A diptych by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst “Xhairymutantx”. The work, originally ordered as part of a larger part for the Whitney 2024 biennial, is one of those offered for sale in Christie’s Landmark ai Art Auction.
Christie’s images ltd. 2025
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Christie’s images ltd. 2025
The big auctions have tried the art of AI in the past. In 2018, Christie’s auction A blurred painting of a male figure made with a generative AI which was formed on thousands of historical portraits. It sold for more than $ 400,000. And a painting created by a Robot artist Ai Nomed AI-DA went for more than a million dollars At Sotheby’s last year.
But the next of Christie Intelligence increased The sale can represent the first time that a large auction house focuses entirely on the work created using automatic learning. It includes pieces of eminent digital artists such as Sasha Stiles, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Rebik Anadol and Alexander Reben.
“It’s really fun to be part of it,” said Reben, an artist in residence in Meta, whose contribution to the sale of Christie is a work live by a robot – who becomes greater than people submit . “It’s a kind of reference.”
The artists protest
However, many other artists are far from enthusiastic.
“Christie does not care about the artists,” said artist Karla Ortiz, a complainant in a Collective appeal on copyright violation Against several IA -based AI companies. “They just want to make money.”
Ortiz was among the first people to sign a online letter Ask Christie’s to cancel the sale. He alleys that many of the 34 works of art of the auction were created using models of commercial AI which could have been trained in unauthorized work and protected by copyright.
This is a great concern for people who live in their art: there is a series of proceedings that move through the American courts in which artists claim that IA societies have formed large language models on their works of art without informing or compensating them.
The Protestant letter against the sale of Christie has collected thousands of signatures from artists, academics and others in the world since it appeared online on February 8.
“These models and companies behind them use human artists, using their work without authorization or payment to create commercial AI products that compete them,” said the letter. “Your support for these models and to the people who use them, reward and more encourage mass theft of AI companies from the work of human artists.”
“For me, it was obvious. I had to sign it,” said Ortiz about the letter. “Christie’s is an institution. It is a familiar name. And so that they hold this spectacle essentially normalizes what I consider.”
AI’s request for art increases
The auction house does not agree.
“The AI learns everything that it can possibly start from a full set of data and images to create something new,” said Nicole Sales Giles, director of Christie’s digital art. “It’s an influence. Not a flight.”
Giles said that copyright problems arising from the training of commercial AI models on works of art presented in the sale are beyond the goal of the auction house.
She noted that AI’s demand for art increases, especially among those working in blockchain, crypto and venture capital. According to a report From the business study company Business Research Company, the world AI art market should be worth nearly a billion dollars in 2028, about double what it was in 2023.
Giles said that Christie’s did not intend to cancel the upcoming sale. But it welcomes the voices of dissent. “We are delighted that a sale triggers such a passionate conversation around art,” said Giles. “This is what art should do.”
The letter inspires more art
The sale and the protest letter inspired more artists to comment on the difficult relationship between art and trade.
For example, the artist Beeple – better known for having sold a piece of crypto art By Christie’s For nearly $ 70 million in 2021 – published a work of art on social networks Entitled “The Art War”. It represents a giant and shiny robot aggressively correcting the letter with red ink while it holds a leash attached to the other end to a small human.
Experts in digital art are not surprised that Christie’s show creates so many debates.
“Given the lack of public funding sufficient for the arts, especially in the United States, artists are right to be concerned with the non-critical adoption of strongly monetized technologies which could only be developed with their work,” said Declared Barry, Threw, Executive, Executive, Executive and Artistic Director of Gray Area, an incubator of digital culture in San Francisco.
“However, art history is a history of technological development, and we desperately need artists to engage with new technologies such as AI to help metabolize, understand and communicate social changes sudden that they create. “
Intelligence increased should open its doors online and at Christie’s New York on February 20 and takes place until March 5.
Jennifer Vanasco has published this story for radio and the web.
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