Model Emily Ratajkowski has figured out a timely way to take a dig at artist Richard Prince.
Prince used images from public Instagram posts of Ratajkowski and others for his 2014 “New Portraits” series, and the images were printed mostly unaltered — save for a comment Prince added.
Ratajkowski tried to buy the piece of her posing nude for $80,000 from Prince’s gallery, but it was purchased by another buyer. She then bought another Prince work of her image, and wrote about the experience in a widely read piece on The Cut.
Now, Ratajkowski is selling an image of herself standing in front of one of Prince’s images of her as a non-fungible token (NFT).
She told The New York Times, “As somebody who has built a career off of sharing my image, so many times — even though that’s my livelihood — it’s taken from me and then somebody else profits off of it.”
Ratajkowski’s NFT will be sold through Christie’s in May. It’s titled “Buying Myself Back: A Model for Redistribution.” Seems revenge is a dish best served with cold hard cash.
The Weeknd, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, and Tony Hawk have all gotten into the NFT game. An NFT of the late actor Chadwick Boseman was included in an Oscars swag bag, which angered viewers after he lost out in the Best Actor category to Anthony Hopkins.