CHRISTIE’S FIRST DIGITAL ART AUCTION IS A GAME CHANGER
▶ Beeple’s work will be sold using blockchain to make duplication harder, writes Alexandra Chaves
Adigital artwork by artist Beeple is expected to sell for more than $3.7 million at an auction this month, snowballing from a starting bid of only $100. Titled Everydays – The First 5000 Days, the work comprises 5,000 drawings created by Beeple (real name Mike Winkelmann) over the past 13 years.
Every day since May 2007, Beeple produced a drawing – at first with pen and paper before eventually moving to software – and these images are now what make up the composite artwork on sale. But the attention around Everydays also has much to do with its medium and the way it is being sold. In February, Christie’s announced the online-only sale of the work, claiming it is the first time a purely digital artwork would be offered by a major auction house. Christie’s also said it would accept payments via the cryptocurrency Ether, another first for the industry.
Within weeks of bidding opening on February 25, the price for the work has skyrocketed to $3.7m at the time of writing, gaining a total of 127 bids so far. The bidding will close on Thursday. The artist is selling the work as non-fungible tokens or NFTs, which are digital certificates that authenticate ownership through blockchain technology.
NFTs can come in the form of drawings, music, video or other digital media, even tweets, memes, online articles or podcasts. The NFT exists on the blockchain, where it cannot be copied or manipulated. Given that they are verified with a digital signature, NFTs offer the advantage of easier authentication, which is important in the art world.
NFTs also enable a digital work to be tagged, in a sense, as an original, which adds value to a medium where works can usually be easily copied and duplicated.
Christie’s has detailed what the buyer can expect after the sale. “The buyer receives the artwork file containing a digital signature from the artist and all vital details including time of creation, edition size and a record of any prior sales. These details are permanently attached to the artwork, providing an enduring guarantee of value.”
Prior to the Christie’s auction, Beeple was not well known in the world of art galleries and fairs, although he has produced concert animations and visuals for celebrity clients and maintains a large following online, with about 1.8 million followers on Instagram and 200,000 on Twitter.
In December, a number of his artworks were sold at a different auction for up to $100,000 each. Overall, the artist made $3.5m in a single weekend.
His artworks are often dark and absurd, with visuals that look as though they exist in a video game or dystopian sci-fi film. He transforms recognisable characters from pop culture and film, such as Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, for example, and places them in fantastical worlds.
His subjects can be political, too, as in his NFT piece Crossroad, a digital video that features Donald Trump lying face down on the grass as people walk past him. In February, the work was resold on the secondary market for $6.6m through the website Nifty Gateway.
Typically, when an artwork is resold by a buyer for quick profit – an act also known as “flipping” – the artist does not earn anything from the jump in price. NFTs may be able to change that.
In Beeple’s case, his contract outlines that he receives 10 per cent of every sale on the secondary market.
About the Christie’s auction, the artist says: “This is a truly historic moment not just for digital art, but also for the entire fine art world. The technology is now at a place with the blockchain to be able to prove ownership and have true scarcity with digital artwork, so I think we are going to see an explosion of not only new artwork, but also new collectors, and I am very honoured to be a part of this movement.”
Beeple is not the only creative person using NFTs to sell works. Last week, Canadian musician Grimes sold her digital animations and artworks, WarNymph Collection Vol 1, on Nifty Gateway. It sold out within 20 minutes for about $6m. The US band Kings of Leon are also releasing their new album as an NFT.
The result of the Everydays auction could be a game changer for an art market that is eager to expand in the digital realm.
This is a truly historic moment not just for digital art, but also for the entire fine art world BEEPLE Artist