Jackson Pollock at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in an undated photo (AP)

The Jackson Pollock Studio and digital art platform that works with cultural institutions, Iconic, launched “Beyond the Edge: The Jackson Pollock Studio Collection.”

It features four NFTs of cropped sections from Pollock’s studio floor, as Pollock (the artist himself) was famous for laying his canvases on the floor, so it caught what the canvas didn’t portray - thus becoming unintentional works of art.

Director of the Pollock-Krasner Study Center, Helen Harrison, recalls vividly the moment back in the 1980s when the floor of the studio was discovered. The artist winterized his studio floor in 1953, sealing in splashes and drips of paint lavished from 1946 to 1952.

When conservators realized that this could lead them to discover Pollock’s process, the masonite treatment was uncovered and Harrison, who was a curator at Guild Hall and an arts columnist for the New York Times, covered the unveiling for the newspaper.

“As the tar paper was peeled back and the masonite squares were removed, more and more of this wonderful documentation came to light and pretty soon the whole floor was uncovered, revealing this amazing artifact,” Harrison told ARTnews, adding: “It was a kind of archaeological revelation.”

Since then, Art historians got the chance to track which lines of paint go with certain pivotal works, such as Blue Poles (1952) and Convergence (1952).

Breaking the computer

The Pollock-Krasner Study Center, separate from the Pollock Foundation, licensed the image of the floor previously for fashion and decor projects.

Profits from the sales support the preservation of the center which includes both Pollock and Lee Krasner’s house and studio. When the Iconic platform contacted them with the idea of using floor images in NFTs, it was a quick seller.

Chris Cumming, CEO of Iconic, told ARTnews: “We really looked at this as an opportunity to bring the studio floor to life, to digitize the floor so that it would be preserved forever".

The NFT production entailed Cumming’s team stitching hundreds of high-definition photos together using AI tools, which resulted in an 800-gigabyte file that broke several computer graphic cards.

Each NFT, in editions of 125, is paired with a physical print and becomes the key to access other collections that Iconic developed with the Pollock Studio, thus making the Collection, which was first available to collectors who held Iconic’s Art Pass (membership).

Within hours, the collection raised $100,000, according to Cummings, while the rest are due to go on sale today, at $1,500, or 0.5 Ether for Art Pass Holders and $1,800, or, 0.8 Ether for non-members.

50% of primary sale profits and 5% of secondary sales will benefit the Study Center with the purpose of funding the stewardship of the studio.

Cummings stated: “One unique thing about the studio is that that Study Center has made the decision to allow visitors to walk over the studio floor, which is, of course, an awesome experience", adding: “But that also ups the need for preservation to enable that experience.”

Future collaborations with the Studio, including an NFT collection by Pollock-inspired digital artists and an Ordinals (NFTs but on Bitcoin instead of Ethereum) version of the collection will go towards the Studio Center as well.

“Our buildings are our collection,” said Harrison. “For a historic site, there’s constant maintenance, particularly with something as delicate as the floor, and there’s also a roof over it needs to be replaced from time to time. And termites––you have to worry about them, too.”