The Art World Has a Problem. But NFTs May Offer ‘a Real Solution’

Festival of Gratitude, Profiled in Outland

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Walid Raad's’ “Festival of Gratitude” Uses Birthday Cakes to Examine Worldwide Fascism

Launched by Art-World Insiders, the New NFT Platform Artwrld Is Trying to Corner the Market Where Traditional and Crypto Art Meet

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Hafez al-Assad

Margaret Thatcher

Festival of Gratitude by Walid Raad

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker based in New York. Her photographs, videos, and films combine poetic, politically charged images with narratives questioning issues of power, religion, race, and gender as seen through the lens of her personal experiences as an Iranian woman living in exile. Neshat's work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including at The Broad, Hirshhorn Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Stedelijk Museum, and the Serpentine Gallery. She was awarded the First International Prize at the 48th Venice Biennale and the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.

A Loss for Words is the first NFT collection by renowned artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat. Inspired by some of her earliest and most iconic photographs, the works in this series exist in the liminal space between still and moving images, seamlessly merging video, hand-drawn calligraphy and computer animation.

In each piece, a pair of hands is shown slowly opening in a gesture of prayer, revealing a fragment of Iranian poetry written on the palms in the artist’s own script. No longer contained, the words begin to drift apart and spill gently down the palms, wrists and arms. The hands come back together and the movement repeats in a continuous cycle of revealing and letting go. Contained within “this simple, poetic, yet subversive gesture,” explains Neshat, “is the notion of one’s desire to speak—to express oneself, even if discreetly.”

The collection consists of ten different texts, each selected by the artist from the work of well-known Iranian poets, including Simin Behbahani, Forugh Farrokhzad, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou and Nima Yushij. 



Founded in October 2000 and currently published 10 times annually, The Brooklyn Rail provides an independent forum for arts, culture, and politics throughout New York City and far beyond. In addition to the journal, other Rail initiatives include Rail Editions, which publishes books of poetry, experimental fiction, prose meditation, artists’ writings, and interviews with artists in addition to art and literary criticism. The Brooklyn Rail is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

 is the first NFT collection by renowned artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat. Inspired by some of her earliest and most iconic photographs, the works in this series exist in the liminal space between still and moving images, seamlessly merging video, hand-drawn calligraphy and computer animation.

In each piece, a pair of hands is shown slowly opening in a gesture of prayer, revealing a fragment of Iranian poetry written on the palms in the artist’s own script. No longer contained, the words begin to drift apart and spill gently down the palms, wrists and arms. The hands come back together and the movement repeats in a continuous cycle of revealing and letting go. Contained within “this simple, poetic, yet subversive gesture,” explains Neshat, “is the notion of one’s desire to speak—to express oneself, even if discreetly.”

The collection consists of ten different texts, each selected by the artist from the work of well-known Iranian poets, including Simin Behbahani, Forugh Farrokhzad, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou and Nima Yushij.

Ten percent of primary sales, as well as one percent of secondary sales on platforms that support creator royalties, will go to The Brooklyn Rail, a nonprofit organization selected by Neshat.

About the Project

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker based in New York. Her photographs, videos and films combine poetic, politically-charged images with narratives questioning issues of power, religion, race and gender as seen through the lens of her personal experiences as an Iranian woman living in exile.

About the Artist

"This animation is my first effort in creating a work that bridges my interest in still photography and the moving picture. In 'A Loss for Words' we use a similar approach and aesthetic as my earliest photographs, with calligraphy inscribed in the palms of hands, yet the progressive movement reveals and then exerts the words." 

Shirin Neshat, Offerings (2019). Photogravure with black foiling.

"The notion of one’s desire to ‘speak,’ to ‘express’ even if discreetly, in a culture of dictatorship such as in my country Iran, is created in a simple, poetic yet subversive gesture. The inscribed poems are by several different Iranian poets, including Nima Yushij, Forugh Farrokhzad, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou and Simin Behbahani."

Still from 'A Loss for Words' (2022)

The Story of 'A Loss for Words' as told by Shirin Neshat

The first NFT collection by renowned artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat combines video, poetry and computer animation in a meditative gesture of prayer.

Artwrld

Walid Raad is a conceptual artist and professor of art at The Cooper Union. Perhaps best known for his 14-year project on the contemporary history of Lebanon, The Atlas Group, Raad works across media and disciplines to examine the connections between politics, violence, and cultural narratives. His work has been shown around the world, including at the Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, and Documenta, as well as in solo exhibitions at the Louvre, MoMA, Stedelijk Museum, ICA Boston, and Whitechapel Art Gallery.

ArteEast and other nonprofit organizations

Artist Walid Raad presents a series of (occasionally, but rarely) lovingly crafted birthday cakes for some of the world's most toxic and/or bigger-than-life leaders.

Proceeds from NFT sales benefit ArtEast. ArtEast is a leading New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging a growing global audience with the contemporary arts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Artist Walid Raad presents a series of (occasionally, but rarely) lovingly crafted birthday cakes for some of the world’s most toxic and/or bigger-than-life leaders: dictators, strongmen and strongwomen, kings and queens, princes and princesses, emirs, sheikhs and sheikhas, sultans, shahs, emperors and empresses, popes, ayatollahs, presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, and GOATs.

Sixty percent of primary sales will go to nonprofit organizations selected by Walid Raad to benefit from the project. The artist and nonprofits will each receive five percent of all secondary sales on platforms that support creator royalties.

Walid Raad is an Artist and professor of art at The Cooper Union. Perhaps best known for his fourteen-year project on the contemporary history of Lebanon, The Atlas Group, Raad works across media and disciplines to examine the connections between politics, violence, and cultural narratives.



As a teenager growing up in Beirut my favorite pastry shop was Noura. It is still there today. I adored their Mango tarts, but just could not afford them. So, I hatched a plan: what if I offered my budding photographic skills to the owner, in exchange for tarts?

My plan worked. I got the job, and worked day and night, picturing all the cakes and tarts I fancied. That is, until the day I came to photograph a bunny-shaped birthday cake for Amine. All of a sudden it dawned on me that ‘Amine’ might be the divisive President of Lebanon, Amine Gemayel, who was known for his bunny fetish and sweet tooth. 

I started to fantasize about poisoning the cake, but just could not go through with it. 

My cowardice got me thinking about all the adored and/or despised world leaders, and their birthday cakes.

The story of Festival of Gratitude as told by Walid Raad

Twenty cakes were created in the first batch. For every cake, there is a corresponding collection of cake slices. The number of slices is determined by the age of the ruler in 2022.

All the slices from one cake look almost the same, with one key difference: the name of a special ingredient written on the edge of the stand. Half the slices are laced with poisons and the other half are infused with elixirs, making each one unique.

Cake-holders will automatically receive ten random slices from their cake. The rest will be made available in a public drop.

How it Works

Festival of Gratitude uses two contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. All cake and slice NFTs are tied to one of these two contracts.

0xc41beE7fbD1179beeA76183138d5cE69480f3B99

0xc316E173EeD7a8B49B0A39904432Da6dD022c359

Contract Addresses

How it works

About the artist

Festival of Gratitude

Moonlight

Passenger

Please note: although we encourage you to sign up to the allowlist, your Ethereum wallet address will not be added to the allowlist instantly.

A Loss for Words

Moonlight

Passenger

Hafez al-Assad

Margaret Thatcher

News

NFT Now

Outland

Zora Zine

COOL HUNTING

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