#33 Art Meets Finance: A $400K Loan Against a Beeple & Sotheby's Digital Decade
#33 Art Meets Finance: A $400K Loan Against a Beeple & Sotheby's Digital Decade
👋 Hello, we are Julian and Marcel, and welcome to our weekly edition of The Curious Collector. Each week we humbly curate what’s happening in the digital art realm. ✨
It is a subscriber-only newsletter, delivered every Sunday, highlighting mainly digital and sometimes physical art news.
Welcome back, everyone, and a hearty welcome to our new subscribers who've just joined our community. We're thrilled to have you with us! ✨
News Digest
On Outland: Juliette Bibasse reflects on owning Lauren Lee McCarthy's work "Good Night" where she receives daily texts from the artist, blending personal connection with performance art, and explores the nuances of digital ownership and human interaction within the art and technology interface.
Sotheby's auction: "Digital Art Through the Decade", curated by MORROW collective, celebrates the evolution of digital art over the past 10 years, highlighting key pioneers of the blockchain art movement since 2014.
The auction features both historic and contemporary works, tracing the significant contributions and milestones of artists.
Refik Anadol Live: In a conversation with NVIDIA's Richard Kerris, he details his process behind "Large Nature Model" an AI art installation created from half a billion ethically sourced images using the NVIDIA Picasso platform.
Btw, the MUTATIO release by XCOPY and NeonGlitch86 on Base achieved a total mint of 1,023,831, generating approximately $2.35M in sales at a rate of $2.3 per item.
Upcoming
Blooms by Cory Haber: Verse Mar 25 at 3pm
Los Angelizing by Margaret Murphy: Verse, Mar 25 at 7pm
Botanical Study #1 by Petra Cortright: Verse, Mar 29 at 7pm
Digital Highlight
In "GlassyLove" by Erfan Hoseini, the artwork delves into the concept of love at first sight through abstract animation, using changing glass textures and colors on familiar shapes to symbolize the brain's efforts to compare the incomprehensible to the likable, highlighting barriers to understanding.
Notable Insight
“Embarking on a new milestone, I've taken out the largest ever loan against a single piece of digital art: “Crypto is Bullshit” by Beeple, with a groundbreaking $400,000 loan. This marks another pioneering moment in the journey of digital art and its evolution.”
This illustrates the accelerating convergence of art and finance, particularly as blockchain technology simplifies and accelerates transactions.
Such developments highlight a significant evolution in how digital artworks are appreciated not only for their artistic value but also leveraged as liquid assets.
Sale Spotlight
Artist to Watch
Holly Herndon and Mathew Dryhurst are pioneering figures in integrating machine learning and software into music and digital art, recognized for their innovative approaches to digital identity and ownership, with significant contributions to education, open research, and the art community.
Collectors to Watch
Closing Remarks
To wrap up, the extraordinary $400,000 loan against a digital artwork highlights the promising trajectory of digital art as a significant financial asset. Thank you for being part of this week's exploration into the evolving world of digital art.
Great work, Julian and Marcel. I really appreciate the concise letter and the type of content you share here👌