Christie’s First-Ever AI Art Auction Earns $728,000, Plus Controversy
Artificial intelligence and art have been controversial for years. So it’s no surprise Christie’s Auction House’s First AI-divided AuctionChristie said it was the first time any major auction house faced protests. In February, more than 5,600 artists sign Asked Christie to cancel the sale.
“Many of the artwork you plan to auction are created using an AI model known to be trained in copyrighted work without permission,” the open letter reads in part. “These models and the companies behind them use human artists, without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them. Your support for these models, and the support of those who use them, rewards and further inspires AI companies’ mass theft of human artists’ work.”
Christie’s representative pointed out the auction house’s official statement.
“With this project, our goal is to focus on a great creative voice that pushes the boundaries between technology and art,” it reads. “We also hope that collectors and the wider community will recognize their influence and significance in today’s art landscape. The results of this deal confirm their influence.”
The representative also pointed out that Front reception of X Auctionformerly Twitter. Artist Daniel Ambrosi tweeted“I’m glad to be part of this memorable experience…I’m glad my artwork is coming home with someone!”
A man checked out Huemin’s AI artwork called “Dream-0#9” in a news preview of Christie’s in New York.
The auction known as Enhanced Intelligence was closed Wednesday morning. Christie’s report said more than 30 batches attracted hundreds of bids, totaling $728,784. And there is a generational twist: The auction house says 37% of registrants are completely strangers to Christie’s, while 48% of bidders are members of Millennials and Gen Z.
“The auction redefines the development of art and technology, exploring human agencies in fine arts.” “From robots to sugar cane to interactive experiences, artists collaborate with and collaborate with AI in various media including painting, sculpture, print, digital art, and more.”
(The gan or generated adversarial network is a generated AI model that creates new data or images similar to training data.)
A man at Christie’s in New York, a print of AI art created by Chornvamp’s “The Junk Machine”.
The open letter collected 6,493 signatures, of which 5,646 were verified. Signers range from illustrators to authors to art therapists to photographers around the world.
The highest price in sales is $277,200 for refik anadol’s work, titled “Machine Illusion” – ISS Dreams -A. A dataset of 1.2 million images from the International Space Station and satellites was used.
Another job is the Embedded Studies 1 and 2 of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, which sells for $94,500. This is the result of a text-to-image model trained in Herndon’s altered images and after Christie’s inclusion in the 2024 Whitney Biennale.
