Following the latest heist, Sotheby's sold a collection of 37 rare and expensive works of art for nearly $11 million on Thursday night, more than double the value of the auction house's 279-year-old collection.
Grails: Property from an Iconic Digital Art Collection, Part II is the second auction in a collection of hundreds of stunning generative artworks once owned by the notorious cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), whose two founders fled. Bali when the bottom collapsed. , filed for bankruptcy last year.
The centerpiece of the auction was undoubtedly Dmitri Chernyak's Goose Call #879, which exceeded the expectations of the art world and the auction world when it sold to an online bidder for $6.2 million (including buyer's premium), many other titles in the same series. sold for less. . of $200,000. Every moment after.
Based on the seemingly endless ways of winding a string around a series of pegs, the Bells series showcases Czarniak's mastery of generative art techniques, which uses an algorithm to randomly assign variables to each artwork. The series consists of 1000 unique versions created by changing the number of pins, their position, size, color and orientation of the shell.
When Blackberry released the first batch in 2021, each version cost just 0.1 ETH, around $200. There's nothing new about such an astronomical valuation of a piece of art. But because these works of art exist on the blockchain, smart contracts ensure that this valuation is guaranteed for the benefit of the artist. The blacksmith earns 7.5% of the sale price every time he moves that particular piece of art, which means he made almost a million and a half dollars at that auction. Compare that to artist Kerry James Marshall, who didn't receive a fee when his painting "The Old Times" sold for $21 million at the same auction in 2018.
What is Generative Art?
"Production art" refers to art created using a predetermined rule system that often includes an element of randomness. The practice dates back decades. Considered one of the first generative artists, Harold Cohen used a computer-controlled robot to create paintings in the 1960s. More recently, "generative art" has been associated with computer-generated artwork created in the early 1960s. 2000 by pioneering visual artist Joshua Davis, who used code to create random variations of extraordinarily complex images (Davis was recently cited as an influence on artists). Bipal, whose Everyday series sold for $69.3 million).
Charniak, Tyler Hobbs, Ketil Golid, Matt DeLaurier, Casey Reese, Hideki Tsukamoto and many others draw on a long tradition of generative artists and are credited with helping to overcome the pop culture associations that are restoring value to the art of the block chain. industry community.
Tyler Hobbs is an Austin-based artist and a leading figure in contemporary generative art. His project Fidenza, presented at auction with six works, is a series of algorithmically generated works with the artist's characteristic "fluid fields" and vibrant colors. Ketil Golid has been sharing his creative work with the public for almost four years, demonstrating his expertise in computer arts and his ability to create compelling and inspiring images. His Archetype series, which includes three works from the Graal collection, began as an algorithm designed to generate possible divisions of a rectangle into smaller rectangles.
Sotheby's Comment
“Collections often reflect the time and place in which they were created, telling a unique story through their artwork,” said Michael Bohana, Sotheby's NFT and digital art director. “This vast collection marks an important moment in the advent of generative art on blockchain in 2021 and was inspired by 3AC's desire to acquire some of the highest quality and rarest works available on the market. Since the watershed moment when digital art and NFTs became a true pop culture phenomenon, generative art has continued to capture the attention of a growing audience, including major international organizations. The release of this collection marks a great opportunity for collectors to celebrate the pioneering generative artists who helped bring the form to a wider audience and continue to move it forward."
While auction houses, including Sotheby's, are grappling with falling prices for top-tier physical art, the value of some of the iconic digital pieces in the Grail collection continues to rise. The first public lots of the Grails collection included seven pieces by Hobbs, Larva Labs, Cherniak, and 0xDEAFBEEF. At this auction, prices exceeded initial estimates, resulting in a total proceed of $2.4 million.
Of course, major questions remain as to how well these creations will hold their value when the hype cycle ends or when the cryptocurrency market bottoms out again. Several publications point to the preference of the young cryptocurrency audience over seasoned art collectors.
Similar questions arise about the meaning of works such as Duchamp's Fountain and other Dada artists of the early 20th century. Critics argue that generative art diminishes the artist's agency and creativity, as the end result is largely determined by the code rather than the artist's personal intent or expression. This blurring of the line between human creativity and algorithmic creativity raises important debates about the nature of art and the value of human artistic vision.
However, this sale, like the sale of the rest of the Grail collection, will be one of the most exciting events at Sotheby's this year. The rest of the Grails: Property from a Legendary Digital Art Collection will be sold through private sales and other public auctions. More information is available on the Sotheby's website.