Sinister ghosts: They investigate the burning of Frida Kahlo's work to turn it into an NFT

Millionaire Mexican businessman Martin Mobarak burned one of Frida Kahlo's diary pages valued at US$10 million to turn it into 10,000 digital pieces and sell them in the form of Non-Fungible Token (NFT), a certificate used to record ownership of collectibles.

Mobarak was the owner of the work titled  “sinister ghosts” , so at that moment he also gave a speech to the attendees, in which he assured that he did it to allocate part of the profits to charitable causes related to children; as well as projects to transform and revolutionize digital art.

Among the institutions that will benefit from this action are the Frida Kahlo House Museum, the Palace of Fine Arts and the National School of Plastic Arts.

Kahlo's drawing is one of the pieces in her diary, which was made between 1944 and 1954; while the 57-year-old is the CEO of Frida.NFT, an organization dedicated to blockchain technology that seeks to bring together collectors and artists to "immortalize" works.

The website indicates that, with the digital transformation, Kahlo's art  "will be shared around the world" to create donations that will continue to grow "in eternity."

The millionaire bought the image in 2015 from the New York gallery Mary Anne Martin. Now, he decided to burn a page from Frida's diary amid applause and with the song "Cielito Lindo", performed by mariachis, in the background at the end of July.

During the speech Mobarak also admitted that the NFTs will be sold each for 3 ETH with which he hopes to raise more than 800 million pesos (about 40 million dollars).

However, the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal) of Mexico reported this Monday that it is investigating the alleged destruction of an original work by the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), since there is a decree by which all the works of the artist were declared an artistic monument.

In addition, the Inbal denied the Palace of Fine Arts and/or the Palace Museum, will receive any donation from said collector and recalled that the Bank of Mexico is a trustee in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum Trust.

“In its capacity as owner of the patrimonial rights of the works and to date, it has not received a request and has not issued a reproduction authorization for the aforementioned work”

indicates in a statement.

What happened is circulating, since this weekend on social networks, here is the video: