Sotheby’s announced it will collaborate with the anonymous digital artist Pak for a sale this April. The auction house’s CEO Charles Stewart said that the sale will include both individual works of art as well as “open edition” NFTs, where multiple buyers can purchase minted tokens for the same work.
Sotheby’s is being vague on the details for now. More will be announced soon. But the auction house’s new alliance with the “omniscient designer/developer/wizard” and founder of Archillect, an AI-driven visual content sharing platform, is clearly a statement of intent.
Sotheby’s said it chose Pak, who makes monochromatic designs featuring moving geometric forms, because of the artist’s established presence in the NFT realm. Pak has been working in the digital art sphere for over two decades.
“We wanted to partner with Pak because we are entering a whole new world with digital art, and we felt it was important to work with an artist who has been active in the community for many years,” Sotheby’s says in a statement. “While we can’t yet reveal full details of what’s to come, we want to be true to the democratic spirit of crypto and will be working together to attract as many people as possible to take part in this next adventure, so prepare for some surprises.”
“In the art world there’s been a pivot to digital in almost everything except the art, and now we’re getting there with the art as well,” said Stewart. Referring to a generation of younger collectors who feel less inclined to own physical works of art, Stewart said a main component of crypto art collecting is the notion of “borderless ownership.” He added, “Beyond the fact that you’ve got a new audience and new aesthetic, this really has the potential to bypass a lot of the traditional gate keepers and vetting processes of the traditional art world.”