Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla are descending on New York City this week for a technology-focused summit hosted not by an internet giant — but by the 258-year old auction house Christie’s.
Bonnie Brennan, the firm’s President, Americas, told The Post that having some of the most notable minds in AI and tech spend their week at Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters demonstrates how the company has repositioned itself.
Sure, Christie’s is known for selling iconic works — like the $450 million “Salvador Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci. But it’s also expanded to digital art and investing in holograms and artificial intelligence.
“We want to keep our heritage, but technology is where Christie’s is really focused,” Brennan said while seated in front of works by sculptor Claes Oldenburg and painter Ludwig Sander. “We always have to push forward.”
Brennan acknowledges the importance of being “thoughtful and discerning,” but also feels the world is “advancing so quickly it’s a bit of a race.”
This week’s eighth annual Art + Tech summit — with AI as a major focus — is a chance to make sure Christie’s stays in the race.
In 2021, it became the first major auction house to sell an NFT, from the artist Beeple, raking in $69 million. (He will attend this week’s summit.) In 2018, Christie’s sold an AI-generated work by Edmond de Belamy for $432,000.
“It’s just really responding and giving people what they want,” Brennan said. “We see people collecting differently than they did 50 years ago. If you told me we’d have a handbag department 30 years ago, I might have pushed back a little.”
“So I think the idea of what people want and how they want to engage with art is totally different [than before]. It’s not just hanging things on their walls, it’s having things in their closet, it’s sneakers in a case.”
While NFTs have faced a slump since the 2021 sale, Christie’s is still betting on the digital images. “We think that the NFT and digital art world has a long future,” Brennan said. “It’s a longterm play for us. Yes, there will be peaks and valleys along the way.
“There’s a real curiosity about digital art from not only the young collectors, but also from some of our more established collectors … we’ve seen a real crossover, which is great.”
And many of the people buying both digital and physical art are doing it online — something that changed dramatically during the pandemic lockdown, when the auction house saw the number of bids made online jump from less than 50% to more than 80%. (Christie’s held the first online art auction all the way back in 2011.)
In 2022, Christie’s hired former Microsoft executive Devang Thakkar to launch a venture arm investing in and creating new tech instead of simply adopting it.
This story is part of NYNext, a new editorial series that highlights New York City innovation across industries, as well as the personalities leading the way.
Last year, Christie’s invested in the hologram company Proto, which led to a hologram of Elton John greeting guests when his personal art, fashion and other items were auctioned in February.
And Brennan herself used the technology to make an “appearance” at a conference in Los Angeles.
It’s also allowed Christie’s to virtually display artwork around the country, like a hologram of Edgar Degas’ “Little Dancer of 14 Years” shown in San Francisco. “The technology is so good that we’ve had clients actually say they thought they saw the work of art,” Brennan added.
But she’s still bullish on the physical world — particularly New York, where 48% of the company’s global sales are made.
“It’s really the perfect global center … it’s amazing to have this dialogue with museums and galleries here,” Brennan said. “We are one small piece of a much larger art ecosystem that continues to grow [and] continues to expand to all the boroughs.”
At the Rockefeller Center showroom, Christie’s newest exhibit is given prime display space: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection of objects representing some of the most significant moments in recent technological history.
The “Gen One” collection includes the 1976 Apple-1 Personal Computer that sat on Steve Jobs’ desk, a letter 1939 Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning about Germany developing a nuclear bomb, and the 1964 suit designed for the first American astronaut to walk in space.
We’ve seen great demand and a wider audience of bidders when we have unusual objects,” Brennan said, admiring Jobs’ computer. “This is a piece of American history.”
