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One of the world's leading auction houses is turning to digitally encrypted technology to record its future artistic transactions. In October, Christie & # 39; s announced that it would pilot the blockchain technology as part of a unique collaboration with Artory, a leading digital independent registry for the art market.
This month, every art work sold by An American place: the Barney A. Ebsworth collection the auction will include a secure and encrypted sales certification for the successful bidder, providing what the Christie press release calls "a permanent digital record of relevant information on the artwork" . The auction includes works by famous painters such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O & # 39; Keeffe, Jasper Johns and Marsden Hartley. The cumulative price of the sale is estimated at over $ 300 million.
Artory stated in a blog post that its blockchain register offers a "secure digital transaction log, with the goal of providing more confidence in the current provenance of an art work and greater efficiency. in its eventual resale Collectors with works of art registered with Artory maintain anonymity, since their identity is never stored in the Register. "
There are two points in the above statement that are slightly misleading the potential of the blockchain to influence the art market. First, blockchain technology is marketed for auction houses as a guarantee tool for buyers worried about potential sourcing problems. The problem here is that such recordings are not retrospective and can not resolve false statements in existing documents. This can lead to greater problems for most of the high value art works that sometimes have a long history of ownership. Secondly, maintaining anonymity on behalf of buyers contradicts a promise of clear provenance. It also perpetuates the belief that auction houses are arenas for oblique financial transactions with little responsibility towards the public.
This last point remains a significant source of contention in the industry. Proponents of the art market often argue that auction houses should be exempt from most regulations that apply to financial institutions such as banks and investment firms because the value of art is subjective, unlike of goods exchanged as precious metals and jewels, which are subject to stricter standards. Furthermore, most of the auction houses are privately owned. In fact, only Sotheby & # 39; s is a publicly traded company and therefore has a more specific mandate for transparency. (Christie & # 39; s is privately owned by the holding company of François-Henri Pinault, Groupe Artémis.)
The apathy towards the potential solution for solving the problems of blockchain technology is also evident in the sector itself. When asked about the application of these innovations to the art market, the experts of a panel for the art and money laundering market held at the Fashion Institute of Technology in October provided tepid answers. Of course, it is prudent for auction houses to implement any new technology that may possibly hinder illicit activities such as fraud, but there is no guarantee that the blockchain will serve as a buffer for financial malfeasance.
The bloodiest blockchain enthusiasts promise that the online accounting system will effectively give all inhabitants of the planet a digital identity and access to international payment systems, usually out of reach of the poorest populations. Just a few months ago at Christie's July Art + Tech Summit, photography specialist Anne Bracegirdle claimed that artists could adopt blockchain to monetize their work, allowing limited editions of images that could be sold and resold with technology, acting as both sources of the image and its verification. Almost like a solution to mass reproducibility, blockchain is seen more as a way to create scarcity rather than availability. After all, auction houses have an interest in preventing the fakes from entering the market for a variety of different reasons, one of which is that a larger supply of valuable art works can reduce the dollar signs of question.
More likely, the blockchain will become a call to trust for collectors like investors who want to park their wealth in physical assets outside the turbulent market economy. When combined with the tax advantages of storing expensive art in free ports and the luxury storage facilities of foreign trade areas, such as the newly opened Arcis in Harlem, collectors would not worry at all about Seeing your investments vanish and being seen again on the unidentified auction block.
