Among the many digital collectible art pieces initially sold, Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sparked widespread conversation about the value of art today, captivating people from all walks of life. But what made it such a groundbreaking piece that it sold for about $69 million?
The Artist
Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, is a graphic designer from Charleston, South Carolina. He creates various types of digital art, including short films, VJ loops available under Creative Commons licenses, and pieces for VR and AR. After gaining popularity with his Creative Commons VJ loops, Beeple has worked on concert visuals for big names like Justin Bieber, One Direction, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Zedd, and deadmau5, among others.
He’s a pioneer of the “everyday” movement in 3D graphics. For over ten years, Beeple has been creating and posting a new piece of art every day, without missing a single day.
The Artwork
Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Beeple is a digital collage made up of 5,000 images. He created one image each day since May 1, 2007. Inspired by another artist, Tom Judd, who started a similar project, Beeple saw it as a great way to improve his drawing skills and learn about photography and 3D animation. He admits that producing something valuable within the constraints of a daily deadline is a tough challenge.
This approach is quite different from traditional artists who often spend years refining their creative vision. Beeple’s method reflects our social media culture, where quick, sometimes unfinished ideas are shared for likes and followers. It’s no surprise that Beeple is quite popular on Instagram, with his account, beeple_crap, boasting 2.2 million followers.
Everydays: The First 5000 Days became a sensation when Christie’s auction house recognized it as a groundbreaking piece. It doesn’t aim for traditional beauty or care much for form and color harmony. Instead, it’s a collection of test images arranged by the date they were made. While it may not convey the timeless beauty traditionally sought in art, it offers something else. Viewers might find themselves half-smiling at the literal one-liners within the images and appreciating the discipline required to maintain such a project over time.
Beeple’s breakthrough achievement, which puts him alongside talented individuals like David Hockney, was in using non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs, powered by blockchain technology, act as a secure digital signature that confirms the authenticity of a piece of art and helps with transactions in the decentralized crypto markets. However, this isn’t the only reason his work gained such high value.
While many traditional artists have emphasized the importance of an artwork’s aesthetics, Beeple’s creative style has some different features :
Pioneering Use of NFTs: The piece was one of the first major artworks to be sold as an NFT, providing a verifiable digital certificate of ownership. This brought a new way to own and trade digital art, validating its authenticity and uniqueness.
Massive Scale and Commitment: The artwork is a massive digital collage of 5,000 images that Beeple created daily over more than 13 years. This level of dedication and continuity is impressive and resonated with many people.
Cultural Relevance: Beeple’s work often reflects contemporary culture and societal issues, resonating with audiences who see it as both art and commentary on the times we live in.
Auction by Christie’s: Being sold through Christie’s, a prestigious auction house, lent significant credibility and attention to the piece. This move signaled the art world’s acceptance of digital and NFT artworks as valuable and legitimate.
Public Fascination: The sale of a digital artwork for such a high price sparked conversations about what constitutes art, the role of technology in art, and the future of the art market, drawing in people who might not usually engage in art discussions.
These factors all contributed to making “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” a landmark in the art NFT world.
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Featured Image: Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Beeple
