Cryptocurrency entrepreneur destroyed $10m Frida Kahlo drawing to ‘transition it into the Metaverse’

The art world has been left aghast after a cryptocurrency entrepreneur claimed to have burned a $10 million Frida Kahlo drawing in order to “permanently transition it into the Metaverse”.

In a bizarre stunt, the Mexican artist’s “Fantasmones Siniestros” [Sinister Ghosts] work was apparently placed in an oversized martini glass at a Miami mansion, and then set alight as a mariachi band played.

Martin Mobarak, who personally incinerated the drawing, is selling 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are high-resolution digital versions of the 9in-by-6in drawing created by Kahlo in 1944.

Each one was being sold for about $4,000 worth of Ethereum cryptocurrency.

He said a portion of the money raised will go to charities for children’s medical care and museums.

However, Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts was less than amused, and has opened an investigation into what it sees as potentially criminal vandalism.

It said: “In Mexico, the deliberate destruction of an artistic monument constitutes a crime.

“All the necessary information is currently being collected in order to establish with certainty that it was the destruction of an original work, or a reproduction.”

A website selling the NFTs said: “Like a Phoenix rising from its ashes, Art is reborn into Eternity.”

It described Mr Mobarak as an “art alchemist transforming physical art into digital gold.”

A video of the burning, which took place in July, showed guests arriving on a red carpet for a party at a private home.

Scantily clad models

It featured a mariachi band, scantily clad models by a swimming pool, and a fire dancer in a leotard.

The drawing was then brought in by armed security.

Mr Mobarak took it out of a frame, put it in the giant martini glass and set it alight as the crowd cheered.

He told the audience: “I hope that everyone here can understand it, I hope everyone can see the positive side.

“What we are going to do is change the lives of thousands of children.”

He said he had a philanthropic vision to use NFTs to create “perpetual donations” to charities.

Mr Mobarak later told Vice News: “People may see it as I destroyed it but I didn’t. This way I am bringing it to the world. I am letting everybody see it. I think it does more good for the world and makes a statement rather than just sitting in someone’s private collection.”

In the art world, questions swirled about whether the picture was genuine, and whether it was worth $10 million.

Mr Mobarak said he had bought it in 2015 from a private collector.

Mary-Anne Martin, one of the world’s major Latin American art dealers, told Vice News she had sold it twice, the last time being in 2013.

She had not heard of Mr Mobarak, adding: “The whole thing is creepy.”

The website selling the NFTs carried a document from an art dealer in Mexico City certifying he believed the drawing was genuine.

Expert seeks analysis

One Kahlo expert said the ashes should be collected, chemically analysed, and compared to her diary.

The drawing was originally created by Kahlo on a page of her diary.

Kahlo, who was one of Mexico’s most famous artists, died in 1954.

A year ago a self-portrait by the artist sold for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s.

The apparent burning came as Damien Hirst is poised to set alight nearly 5,000 of his artworks.

It will be the culmination of an experiment in which Hirst gave buyers the opportunity to choose an original or an NFT, with the one they rejected being destroyed.

NFTs are digital assets bought and sold with cryptocurrency.

Last year, a work by the digital artist Beeple sold at auction for $69.3 million.

In 2021 sales of NFTs soared to $25 billion, but they have plummeted this year.