IN SEPTEMBER Sotheby’s offered up for auction a cache of 101 Bored Ape NFTs as a lot in a special sale called Ape In! The digital art revolution had seemingly remade the art market in the months prior, and this was the finest collection of non-fungible tokens ever assembled by one of the world’s oldest auction houses, founded in 1744. Scrolling through the catalog of cartoon monkeys in funny hats and jackets, one could see a rare Bored Ape with solid gold fur and holographic eyes, and, rarer yet, an Ape with an unshaven face eating a piece of pizza. For digital art enthusiasts who aspired to membership in the Bored Ape Yacht Club, this was a huge deal.
The house was confident that Ape In! could ride the NFT momentum that had been building since the previous spring, when Everydays, a work by the digital artist Beeple, sold at Christie’s for $69 million—and the house could peddle these online pictures of weird primates for a similar sum. A promotional video showed the cartoon monkeys in DJ booths spinning EDM at a party in what appeared to be Sotheby’s global headquarters on York Avenue in Manhattan. Young and ambitious specialists in the house’s digital art department, a brand-new endeavor, bullishly offered the lot at an estimate of somewhere between $12 million and $18 million.
Instead, the lot sold for $24.4 million, smashing records for Bored Apes. What newly minted patron of the digital arts snagged this for eight figures? At the time, Sotheby’s wouldn’t comment on the buyer apart from saying that among those heavily involved in the bidding were legacy art collectors.
Denne historien er fra Hollywood 2023-utgaven av Vanity Fair US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra Hollywood 2023-utgaven av Vanity Fair US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
A House Divided
The Mellon dynasty has long been known for its old money refinement and discretion. But when TIM MELLON became Donald Trump's biggest donor many members of the family were mystified-and not afraid to talk about it
FUNNY BUSINESS
NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE LAUNCHED A REVOLUTION THAT CHANGED COMEDY, TELEVISION, AND THE MOVIES. NOW DIRECTOR JASON REITMAN HAS RE-CREATED THE CHAOTIC HOURS BEFORE SNL'S FIRST EPISODE. LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S 1975!
BAD FAITH
From exiled actors to academics, influencers to intellectuals, VF gets under the hood of the Catholic right's celebrity conversion industrial complex
THE GE NERAL
How ELIZABETH PRELOGAR, America's low-key, high-powered solicitor general, is holding the Supreme Court's feet to the fire
THE BILLIONAIRE'S SECRET
THE GERMAN INDUSTRIALIST KLAUSMICHAEL KUEHNE, BORN IN 1937, IS ONE OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, WITH MORE MONEY THAN KEN GRIFFIN, OR MACKENZIE SCOTT, OR FRANÇOIS PINAULT. WHERE DID HIS FAMILY FORTUNE COME FROM? THE NAZIS KNOW
GIVE AND LET GIVE
MELINDA FRENCH GATES is speaking out for the rights of women and girls, embracing her role as godmother to her fellow philanthropists, and getting political, even when it's a little uncomfortable.
VANITIES
MAISY STELLA knows how to think outside the box
Party PLANNING
Putin wants Trump to win, of course, and he's got big ideas about a new world order. Think Yalta-on Fiji
Boys and THEIR TOYS
Inside the hypermacho, Bible-thumping alt-tech universe trying to take on Silicon Valley-from El Segundo
STRANGER Things
The Democrats' short hot summer of \"weird\"