A hologram of an Edgar Degas bronze statue of a ballet dancer greets people who attended a party at Christie’s auction house in San Francisco on Wednesday. A hologram of the bronze statue of a ballet dancer rotated slowly inside a storefront on Geary Street on Wednesday as art lovers gazed at it in wonder. Christie’s, the historic auction house, beamed the ultra-realistic hologram to San Francisco from its New York headquarters for a gallery party to showcase items from its upcoming May auction.
NFT artwork has found a steady market of mostly male millennials who are involved in the cryptocurrency industry. In fact, NFTs, which are founded on blockchain technology like cryptocurrency, have become in many ways the visual representation of blockchain. They have practical applications, such as authenticating contracts. Sports fans and other collectors of memorabilia are collecting digital souvenirs of their favorite teams and stars.
The hologram was the most-discussed artwork at a packed gallery party in Christie’s San Francisco headquarters. Partygoers went downstairs and lined up on the chilly sidewalk to view the apparition in the storefront. The refrigerator-sized hardware used to project the hologram didn’t fit in the freight elevator to take it up to the gallery.
Proto, the Los Angeles company that makes the $65,000 hardware that projects the hologram, said the Degas statue is the first great work of art to ever be projected this way. In March of 2021, Christie’s auctioned off the NFT titled “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” by the artist known as Beeple for a then-record $69.3 million. The sale set a high water mark for the NFT art market. But it also raised questions about eye-popping price tags and the actual value of NFTs.
“Peppering in virtual experiences to your lived experiences is probably the path to a more durable, sticky metaverse,” Davis said, citing the name often used for digital communities.
Get yours now! Remember, there’s always a greater fool.
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