This week’s featured collector is MonkeyCatcher
MonkeyCatcher has a wildly creative collection. Check it out at lazy.com/monkeycatcher
What’s your take on Christie’s shuttering its dedicated digital-art department?
Last week’s poll asked: What’s your take on Christie’s shuttering its dedicated digital-art department? The results were telling. Nearly half of respondents (45%) saw the move as bad news for NFTs, suggesting concern that the closure signals retreat by one of the most visible traditional institutions in the space. Yet 27% believed it could be good news, perhaps reading it as a sign the NFT market is maturing beyond needing its own silo. Another 18% felt it would have no impact, while 9% admitted they weren’t sure. Taken together, the responses highlight a divided sentiment: some see Christie’s move as a warning sign, while others interpret it as part of a natural evolution where digital art integrates more fully into the broader art market. The debate reflects the uncertainty—and potential—still shaping the future of NFTs.
The Surprising Reason Why Museums Like NFTs
Digital art has traveled a remarkable path over the past half-century. What began in the late 1960s with Harold Cohen’s robotic painting systems and Vera Molnár’s code-based experiments has now become central to how we think about creativity, technology, and markets. For decades, artists pushed at the edges—David Hockney with his iPad landscapes, countless others experimenting with software, code, and machines—but the tipping point came in 2021 when Beeple’s NFT Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold for $69 million at Christie’s. That single sale not only catapulted NFTs into mainstream consciousness but also forced institutions and auction houses to rethink the future of art.
Yet what many collectors and market-watchers may not realize is that museums are already measuring digital art’s impact in ways that go far beyond headline sales. As Nicole Sales Giles, Director of Digital Art at Christie’s, explained, museums track how long visitors stand in front of a work. Traditional paintings might hold attention for mere seconds, but digital art—immersive installations, generative works, AI-driven experiments—often keeps audiences engaged far longer. MoMA’s exhibition of Rafik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinations not only drew record crowds but also inspired visitors to linger, often transfixed by the moving images and soundscapes. That kind of engagement is a curator’s dream: it doesn’t just validate the medium, it ensures that digital art has staying power in institutional collections. For NFT collectors accustomed to focusing on scarcity, provenance, or price, this simple but powerful metric—time spent—offers an entirely new lens on value.
The implications are profound. Museums from Paris to Miami are now adding digital works to their permanent collections. Banks are issuing loans backed by NFTs from established artists like Beeple and Anadol. Christie’s has launched its own on-chain auction platform, Christie’s 3.0, and continues to integrate digital pieces alongside canonical works by Rothko, Warhol, and Basquiat. Even as the speculative frenzy of 2021 cooled and many collectible-based NFTs collapsed in value, digital art itself has matured into a legitimate category, judged by the same criteria as any other medium: the artist’s place in history, their collector base, and the strength of their community.
At the same time, AI-driven creativity is reshaping what digital art can be. Artists like Sasha Stiles, who trained her own language model on her writing, and Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst, whose multimedia AI installations have graced the Whitney Biennial, are demonstrating that artificial intelligence is not a shortcut but a collaborator. For artists willing to experiment, AI expands the boundaries of what is possible, pushing creativity into entirely new dimensions.
Looking ahead, digital art is poised to remain one of the fastest-growing categories in the art world. It attracts younger collectors than any other Christie’s category, consistently brings in new clients, and resonates with generations raised in a digital-first world. As Nicole notes, digital art won’t replace Rothko, but it will grow as a permanent part of serious collections. The combination of blockchain-enabled provenance, institutional adoption, and AI-driven creativity suggests that this is only the beginning.
The story of digital art is still being written, and its trajectory will likely shape not only how art is made and sold, but how it is experienced. For a deeper dive into this fascinating conversation—including behind-the-scenes insights from Christie’s historic NFT sales and perspectives on the artists to watch—you can listen to the full podcast interview with Nicole Sales Giles on All Options Considered.
Why do you think digital art, and NFTs, keeps viewers engaged longer than traditional art?
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