The Russian State Hermitage Museum continues diving in the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) industry past debuting its first fully-virtual exhibition of digital art.

Shortly after raising over $400,000 via its start NFT auction on Binance in September, the Hermitage is now hosting a free exhibition of NFT artworks existing exclusively in the virtual space, the and so-called "celestial hermitage," or the museum's digital avatar.

Launched on Thursday, the Hermitage's exhibition is called The Ethereal Aether and is based on the concept of the metaverse, assuasive users to create digital avatars and surf across the virtual site using PCs, smartphones, virtual reality glasses and other devices. The virtual site mimics the interiors of the local landmark Former Saint petersburg Stock Substitution, but the actual exhibition has cipher to practise with trading, co-ordinate to a senior curator of the projection.

Source: The Ethereal Aether exhibition

"The exhibition'due south artworks are not for auction. We avert all topics related to the price of these pieces in social club to focus on showing what digital fine art really is because the cost of art is secondary to its value," Hermitage'southward manager of contemporary fine art, Dimitri Ozerkov, told Cointelegraph.

Ozerkov noted that Hermitage will return all of the artworks to its original owners including artists and collectors correct later on the exhibition ends on Dec. 10. "Farther events are outside the remit of the museum," he added.

At a printing conference on Thursday, Ozerkov emphasized that Hermitage has "no fiscal involvement" in conducting the free exhibition, noting that the museum is striving to notice out the real value of NFTs. "We want to see what'southward left of the NFT if you take away the money aspect," he said.

The selection of artists and works for The Ethereal Aether exhibition was made by curators Ozerkov and Anastasia Garnova, a member of the Hermitage'south Department of Contemporary Art.

"We believe that choice by curators is crucial for a museum exhibition, as it makes information technology more than integral in terms of topics and chapters. The selection principle is based on the artworks' importance for understanding the essence of the NFT," Garnova told Cointelegraph. "Artists were not able to apply for participation in the exhibition," she added.

The total listing of artworks is available on the official website of the exhibition, featuring a total of 37 pieces including Schrödinger'south True cat past CryptoKitties, a popular blockchain game built by Canadian studio Dapper Labs on the Ethereum network. The list also includes artwork by a Leningrad-based artist known as ​​Darkzuu.

The exhibition too stars NFT platforms and major industry players like Snark.art, Masters digital, The Art Commutation, Rarible, Superrare, KnownOrigin, ArtBlocks, Alterhen.art, and OpenSea. Every bit previously reported, the exhibition is organized with support from The Aksenov Family unit Foundation, a local cultural and social innovation fund.

Related: Beyond the NFT hype: Creating lasting business organization models for artists

The exhibition space is a joint work of the augmented reality startup Arhead.io, Masters Digital and meta-builder Oleg Soroko. Arhead.io co-founder Ivan Puzyrev pointed out that socialization is ane of the most important components of the exhibition. "We built the project based on the thought that the digital experience should be shared. People share instructions, discuss work and laugh when they fall into the textures of infinite," Puzyrev noted.

Nadia Taiga, executive director and curator from the fine art production platform Snark.art, is 1 of key people behind The Ethereal Aether, serving equally an exhibition consultant. "If a year agone nosotros could merely predict that museums would digitize their collections and create digital exhibitions in the metaverse, at present, seeing the example of the Hermitage and this exhibition, we know that this is already reality," she said.