Christie's Controversial AI Art Auction Surpasses Estimates

Yesterday, Christie’s closed out Augmented Intelligence, its highly-contested auction dedicated to artificial intelligence-generated art. The first of its kind, the sale brought in around $729,000 USD, surpassing its initial estimate by over 20%.

The sale also welcomed a wave of fresh collectors to the scene, with Gen Z and Millennials making up just under half of the bidding crowd and over a third of the registrants identified as “completely new to Christie’s.”

At $277,2000 USD, Refik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinations – ISS Dreams – A came in as the highest selling piece, exceeding its estimate of $200,00 USD. In second place, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst’s Embedding Study 1 & 2 diptych, fetched $94,500 USD, also above its estimated range.

In a recent statement, Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s VP and digital art sales director, explained that Augmented Intelligence aimed to showcase the “brilliant creative voices pushing the boundaries of technology and art,” it also served as a litmus test for AI-generated art’s place in the auction world.

The sale, however, proceeded through a great deal of controversy. Just days after the auction announcement last month, a group of 6,5000 artists co-signed an open letter urging the house to cancel the event, claiming that “many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license.”

In response the house told ARTnews: “The artists represented in this sale have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognized in leading museum collections. The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work.” Additionally, several of the featured artists chimed in, offering nuance to the AI’s often monolithic reputation.

Wherever you fall in within the conversation around AI art, the unexpected success of Augmented Intelligence suggests that, in the art market, these works are here to stay.