Stealing from the rich to give to the poor is great, but stealing from colonial museums to put money back in the pockets of African artists is even better.
The world's first digital repatriation of stolen art to the Metaverse is the Looty non-fungible token project.
The project was started by Nigerian artist Chidi Nwaubani, who claims on their website that their road map ensures that all cultural significant artworks are given back to their rightful owners.
The name of the project is a tongue-in-cheek one, but it has a more sinister meaning.
In 1860, Queen Victoria gifted a Lion dog named Looty to England after a colonial captain stole her from the Chinese Summer Palace in Beijing.
The NFT collective notes on its website that Looty's name makes a rather ironic reference to her origins and acquisition.
Our project Looty was actually named after this Pekinese Lion Dog. To many people its just an innocent image of a cute looking dog, but it has a sinister back story pic.twitter.com/Qjvj0APQUl
— Looty (@LootyNFT) May 10, 2022
The project, its name, and its stated purpose grapple with concepts that have long been familiar to the art world, but which have, seemingly, gone unexplored by the NFT community.
It is quite possibly one of the first NFT projects we have ever seen, which is a feat unto itself given how the community surrounding these virtual assets has drawn a lot of ridicule and mockery.
TheLooty project launches digital art heists to recover African artifacts.
Broke museums are selling paintings by Raphael and Da Vinci.
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