An NFT sale at Christie’s brought in $ 1.6 million, giving digital art collectors some hope in the wake of the cryptocurrency
A sale of NFTs by Beeple, Mad Dog Jones and other artists brought in $ 1.6 million at Christie’s last night, which only exceeded the auction house’s expectations.
For those who see the event as a watch for the NFT market in the wake of the recent cryptocurrency crash, sales gave rise to tempered optimism – although the results eventually faded compared to those seen during the hefty days of the 2021 gold for digital art . hurry.
Online sales of 27 lots, entitled “Cartography of the mind“, was a benefit to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit that promotes mental health research with MDMA, LSD, psilocybin and other controlled substances. Alternative asset investor Ryan Zurrer curated the event’s appropriate trippy offerings, all of which were estimated to sell for less than $ 250,000, with most priced in the low five-digit range.
Only two pieces ended up obscuring the quarter million mark, both of which were minted this month and sold for exactly $ 252,000: a The planet of the monkeys-like illustration of a human-sized primate by artist Sam Spratt, who passed his $ 80,000- $ 120,000 pre-sale estimate after 15 bids; and a dystopian bipple “weekdays” picture of a man walking among giant mushroomswho increased his own estimate of $ 150,000- $ 250,000 by 10 bids.
If you’re really trying to find meaning from the sale, these two works of art offer ready-made metaphors: Spratt’s laconic monkey a symbol of defeat, Beeple’s stunning landscape a message of hope. The latter contains a telling caption: “It’s been a long strange journey so far, but the journey has just begun.”
Beeple, PILEGRIMS (2022). Courtesy of Christie’s.
Other highlights from the sale include a pixelated image of an ouroboros of ELFJTRUL OF FORGOTTEN RUNES, which went for $ 138,600, more than tripling the pre-sale estimate of $ 25,000 to $ 35,000); and two abstract works of art by Refik Anadol and IX Shells, each of which sold for exactly $ 100,800 against an estimated $ 80,000- $ 120,000.
In the end, each of the 27 tickets was sold, although several of them, including pieces by Brendan Dawes, Jake Fried and Tom Sachs, did so with just one bid.
“We put this sale together both as a celebration of the digital art space and as a philanthropic effort, and given that we sold 100 percent of the works and achieved above the high estimate, I would classify it as a huge success,” said Nicole Sales, Christie’s Business Director for Digital Art, in an email to Artnet News.
Including “The Cartography of the Mind,” Christie’s has sold $ 4.6 million in NFT’s art so far this year, according to Wall Street Journal. Last year, the auction house raised nearly $ 150 million.
Asked about the sales results in relation to the astronomical figures obtained from NFT auctions in 2021, Sales said that “we are currently experiencing a maturation of the NFT art market.”
“This sale was about art for the sake of art as well as charitable gifts, and the results were amazing,” she added. “The market for high quality digital artwork remains strong.”
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