Art Market Report - August 20
A weekly report on the NFT Art Market, covering 1/1s, generative art, editions and other important news.
1/1s
Sotheby’s GRAILS PART IV achieved close to $1M across the 22 lots sold. Above 500 bids and more than 80 bidders/buyers participated to the sale.
superfan by OSF was collected by 0x00 for 26,000 USDC on HOFA DAO. Originally inspired by the artist’s obsession with collecting NotablePepes, the piece was then minted during the $PEPE craze in May this year to capture the moment in time.
xeno skullGANg by Pindar Van Arman was collected by SpartanBlack_1 for 11.275 ETH on SuperRare. The piece was part of the byteGANgs, a limited series of 11 unique 100% on-chain works.
Zeinu: Abiogenesis by Hans Brouwer was collected by MJdata for 9.99 ETH on SuperRare’s secondary market. A feedback loop between two pix2pix models, the piece was one of the earliest GAN artworks minted on SuperRare in 2018.
3 Wise Doges, a signature video-painting by Sarah Zucker, was collected by batsoupyum for 7.69 ETH on SuperRare’s secondary market.
Clubbing with Multi-American Maniacs by Botto was collected by buffets for 6.6 ETH on SuperRare. The collector wrote a great article on their personal thoughts and considerations in collecting this piece, read here.
GENERATIVE ART & EDITIONS
923 EMPTY ROOMS is the second collaboration between Art Blocks and Bright Moments, created by Casey REAS and commissioned by LACMA for the Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952–1982 exhibition. Started Monday August 14 in Tokyo and concluded Saturday August 19 in Los Angeles, the collection was minted and revealed IRL over the course of six days in each Bright Moments gallery. It had 227 ETH trading volume since the launch.
Launched on August 16 on Wildxyz, The Boys of Summer is a digital game artwork and generative PFP collection by Mitchell F Chan that investigates our world’s favorite pastime: the quantification of self. A participatory market performance piece, the game consists of a never-ending process of character creation that unfolds online in the browser. It had 166 ETH trading volume since the launch.
Yue Minjun, one of the biggest blue-chip contemporary artists with 150 million USD in auction sales, entered Web3 with his first and multi-chapter NFT collection, Kingdom of the Laughing Man: Boundless on LiveArt. A generative collection of 999 unique NFT artworks, it echoes Yue Minjun’s iconic self-portraits and had its reveal on August 16. It had 146 ETH trading volume in the past 7 days.
A first-of-its-kind space of co-creation between the Brazilian Indigenous Yawanawa community and media artist Refik Anadol, Winds of Yawanawa brings the nuances of Yawanawa art to the digital world with the aim of preserving the community’s rich culture. It had 109 ETH trading volume in the past 7 days.
Autoglyph #490 was collected for 158 ETH.
Ringers #712 was collected for 39 ETH.
Incomplete Control #81 was collected for 35 ETH.
Chromie Squiggle #1552 was collected for 28 ETH.
Gazers #474 was collected for 13.6 ETH.
DROPPING NEXT WEEK
Monday 8/21 @ 12 PM EST, The Great Purge by slimesunday.
By burning 10 worthless NFTs from your wallet—those that represent scams or failed projects—you can participate in a symbolic cleansing of the space. In return, you'll receive 1 edition of artwork by slimesunday.
Monday 8/21 @ 7:30 PM EST - Thursday 8/24 @ 7:30 PM EST, The Monument Game by Sam Spratt, on Nifty Gateway.
The game has 4 main pillars: one 1/1, edition of 256, a game of art & observation, and for those few who play to win, a reward.
INDUSTRY NEWS
OpenSea announced changes to creator fees and moving to optional creator fees on all secondary sales for new collections.
Advice from XCOPY: “Mint some 1/1s to your vault. Hold back 20-50% of an edition. Not as much of a dopamine hit as royalties, but gets the job done.”