Just Bricks

500 images of pixelated bricks, minted and released into the NFT market. A 2021 project by conceptual artist Thomas Hanscomb.

A brick is the least remarkable object there is. Just Bricks turned it into 500 pixelated images, each one unique, and released them as NFTs in 2021. The first bricks were listed at $35 each. Twelve sold the moment they went up.

Just Bricks by Thomas Hanscomb
Statue in a museum with Just Bricks art by Thomas Hanscomb

Then the bricks left the screen. Brick images were placed near the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, next to a 3D-printed brick. At Tate Modern in London, the installation ended with an escort out of the building.

Artist Thomas Hanscomb before displaying his art in museum
Thomas Hanscomb art displayed at Tate Modern in London

Meme culture and internet subcultures did the rest. It went viral globally. In a single day the bricks traded for 1.5 million kroner. One brick sold for $60,000. Baby Bricks, the follow-up collection, sold 700 units in ten minutes.

“Could the most mundane object on earth become valuable if the context was right?”

Just Bricks, 2021

By November 2021 the project was valued at 24 million kroner.

The bricks never changed. The context did. The answer was yes.

About Just Bricks

Just Bricks is a 2021 NFT art project by Danish conceptual artist Thomas Hanscomb. It took the most ordinary building material there is and released it into a market built on scarcity, hype and belief.

Each of the 500 images shows a single pixelated brick. No story. No utility. No promise. The only thing that changed was where the bricks appeared: near the Mona Lisa, inside Tate Modern, across meme pages and internet subcultures. Every placement added context. Every sale proved the point.

The project sits at the centre of Thomas Hanscomb's practice. Value is not inside the object. It is built around it.

Just Bricks was covered by Zetland, which followed how 500 images of bricks became a collection that sold for €400,000.

Just Bricks came first. The same question returned in Art of the People, where bread and salami replaced the brick, and in Perception Gallery, where the gallery itself became the frame.

Year: 2021
Medium: NFT collection of 500 digital images
Installations: Louvre, Paris. Tate Modern, London
Collection: Just Bricks on OpenSea

Works by Thomas Hanscomb

Objects that weren't supposed to be art. Context decided otherwise.

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Just Bricks NFT collection by conceptual artist Thomas Hanscomb

Just Bricks on OpenSea

Buy and sell digital images of pixelated bricks.

View on OpenSea
Just Bricks By Thomas Hanscomb in Zetland

Just Bricks in Zetland

How 500 images of bricks sold for €400,000.
Danish article, can be translated using your browser.

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