The world’s oldest auction house, Sotheby’s has officially entered the newest realm of commerce. Sotheby’s has launched its first ever Virtual Gallery in NFT Metaverse Decentraland. Decentraland is a virtual reality blockchain platform where users create avatars to interact with one another, purchase goods and services, and create art.
The new Virtual Gallery is a digital replica of its London headquarters on New Bond Street. The virtual gallery will have five ground floor spaces to show digital art, as well as a digital avatar of its London commissionair Hans Lomulder to greet visitors at the door. It is located in Decentraland’s prime art hub, known as the Voltaire Art District (map coordinates: 52,83).
“We see spaces like Decentraland as the next frontier for digital art where artists, collectors and viewers alike can engage with one another from anywhere in the world and showcase art that is fundamentally scarce and unique, but accessible to anyone for viewing,” Sotheby’s specialist Michael Bouhanna said in a statement.
The house’s Decentraland debut coincides with its first ever curated NFT sale, “Natively Digital,” which is offering such early NFTs as Kevin McCoy’s Quantum (2014) alongside the work of tech-savvy artists who make make more traditional objects like Simon Denny and Justin Aversano. At time of publication, Quantum’s current bid is at $220,000. It is co-organised by NFT artist Robert Alice, whose physical 2019 painting Block 21 (42.36433° N, -71.26189° E) became the first NFT to be auctioned by a major house when it sold at Christie’s in October 2020.
Sotheby’s isn’t the first art institution to set up shop in the virtual sphere. Berlin’s König Galerie created an exhibition in Decentraland in March; meanwhile, the buyers of Beeple’s $69 million NFT set up their own display in another online universe called CryptoVoxels.