Mike Winkelmann, the US graphic designer and digital artist also known as Beeple, who produces 3D graphics, video loops and concert visuals for artists such as Justin Bieber, One Direction and Katy Perry, never stops working.
He has created and posted online a new picture every day for 13 and a half years.
On March 11, he got his reward.
Christie’s, in its first auction of a purely digital artwork, sold a non-fungible token (NFT) representing ownership of a collage of 5,000 of these images called ‘Everydays: The first 5,000 days’.
Winkelmann has attracted 1.8 million followers on Instagram. The collage collects images in loose chronological order and allows viewers to zoom in on what Christie’s describes as pictures by turn abstract, fantastical, grotesque or absurd, deeply personal or representative of current events.
“Christie’s had never offered a new media artwork of this scale or importance before,” says Noah Davis, specialist in post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s in New York.
He is not quite in Musk’s league yet, but until October Winkelmann had never sold a print for more than $100
Euromoney particularly likes the image Winkelmann posted a few days after the auction of non-fungible Elon, a play on Musk’s own Twitter image of himself holding up a dogecoin after his tip drove up the price of that mock-crypto.
Winkelmann has the CEO of Tesla as a muscle-bound giant sitting naked his doge-steed like a victorious general, holding his trophy aloft to a perhaps curious, perhaps indifferent crowd. Close inspection suggests no one is looking at him.
The non-fungible token for ‘Everydays: The first 5,000 days’, which Christie’s allowed bidders to pay for in the popular cryptocurrency Ether, sold for $69.35 million.
He is not in Musk’s league yet, but until October Winkelmann had never sold a print for more than $100.
NFTs are blockchain-based records that represent pieces of digital media such as art, videos, music, games, text and other. An NFT’s code authenticates the uniqueness of the piece and records the history of its ownership.
NFTs have become popular for buying and selling digital player cards, for example of NBA stars. Young boys have bought and sold player cards for decades in the playground. Now slightly older boys can swap their NFTs on apps such as MetaMask.
A digital LeBron James highlight recently sold for $200,000 on the NBA Top Shot blockchain-based trading card system.
Infant stage
It is easy to class both that and Beeple’s extraordinary sale at Christie’s as yet more evidence of the everything bubble.
But Vytautas Zabulis, chief executive of H-Finance – which offers digital asset trading – suggest NFTs have potential for long-term adoption.
“What we see now is just the infant stage of what could become a new trade market, eventually mingling with traditional finance,” he says.
Euromoney hopes that while his technique keeps developing, Winkelmann, aged 40, stays at the infant stage in spirit.
Extraordinary wealth does not appear to have changed him yet.
Beeple’s own website still describes Winkelmann thus: “he makes a variety of art crap across a variety of media. some of it is ok, but a lot of it kind of blows ass. he’s working on making it suck less everyday though so bear with him… :)”
Priceless.
