NFT in the Mainstream: Sotheby’s Follows Christie’s with a New Plan

Following the record-breaking sale of a non-fungible token (NFT) art piece hosted by Christie’s, New York-headquartered multinational corporation Sotheby’s announced today that they would be collaborating with the well-known digital artist Pak.

On March 16, the international auction house first posted a teaser-style tweet of a video featuring a circle, with commenters quickly starting to guess what it means.

“You guessed it,” wrote Sotheby’s several hours later. “We are working with MuratPak, the leading digital artist who has long been an innovator in the NFT space.”

Per the website, this collaboration is “coming soon.” Not much information is currently available, except that the sale is set to go live next month.

“We’ve been following the NFT space for some time,” said CEO Charles Stewart in an interview with CNBC, “and we’re excited this morning to be announcing an upcoming sale next month.”

The auction house will be selling both 1/1 works of art and open editions where many people can buy tokens for the same work, Stewart said, adding that “there will be some other surprises along the way over the next few weeks.”

The CEO added that the crypto art is in the early stages, but it contains a lot that Sotheby’s thinks has “staying power.” For their first such sale, they wanted an established artist.

When compared to the traditional art world, said Stewart, the artist’s anonymity is “one of many new things about crypto art in particular that I think is different and potentially a bit disruptive.” NFTs have the potential to bypass traditional gatekeepers and vetting processes seen in the physical artworld, he concluded.

The popular, anonymous artist(s) Pak is the creator of Archillect, the synthetic curator, write the Nifty Gateway and OpenSea marketplaces, describing the artist as “an omniscient designer/developer/wizard.”

Works by Pak

Meanwhile, Pak seems to have caught Sotheby’s attention back in January.

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