Vinkelman Mike (Mike Winkelmann)

Vinkelman Mike (Mike Winkelmann)

Biography

2021

Digital Picture Sale Everybody Days: The First 5000 Days for $69.4 Million

In March 2021, a digital picture was sold at Christie's auction for a record $69.4 million. We are talking about the work of the American artist Mike Winkelmann (known under the pseudonym Beeple) called "Every Day: The First 5000 Days," which was auctioned on February 16.

The picture consists of 5 thousand images. Since May 2007, Beeple has created each of them for 5 thousand days. The description of the lot on Christie's says that the artist combined in it repeated themes and color schemes into a single whole.

It's crazy. I think that we are witnessing the writing of a new chapter in the history of painting, "said Mike Winkelmann.

Artist Mike Winkelmann's work "Every Day: The First 5000 Days"

The auction for the sale of the painting "Every Day: the First 5 Thousand Days" lasted about two weeks. The starting cost of the lot was $100.

It is noted that this is the first work in the world that was sold on a large site in the form of unimaginable tokens - digital assets based on blockchain technology, which allows you to acquire ownership of goods that exist exclusively on the Internet.

Christie's emphasized that after the bidding, Beeple became the third in the list of the most expensive artists of our time, second only to American Jeff Koons, who created the Rabbit sculpture (sold for $91.1 million in 2019), and Briton David Hockney, who painted "Portrait of the artist (Pool with two figures)" (sold for $90.3 million in 2018).

Beeple is a sought-after media artist who created videos and graphic works for Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Ariana Grande. He collaborated with major brands - Louis Vuitton, Apple and Nike. The artist has already sold his digital works of art, but exclusively on trading platforms supporting the blockchain.^[1]

Sale of fully digital Crossroads work for $6.6 million

In early March 2021, the fully digital work of artist Mike Winkelman (known under the pseudonym Beeple) Crossroads ("Crossroads") was sold online in the cryptocurrency digital art market Nifty Gateway for $6.6 million. This is a record price for a work of this kind put up at auction.

The sale took place on the eve of the opening of Christie's virtual trading, where another Beeple Everybody work is exhibited - The First 5000 Days ("Every day: the first 5000 days"). After reporting a record sale, this work increased significantly in price - within an hour the rate of $100 jumped to $1 million. Bidding will last until March 11.

Crossroads is dedicated to the 2020 US presidential election. Like all digital works by Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, this painting is created in the NFT format (non-fungible token - non-replaceable token, product or asset in digital form). This is a type of digital asset created on a blockchain that allows you to buy ownership of an item that exists exclusively on the Internet, for example, an image, animation or video. A unique digital token carries the artist's signature, so using the blockchain you can confirm that this digital picture is original.

Interest in digital art in the NFT format increased sharply in 2020: the amount of the total sales of such works amounted to more than $250 million. So, the Canadian singer Grimes earned $5.8 million in less than 20 minutes, selling a collection of digital art called "WarNymph." Ten works were auctioned off at the Nifty Gateway site, including drawings and videos that Grimes created in collaboration with her brother. Moreover, the singer sold some works in a single copy, and others in a circulation of tens and hundreds of copies.^[2]

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