NFT Naruto Museum of Art to hold exhibition, dialogue events on metaverse

Japan’s first and only NFT museum has announced it would hold an exhibition and dialogue events on the metaverse to foster exchange on digital artworks.

The NFT Naruto Museum of Art in Naruto, Tokushima, is partnering with creative planning company World Collaboration Japan and Creator’s Next, which creates AI-based painting works, to start the ‘sociality x economy’ project. 

Artworks now being displayed in the Deep Yellow exhibition at the museum, and those created by Creator’s NEXT chief executive Nozomu Kubota will be exhibited on the metaverse platform “cluster” run by World Collaboration Japan. 

Organisers said the aim was to present a new and interesting project to engage both domestic and international viewers to explore the social value and emotional states evoked by empathy.

In June, the Naruto museum will also stage the Shinsei Galverse exhibition, which features 8,888 NFTs based on 1980s anime motifs, on the cluster metaverse. 

The Naruto museum was established to promote artworks and their NFTs in Japan. It operates NFT marketplace where artwork-related NFTs can be issued, reviewed, sold and distributed, and is the first museum in Japan specialising in the sale and distribution of NFTs.

The NFT museum was renamed from the Naruto Galle Forest Museum in August 2021, and reopened on March 1 this year following two postponements caused by COVID-19 outbreaks.

On May 19, the museum announced a partnership with the Jackson Family Foundation Japan, the Japanese branch of the Jackson Family Foundation, a non-profit charity founded by the late Michael Jackson’s parents. The two organisations will cooperate on a NFT museum project aimed at moving toward the “Museum 3.0” era.