Christie’s to Auction Bitcoin-Inspired Artwork, Associated Non-Fungible Token

Sep 23, 2020 at 12:00 UTC

Detail of Robert Alice, Block 22 (The Robert Alice project)

Part of an art project that combines 40 paintings carrying a transcription of the code behind the Bitcoin blockchain is set to go under the hammer at Christie’s New York.

According to a press statement, the sale for 20 such paintings in the project will kick off at Christie’s in New York City through an auction for the artwork “Block 21” which is slated to take place on Oct. 7.

Created by the Robert Alice project, the first half of the paintings (Blocks 0 to 20) were privately offered to collectors and are currently held by some prominent names in the blockchain world including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Bloq Chairman Matthew Roszak, Coinscrum founder Paul Gordon and others.
The project was started by London-based artist Benjamin Gentilli to promote blockchain culture in the visual arts. The project and was created solely by Gentilli over a three-year period, according to the statement.
The artwork to be auctioned at Christie’s on Oct. 7 will also be put on display in the auction house’s galleries in New York between Oct. 1 and Oct. 7. The firm’s statement also said that “Block 21” will be offered for sale at an estimated price ranging between $12,000 to $18,000.
The auctioned artwork is also associated with an Ethereum-based non-fungible token (NFT), which will serve both as a way to prove authenticity and be a digital representation of the physical painting. “The NFT will be hosted on Ethereum, drawing links between Bitcoin’s codebase as the originator and ground zero for the rest of the ecosystem,” Gentilli said in an email.
Said Vivian Brodie, a contemporary art specialist at the auction house: “This is Christie’s first time presenting a work that explores crypto culture at auction and, as ever, we are very excited to welcome new audiences and collecting communities across the globe to Christie’s.”

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