Draft:Robness

ROBNESS
Born
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Known forCryptoart, NFTs, #trashart movement
MovementCrypto art

Robness (who communicates in allcaps as ROBNESS) is an American digital artist and non-fungible token (NFT) originator based in Redondo Beach, California. He is viewed worldwide as one of the earliest contributors to the blockchain/crypto art movement who has created digital artworks on the Bitcoin protocol as early as 2016. His notoriety stems from creating the animated 'TrashGIF' 64 Gallon Toter (2020), which sold for $252,000 and for sparking the #Trashart movement, one of the first truly decentralized art movements to emerge from the crypto art community.[1]

Early life and background

Robness was born in Harbor City, California and spent most of his youth as a musician and often painted in his lockout studio in between band practices in Torrance, California. A multi-disciplinary artist, he spent time as a musician, audio engineer, music producer, author and actor[2] Before the cryptocurrency boom of 2014, Robness at the time was living in his car by the beach continuing to make RarePepes and helping grow the first worldwide crypto art movement.[1]

Career

Early crypto art (2016–2019)

Robness' very first minted work was entitled PEPEBEEFTAXI.[3] He was one of the earliest members of the RarePepe Telegram room project, a worldwide group of artists issuing tokenized trading cards on the Bitcoin blockchain, which is considered an early progenitor to the term NFTs.[4]

64 Gallon Toter and the #trashart movement (2020)

In January 2020, Robness minted 64 Gallon Toter, a distorted glitch animation of a trashcan on the NFT marketplace Superrare. The platform removed the art, declaring that he broke copyright because they assumed he stole the image from a Home Depot website has been still unverified.[1] After the 64 Gallon Toter appeared again on Artnet's X.com social media account, SuperRare reinstated the work soon after, mentioning to AFP in an email that the community initially did not consider it art, but that "so much has evolved" in discussions around what constitutes legitimate art.[1]

The controversy surrounding the work's removal, due in part by an article written by Cointelegraph called "Immutable Trash: Cryptoart Revisits Arguments on Censorship and Meaning," prompted a wave of solidarity from other crypto artists, who began minting tens of thousands of trash-can-inspired NFTs worldwide in protest. This response became known as the digital #trashart movement, described as one of the first crypto-native art movements.[5] 64 Gallon Toter was sold to private collector Vincent Van Dough for $252,000.[1] The work also won the People's Choice Award at the 2020 NFT Awards.[6]

Institutional recognition

ROBNESS's art has been acquired by major institutional collections. Two works are included in the Centre Pompidou's very first NFT collection, alongside works by artists including Sarah Meyohas, Jonas Lund, and Jill Magid.[5] His work also appears in the permanent collection of the Museum of CryptoArt (MoCA), which Artnet News reported includes works by artists such as Beeple, XCOPY, and Dmitri Cherniak.[7] The Arab Bank Switzerland art collection also has work of his[4] and has been auctioned/exhibited at Sotheby's and the Hermitage Museum.[3]

Controversies

2022 Doxx art incident

Robness minted an NFT using a childhood photograph of BuzzFeed News journalist Katie Notopoulos, calling it "VOTED MOST LIKELY TO BE A FAILED JOURNALIST: KATIE NOTOPOULOS." He created the work in reaction to Notopoulos publishing an article that revealed the identities of the pseudonymous founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The NFT platform KnownOrigin removed the listing, though the NFT itself remained accessible on the blockchain.[8][self-published source]

Wash trading

In response to artist Murat Pak trying to be 1st place in all NFT platform leaderboards, Robness and Max Osiris decided to troll him by doing a public performance 'Wash Trade.' They both collaborated on an artwork and then publicly sold the piece back and forth for 40 Ethereum prompting instant backlash from the Rarible platform, Pak and collectors that bought his work.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Zamora, Jordi (February 3, 2022). "The NFT artist who sold a trashcan image for $252,000". International Business Times. Agence France-Presse.
  2. ^ Robness (November 2, 2023). "Picking Through Garbage: The Evolution of Robness". Mint Gold Dust (Interview). Interviewed by Valenzuela, Virginia.
  3. ^ a b "Robness: Unfolding the Journey of a CryptoArt Luminary". Fakewhale Log. March 27, 2026 [October 2, 2023].
  4. ^ a b "Robness". Arab Bank Switzerland. July 15, 2025.
  5. ^ a b Chen, Min (March 3, 2023). "Sarah Meyohas's Pioneering Bitchcoin NFT Is Entering the Centre Pompidou's Collection in a Landmark Acquisition of Digital Works". Artnet News.
  6. ^ a b "Robness Cyberpop – The Original OG Crypto Artist". paragraph.com. September 11, 2021.
  7. ^ "The Artnet NFT 30 Report: Meet the Artists, Innovators, and Collectors Who Built Our New Crypto-Art Era (Part Two)". Artnet News. December 15, 2021.
  8. ^ White, Molly (February 16, 2022). "NFT artist "Robness" mints an NFT of a journalist's childhood photo to harass her". Web3 Is Going Great.

Category:American digital artists Category:Living people Category:Artists from Los Angeles

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