Art has always been part of his life. Pablo Rodriguez Fraile is a sui generis collector: initially focused on architectural creativity, the meeting with his wife Desirée Casoni, Italian architect and designer, allows him to share his passion for art also thanks to amazing trips around the world with the aim to meet artists, visit museums, galleries and art fairs.
His background is linked to the finance, innovation and technology sector, specifically the Blockchain: he was in fact among the first investors and consultants in the world of digital assets in the metaverse.
It is precisely within the digital world that he approaches digital art in 2020, sensing the potential of application of the blockchain and starting to develop immersive artistic experiences in virtual lands.
It was still a very different environment from the frenzy of offers that now distinguishes it: immature markets, very few collectors and artists, a very difficult user experience.
Without giving up, but rather wanting to be an integral part of this new ecosystem that was forming, Pablo Rodriguez Fraile built a network of artists, creators, collectors, developers and founders of marketplaces and galleries: from that moment everything changed.
It didn’t take much to understand that – for him – it was really necessary to improve some dynamics of community interaction, to give more space to the curation of the works and to create an ever greater dialogue with the artists: up to the birth of his latest big project “Aorist”.
In this interview, Pablo starts from the moments of 2021 that were decisive for him to build an innovative and still evolving path, which will offer important news for the artistic sector…
Could you tell us which have been the most important NFT moments of this 2021?
This is a very interesting question as I think that in this last year there have been some very important moments that changed everything. I must say, though, that the first thing that comes to my mind is the sale, at the beginning of the year of the first Beeple piece ever minted. The work was sold for 6.6 million dollars, a world time record that helped in getting some real media attention on the fact that something revolutionary was going on.
The release of “The Fungible” by Pak was also a very important moment of this year. We are talking about an incredible collection, a real one of a kind, the one that truly started playing with the value system. That went very well, and I was lucky enough to achieve a few things in that release including what is the most important work in that collection. So yes, I think that this release has marked the beginning of the Pak movement and marked another important moment of 2021.
There have been many other incredible moments this year and it’s quite difficult to choose among them, but I think that maybe another very significant moment for us and for me was the release of the Aorist platform with the exhibitions that were put there like the ones from Refik Anadol who received tremendous interest and amazing reviews because of course he is an incredible talent and reportedly the best in the world in what he does.
Even in these last months there have been many important moments we could talk about, but amongst all of them, I would like to recall the recognition of some of the artists we have been supporting and to be honest, to see a growing general interest for them has also been very very positive.
What do you think will happen in the future between museums and crypto art?
Well, I think museums will keep playing a fundamental role and I don’t think things will change in the future. I think however, that we will be seeing some new types of museums. I think museums have an important role in validating this movement and – although I can’t give much information – allow me to say that next year we shall expect some pretty interesting announcements from some of the major ones.
