Artificial intelligence and art have been controversial for years. So Christie faces protests from the first ever auction to be considered, and it is no surprise that the auction house says it is the first ever protest from any major auction house. In February, more than 5,600 artists signed an open letter asking Christie to cancel the sale.
“Many of the artwork you plan to auction are created using an AI model known to be trained in copyrighted work without permission,” the open letter reads in part. “These models and the companies behind them use human artists, without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them. Your support for these models, and the support of those who use them, rewards and further inspires AI companies’ mass theft of human artists’ work.”
Christie's representative shared a statement on the issue.
“From the beginning, the art world has been right two things: an artist is inspired by what is in front of them, and art can spark debate, discussion and controversy,” the statement said. “The discussion about digital art, including art created using AI technology, is nothing new. For example, many artists (for example, pop artists) are subjects of similar discussions. That being said, Christie's is a global company with world-class experts, a uniquely positioned space that explores relatively new and changing digital art: artists: artists, collectors, markets, markets and markets.”
Representatives also pointed to the active reception for auctions on X, formerly Twitter. Artist Daniel Ambrosi tweeted: “It’s great to be part of this memorable experience…I’m glad my artwork is coming home with someone!”
A man checked out an AI artwork called Dream-0 #9 created by Huemin in a news preview of Christie's enhanced intelligence.
The auction known as Enhanced Intelligence was closed Wednesday morning. Christie's report said more than 30 batches attracted hundreds of bids and brought in $728,784. And there is a generational twist: The auction house says 37% of registrants are completely strangers to Christie’s, while 48% of bidders are members of millennials or Gen Z.
“The auction redefines the development of art and technology, exploring human agencies in fine arts.” “From robots to sugar cane to interactive experiences, artists collaborate with and collaborate with AI in various media including painting, sculpture, print, digital art, and more.”
(The gan or generated adversarial network is a generated AI model that creates new data or images similar to training data.)
A man has printed on an AI artwork created by The Junk Machine of Chownvamp in a news preview of Christie's in New York.
The open letter collected 6,493 signatures, of which 5,646 were verified. Signers range from illustrators to authors to art therapists to photographers around the world.
The highest price in sales is $277,200 for the work of Refik Anadol, called “Machine Illusion” – ISS Dreams -A. Use a data set of 1.2 million images from the International Space Station and satellites.
Another job is the Embedded Studies 1 and 2 of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, which sells for $94,500. This is the result of a text-to-image model trained in Herndon’s altered images and after Christie’s inclusion in the 2024 Whitney Biennale.
