First Look: Art gallery in Dubai to educate artists on NFTs, Web3

37xDubai founder Danilo Carlucci said the gallery uses NFTs based on the Tree of Life art display as its membership token.

The 37xDubai art gallery, which will be opened to the public later in October, aims to educate artists and art aficionados on nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the broader Web3 ecosystem through workshops held in the gallery after its official launch. 

Cointelegraph sat down with Danilo Carlucci, the founder of investment firm Morningstar Ventures and 37xDubai, which is based in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Carlucci spoke about its goals with the new art gallery and why it is diving into NFTs and Web3 despite the conditions of current markets.

Carlucci says the gallery is “an effort to bridge art and technology in one place.” Being a more traditional venture capital fund, the executive said the art gallery is Morningstar Venture’s way to diversify into the more creative digital art and NFT space. He said: 

“We have various different types of digital arts, but we also have NFTs displayed. We don’t just sell these specifically handpicked NFTs, but we also educate the people who are visiting our gallery about what NFTs are.” 

Apart from displaying NFTs inside the gallery, the 37xDubai founder also highlighted that it is using NFTs that are inspired by its Tree of Life art installation as a membership token. 

The executive said it will also support events and various workshops around the adoption of Web3 technology. He said the project has advisers from Binance NFT and Binance Charity who will help it with these endeavors. 

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When asked why it’s diving into NFTs, given the sentiments and data showing that NFT market prices are not what they used to be, Carlucci expressed his belief in the technology and explained why these NFTs in the gallery would be different. He said that while it’s not an NFT-only gallery, it does “believe in NFTs.” He also highlighted that the NFTs in the gallery have a different goal to those created by tech companies.

“For the artists that we work with and we handpick. The incentive is creative. They want to make something creative, and they just happen to use blockchain technology for authentication purposes and for maybe sometimes the creative purpose, but the incentive is always creative,” he explained.

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