We are working with artists in a way Christie’s rarely does. Normally, Christie’s sells a painting on behalf of an individual or an institution to the next individual or institution. It’s unusual for Christie’s to operate in the primary market — to launch a new work by an artist or show an unseen painting. So what the digital art team is doing is very different from what Christie’s has done before, and it’s been exciting for us to work directly with artists and creators.
We look for the best of the best within this emerging category, identifying artists who have strong community engagement as well as a proven track record and a collector base. We seek out creators who are using their platform to tell interesting stories and are connecting with their audience in meaningful ways. We’re then here to amplify that narrative. We tell the story of an artist, who they are and what they’re creating, which is a bit different than the focus of some other sales where it’s about the collector or the history of a known and established artist.
We’re engaging with a completely new community. It’s interesting because the artists and collectors in the digital realm are very much in the same circles, which is different from other contemporary collecting groups. It’s not unheard of, but would be much rarer to see, for example, Ed Ruscha hanging out with his collectors on a Saturday night in LA. Whereas, for digital artists and collectors, it’s very common for them to know one another and be working together to push this category forward. I love being part of that.
We’ve seen a lot of crossover with digital collectors moving into other categories. That’s been an unexpected benefit. When we started the digital art team, we believed our existing client base would quickly grow and adapt to the new digital medium. Many certainly have, but we’ve actually seen a lot more crossover from digital art collectors coming to Christie’s and expanding to other categories like Watches, Contemporary Paintings or Prints. Helping our digital art collectors expand their tastes has been a really interesting part of the job.
Most of the growth we see is in the emerging artist category. Digital collectors want to be patrons of new and emerging artists, and to have involvement in their careers from the beginning. For obvious reasons, you can’t do that starting now for, say, an Andy Warhol or a Pablo Picasso. Digital works by artists like Keith Haring certainly have staying power — we sold five of his digital drawings from the mid-1980s in September, which marked the first time these works were offered to the public — but the industry growth is really concentrated on artists who are working in this medium today. I am particularly excited to follow the growth of artists like Sam Spratt, Sasha Stiles, DeeKay and countless more.