Art on the block: Christie's big bet on blockchain | Modern consent

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Financial innovation unlocks the gig economy for artists

Christie & # 39; s

The historic Christie auction in November 2018 was the largest of its kind to be recorded on blockchain (via Christie & # 39; s).

Last month in New York, the legendary auction house Christie & # 39; s set a world record by winning 323.1 million dollars for the collection of Ebswoth works by the American modernist masters Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack, Georgia O & # 39; Keeffe, Alexander Calder, Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler and others.

Not only did the auction beat records for the highest ever guaranteed prices for a collection, as well as for 13 individual artists, but it was also the first art sale of this scale recorded on the blockchain. Collaborating with Artory, a blockchain-based registry that traces the provenance for art and collectibles, Christie & # 39; s is at the forefront of bringing mass adoption of the blockchain into the world of technology. ;art.

With its inaugural Art + Tech summit at the start of this summer, Christie & # 39; s has brought together speakers from ConsenSys, Cryptopunks, Deloitte, KPMG, Clifford Chance, Victoria & Albert Museum, The Serpentine Galleries, Bloomberg and The Financial Times to discuss non-artistic tokenization of art and collectibles. More than for CryptoKitties, the art market is finding salvation on the blockchain with immutable copyright registration and proof of provenance that certifies authenticity, and can counterfeit counterfeiting and unlock the value of assets previously considered illiquid. .

Pixels as an asset class

Hungry artists are also starting to see the potential for creating financial products from art, or vice versa, making art from speculative financial products, as one day might see it.

Last week at the FinTech On The Block in San Francisco, Brooklyn-based British artist Eve Sussman spoke of 89 Seconds Atomized splitting her latest test of the artist for her acclaimed piece, 89 Seconds at the # 39 ; Alcazar, which was presented at The Whitney and at the MoMA. Exploded into 2,304 atoms, the work is sold for $ 100 fiat or equivalent ether per atom with each containing 400 pixels of the complete frame and a run time of 10 minutes. The consent of his community of owners is needed for the piece to be seen again in its entirety. If he eventually dominated art or unregistered security, Sussman's expression of the collective experience of owning blockchain-based art presents an interesting experiment in space.

Likewise, during the summer, Andy Warhol's 14 Small Electric Chairs were symbolized by its majority owners, Georgian art dealer Eleesa Dadiani and Mecenate, an online investment platform. On the surface, the fractionalization sounds like the democratization of art that allows anyone to own a piece of the masters, but caveat emptor, know what you are buying – you can not hang a fraction of the Warhol on the wall.

Following, Art Basel Miami

This week, 77,000 artists, celebrities, collectors, institutional investors, family offices and fans will descend to South Beach for the epic rave that is Art Basel Miami. This year, among the appearances of Christo, Calvin Harris, Kaskade, Die Antwoord and Zedd, the programming will be ripe with speeches on the problems that Blockchain can solve and where the sore points are adopted in an industry has prospered on secrecy, not on transparency, for hundreds of years. Modern consensus will be on the scene that covers the show.

Martine Paris is a Silicon Valley tech reporter who follows AI's money, robotics, gaming, cryptography and blockchain. Disclosure: possesses an insignificant amount of crypto. Follow her on Twitter.

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