"EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS" is a collage, by a digital artist BEEPLE
Credit: Christie's
Bids for the first ever digital-only piece of art at Christie’s have hit $3m (£2.1m) amid a boom in virtual collectables.
The two week auction of the digital collage by US artist Beeple, due to close on March 11, is the first entirely virtual artwork sold by the British auction house.
"Christie’s has never offered a new media artwork of this scale or importance before," said Noah Davis, specialist in Post-War & Contemporary Art at Christie’s in New York, who compared Beeple’s Instagram artworks to the iconic readymades of French artist, Marcel Duchamp.
"Acquiring Beeple’s work is a unique opportunity to own an entry in the blockchain itself created by one of the world’s leading digital artists."
Credit: Julian Andrews
Christie’s foray into the world of digital art arrives as the format sees a rapid rise in popularity, with buyers paying huge sums for artworks known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
NFTs are one-of-a-kind digital assets, which are publicly authenticated with a blockchain signature, certifying they are both original and unique. Advocates see them as one of the first successful online systems that enables property rights to be enforced online.
Even though, the artist Beeple, real name Mike Winkelmann, only began making NFTs in October 2020, he has since become synonymous with this new genre of crypto art.
The NFT he is selling with Christie’s is an amalgamation of 5,000 digital images, one created every day for 13 years. At first glance, the work looks like a giant collage of thousands of images. But zoom in, and the individual digital drawings can be seen in full detail.
One, from 2014, is a spatter of vomit with the words "KILL ME" overlaid, from when the artist had food poisoning.
Another, from 2020, features former Vice President Mike Pence, flanked by giant flies, towering over the Capitol Building, which is on fire.
In October 2020, a Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile spent almost $67,000 (£48,000) on a 10-second video artwork and NFT by Beeple and last week, he sold it for $6.6m (£4.7m).
The video shows Donald Trump lying on the ground, his body covered in graffiti.
And we're off! This morning marks a historic moment in the history of digital art and NFTs. Bidding started on @beeple's 'Last 5000 Days' at $100 and shot up to $1million in less than 10 minutes. Stay tuned over the next 14 days at https://t.co/JkB8eTNdqW. @makersplaceco https://t.co/N3Obks8qNn
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) February 25, 2021
"Instead of thinking of it as digital as a JPEG, think of it as owning the property rights to an asset, which then allows you to do anything from selling it to renting it, to collateralising it, anything that you can think of," said Nadya Ivanova, COO of foresight firm L’Atelier.
"We have a critical mass of people actually want to buy or invest in digital art so naturally, we’ll see some of the more conservative brands starting to take notice as well," she added.
"Generally there’s an interest in art as an alternative asset class in the physical world and we’re seeing that same interest in the virtual world."
According to data from NonFungible.com, so far this year, the total value of NFT transactions so far is $983m (£704m), compared to the total for 2020 which was just $250m (£179m). Last year, virtual art was the strongest performing sector, with sales experiencing 2,800pc growth.
In October, Block 21, an artwork and accompanying NFT “digital portrait” of Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto sold for $131,250 (£95,150).
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