date artwork panorama, and all the time being looking out for artwork that has a recent and distinctive perspective,” he tells nft now. “Gathering isn’t a job for me; it’s one thing that I genuinely derive that means and achievement from.”

Whereas amassing will not be a job to him, others have sought to enlist his funding method. In August 2021, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, the founders of now-defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, tapped Van Dough to curate a $100 million NFT fund referred to as Starry Night time Capital.

Within the following months, Van Dough helped the fund amass a powerful assortment of blue-chip NFTs, together with initiatives like CryptoPunks, Deafbeef, and Autoglyphs, 1/1 artwork by XCOPY, Alpha Centauri Child, and Grant Yun, and notable Artwork Blocks items by Tyler Hobbs, Dmitri Cherniak, and Snowfro.

Sadly, Three Arrows Capital declared chapter in July 2022 following the Terra Luna collapse, and Starry Night time’s assortment is at the moment entangled in liquidation proceedings. In an October 2022 filing, consulting agency Teneo cited Van Dough’s cooperation in serving to them account for and take possession of Starry Night time’s belongings.

“I purchased a bunch of jpegs for them and curated the Starry Night time Capital assortment,” Van Dough commented on Twitter. “That’s the extent of our affiliation.”

Given the expertise, it’s no shock that Van Dough’s subsequent chapter would sign a brand new route by prioritizing direct engagement with the artists he champions.

A Web3-native gallery mannequin

Launched in November 2022 and powered by Manifold, Artwork of This Millennium is a digital gallery with a star-studded artist roster that includes the likes of Cath Simard, Claire Silver, Drift, FVCKRENDER, IX Shells, and plenty of extra.

For such an irreverent iconoclast, one could also be shocked to listen to Van Dough admit that the enterprise was “born from the concept there was lots to be taught from the standard artwork world.”

“Artists at the moment should run full-scale companies independently: from creating items to managing auctions, sustaining relationships with each current and potential new collectors, exhibiting their work and course of, participating in interviews, and the record goes on,” he explains. “It’s unattainable for one individual to handle. We noticed a world the place a gallery may come and work hand-in-hand with artists.”

In contrast to conventional artwork galleries, which may take as much as 50 % of gross sales, AOTM takes a flat 15 % fee. Van Dough has additionally pledged to honor a ten % secondary gross sales royalty for artists no matter “the place or how any items are offered.”

By providing vertically-integrated companies to up to date digital artists — together with curation, promotion, technique, exhibitions, gross sales, and legacy planning, in addition to leveraging collector relationships inside and out of doors web3 — Van Dough hopes to additional differentiate the digital artwork market from the remainder of the NFT area.

“The time period ‘NFT’ is simply too broad of a time period, and sadly, numerous groundbreaking artwork has been tossed into this encompassing phrase that has turn out to be synonymous with flipping and buying and selling,” he laments. “We view AOTM as a house for artists, collectors, and patrons who worth artwork for its aesthetic and cultural significance quite than short-term financial price.”

In chatting with artists on the AOTM roster, constant themes emerge across the respect they’ve for Van Dough and the help and steerage he has given them.

“I’ll always remember when he first tweeted about me after amassing my work ‘Proper Click on Print.’ It modified my life,” recollects Alpha Centauri Kid. “I believe he’s a standout collector as a result of he isn’t afraid to indicate his conviction within the artists he believes in. He really simply desires to assist push artwork ahead.”

Grant Yun credit Van Dough’s early help with giving him vital momentum, praising the collector’s “depth of information” and “willingness to mature this area.”

“I’m assured within the work VVD does and belief his imaginative and prescient,” Yun says. “I really imagine {that a} stage of curation is required in web3 to assist information non-crypto demographics and to assist open their eyes to the wonderful vary of artists this area has to supply.”

Other World provides: “Personally, he’s a down-to-earth man who’s given me sound recommendation anytime I’ve requested, which has been an incredible assist for my profession on this new and always altering area.”

As Van Dough continues to construct out AOTM, he has plans to determine a bodily footprint for the gallery and an upcoming public sale that includes a collection of rising artists.

“The crypto NFT market can usually be unstable and quickly evolving,” he cautions. “We should take into consideration what’s finest for our artists reputationally from a long-term horizon, not simply what will probably be a sizzling narrative for the brief time period.”

Purveyor of Pepe

Van Dough’s on-line persona is inextricably linked to Pepe the Frog, Matt Furie’s iconic 2005 cartoon character who has turn out to be one of many web’s most enduring and oft-misunderstood memes.

An avid collector of the early and influential CounterParty challenge Uncommon Pepes, Van Dough has lengthy been a patron of Pepe-inspired artwork. Final July, Van Dough curated a sequence of the latter-day CounterParty challenge Fake Rares, commissioning the likes of DeeKay and Seerlight for Pepe tributes. Given the challenge’s historic ties to the earliest days of blockchain artwork, Van Dough felt honored to assist usher in a brand new technology of artists.

“Pepe the Frog is an iconic meme that represents the tradition of the web. It’s really our Mickey Mouse figurehead,” Van Dough gushes. “Pepe represents the facility of the web to form and affect our perceptions of the world.”

Because it occurs, the Pretend Rares sequence would show to be foreshadowing for Van Dough’s personal Pepe challenge. After Jack Butcher’s rebel Checks phenomenon sparked an open version craze on the high of the yr, he launched his personal model referred to as Pepe Checks. Provided at a $6.90 worth level, his open version “exceeded all expectations,” elevating greater than $1.6 million in 24 hours.

“All of it occurred basically in a single day,” Van Dough admits. “I noticed a chance to make a bit of artwork and a meme that felt like the best commentary in response to Jack Butcher’s Checks, and the group simply ran with it.”

“It actually exhibits how individuals wish to accumulate gadgets that resonate with them and the way Pepe is likely one of the most acknowledged figures on the web,” he provides. “The Checks leveraged the collective humor and creativity of the web – it’s fairly stunning.”

One week later, Van Dough introduced his new challenge entitled Notable Pepes. Bringing a brand new twist to the basic Uncommon Pepes and Pretend Rares mannequin, every Pepe Verify acts like a lottery ticket giving holders an opportunity to mint weekly Pepe artwork drops. The gathering has already featured playing cards by Uncommon Pepe OGs like Joe Looney and Uncommon Scrilla, alongside up to date up-and-comers like Terrell Jones and batz. On this method, Van Dough goals to “bridge the hole” between the Pepe communities on CounterParty and Ethereum.

“We introduced a majority of the OG Uncommon Pepe and Pretend Uncommon artists over to Notable Pepes, and we additionally invited outstanding ETH artists to create Notable Pepe playing cards,” he says. “The response has been extremely optimistic, and the meme is stronger than ever. Folks wished a method to accumulate and work together with the Pepe group in a method that was acquainted to them and ETH-native.”

At a time when the $PEPE meme coin is dominating the charts and dialog, Van Dough’s memetic knowledge feels particularly prescient.  

“There may be this saying, ‘There’s a Pepe for the whole lot,’” he concludes. “It’s so true. The Pepe group is likely one of the most resilient communities; individuals are amassing via bull markets and bear markets, supporting meme tradition and artwork.”