Christie's Deletes Digital Art Department(news.artnet.com)
47 pointsby recursive42 days ago7 comments
  • fullshark2 days ago
    The whole NFT craze was embarrassing and very revealing about what powers a lot of people's belief in crypto.
    • gdbsjjdn2 days ago
      Everyone who was trading monkey JPEGs has moved on to claiming that they can replace your staff with an LLM.
      • tptacek2 days ago
        I have no idea what the former has to do with the latter. NFTs were a scam (I think the same about crypto more generally, but know that's a more idiosyncratic belief). LLMs are not.

        Is your point that LLMs are overhyped? Everything is overhyped. That's not what distinguished NFTs from previous hype cycles; the fact that there was literally nothing there is what distinguished it.

        • LastTrain2 days ago
          I believe his point is something like this: entrepreneurs used to look for ideas on how to create something of value that people want, and then create a sustainable business model out of it, in order to turn a profit. There was some pride in pleasing customers. Now they look for ideas to make a profit, whether or not something of actual value is created or if people actually want it.
        • solumos2 days ago
          The point literally may be that the get-rich-quick-type founders who were doing NFTs have now pivoted to doing something in AI.

          I know at least 2-3 people that fit that profile.

        • etrautmann2 days ago
          I think the point is that many of the individuals involved in hyping NFTs moved on to hyping projects in AI. Even if there's immediate real world utility in AI, it's reasonable to approach the space cautiously if you have concern over the demographics contributing to a significant portion of it.
      • jsheard2 days ago
        Except for a16z who are multi-track-grifting with both at the same time, and trying to find ways to put crypto in AI, or AI in crypto, or something.
        • bix62 days ago
          Can you expand on this? I see this brought up a lot but if they don’t return capital they’ll have to shut down?
          • bpt32 days ago
            They are big enough that they basically make the market in venture.

            The fact that even they couldn't force much interest in web 3.0 should tell you what a bad idea it really is.

            • bix62 days ago
              They are huge but only like 4% of the entire VC market so not necessarily enough to substantially move it?
              • bpt32 days ago
                They are held in very high regard and are very well connected so other VCs will throw money at their portcos.
          • cactusplant73742 days ago
            Probably not hard to return the fund when Coinbase is in their portfolio.
            • bix62 days ago
              Do you know what round / multiple they got?
        • NuclearPM2 days ago
          What is a16z?
          • crote2 days ago
            > AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

            $46B under management, so one of the larger players.

      • sixtyj2 days ago
        It was a monkey business, wasn’t it. /s
    • staplers2 days ago
      Digital art and NFT's are not synonymous. I know many digital artists who never bothered with them and could see the triviality. Unsurprisingly many art haters use this as a way to subtly reinforce their bias.
    • foxglacier2 days ago
      I'd say it also revealed to a lot of lay people that the traditional high end art market is basically the same as NFTs. The value is purely in the scarcity and having enough other people paying into it to create inflated values far beyond the utility of the product itself. Even super famous paintings like the Mona Lisa aren't really worth much as art - we can create equally good reproductions, but those don't have scarcity so they don't have value beyond the work it takes to create them.
      • musicale2 days ago
        You can examine the Mona Lisa to study Leonardo's actual brush strokes, materials, underpainting, etc. It's hard to make an exact copy of it that can provide the same insight, though high-resolution 3-d scans (including x-ray/MRI/etc.) could help.

        However, some artwork is lost to time and all we have are copies. Those copies may have lost important features from the original work, though they may provide additional insight into the artists who created the copies.

        With digital works, one can usually trivially create an exact copy.

    • petertodd2 days ago
      Don't confuse NFT gambling with Bitcoin. The former is a dying craze as the gamblers move onto something else. The latter is at all-time-highs, for the obvious reason that a digital replacement for gold is clearly useful, and Bitcoin is the obvious leader in that market category.

      Indeed, for certain use-cases Bitcoin is competing with Christies too: a lot of the fine art market is actually about storing and moving value. Not about the art.

  • xn2 days ago
    Hope they backed up the seed phrase for the Art Department before deleting it.
  • yieldcrv2 days ago
    > The company will continue to sell digital art within the larger 20th and 21st Century Art category
  • ChrisArchitect2 days ago
    Related:

    The Storm Hits the Art Market

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45175628

  • jeron2 days ago
    one interpretation is that they're not interested in digital art

    the other interpretation is that digital art has become contemporary art

    I like the latter

    • bze122 days ago
      They’re folding the nft department into contemporary art. But I wouldn’t say the first interpretation is invalid either.
    • yieldcrv2 days ago
      it is the latter, they are continuing to sell digital art and NFTs and they realized their “specialists” didn't have specialized knowledge to justify a separate division

      It just takes slower people longer to see the simple similarities to what they already do

      regarding the catalyst for consolidating at Christie’s, the whole art market is following a similar downtrend in price and volume as the NFT market since 2022, there was an article about fine art and the contemporary market here the other day

      • staplers2 days ago
        Art is always a lagging indicator of loose monetary policy. Same time interest rates shot up.
  • sandspar2 days ago
    NFT's continue to draw many talented artists. The scene is thriving.