In 2019, in Vilnius, Lithuania, Prof. Dr. Stanislovas Thomas destroyed the memorial plaque of Jonas Noreika – a Nazi collaborator –with a sledgehammer. Thomas was sentenced to three months in prison and a fine, but fled the country before his arrest, and has evaded Lithuanian police ever since.
Now the renegade human rights activist has turned his destructive political art performance into a "Non-Fungible Token" - a digital piece of art that can be bought and sold.
Thomas uploaded a video of himself smashing the plaque with a sledgehammer as a Non-Fungible Token onto a website called OpenSea, which allows for the trading and valuing of NFTs.
A Non-Fungible Token works very much the same way as the buying and selling of any work of art. Fungible items, such as currency, are not unique and have a value limited by themselves. Non-fungible items, like artwork, are one-of-a-kind, and have a value that is set by what collectors are willing to pay. This extends to the digital world as well. While cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is fungible, NFTs have a price all their own.
Not content remaining in hiding since the plaque has been restored - and his sledgehammer allegedly destroyed by court order - Thomas has continued his defiance against the glorification of Noreika by commodifying the act that earned him a criminal record. On Thursday morning, the video was worth 0.1 ETH (a digital currency), about $14 American. It remains to be seen if the price will continue to rise.
Noreika, a Nazi collaborator, is seen by many Lithuanians as a national hero for his fight against the Soviets as a partisan, but to others, he is remembered for his orders to massacre Jews and corral them into ghettos.
Thomas wrote to The Jerusalem Post that the mayor of Vilnius, Remigijus Šimašius, made a statement "that the Nazi plaque was similar to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus for ethnic Lithuanians, and that my name had to be forgotten like the name of Herostratus," referring to an ancient Greek iconoclast who sought renown through a great act of vandalism. It was decreed that Herostratus' name be struck from history. However, the opposite happened.
With his new stab at Noreika's memorial, it is unlikely that Thomas' activism will be forgotten soon – especially by the owner of his NFT.