World’s collide in a new NFT project, as footballing great Andrea Pirlo and New York City street art move into the metaverse, hand in hand.
Lower Manhattan’s Lafayette Street has been graced by a giant mural of Andrea Pirlo. A 15 x 6 metre painting of the iconic football player, who ended his playing career at New York City FC, now adorns the wall of what looks like offices.
Whether you’re a football fan or not – or still haven’t forgiven Lord Pirlo for the way he embarrassed Joe Hart and crushed English dreams at Euro 2012 – you’ve got to admit, he’s a majestic bloke. If any player, past or present, was going to get a giant mural in downtown New York, it would have to be him. That learned beard; that luscious hair; those eyes, wise beyond their years…
Anyway, sorry – that’s not what this story is about. This is about all those majestic features moving into the metaverse.
Images courtesy of: nftpirlo.com
The mural was painted by Italian artist Jorit and is being sold as an NFT. For those unsophisticated few among you, who remain clueless to what non-fungible tokens are exactly, an NFT is a digital asset that offers the buyer unique, inimitable ownership of the token.
Kyiv-based NFT agency Ikonia have partnered with metaverse platform ‘The Sandbox’ to bring Pirlo into the virtual realm. The asset will be known as ‘Maestro’, and with it comes ownership of the real-life mural for one year, on top of the permanent digital rights.
It’s not just the mural that’s moving to the metaverse, but the whole of Lafayette Street. Ikonia has this time enlisted the help of MetaLabs, allowing users to walk along the digital street and admire Pirlo from all different angles. The wonders of the modern world…
Speaking about the work, Andrea Pirlo, demigod, said: “Involvement in this project has been incredibly captivating; the mural alone is an amazing feat, and a fantastic piece of art in its own right. Seeing it then immortalised in the metaverse furthers the astonishment. Giving the buyer a chance to own a piece of artwork across multiple realities is a rare opportunity, and not something I have encountered in other projects.”
Patrik Arenesson, CEO and founder of Ikonia, added: “It was our goal to capture the prestige and importance of Pirlo’s career in a way that no other NFT project has attempted previously.” The Maestro NFT will go on sale at auction starting today, June 1st 2022, at 4pm UK time. It goes up on the project’s website, and is purchasable in the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH).
