{"id":1604462,"date":"2025-12-11T14:52:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1604462"},"modified":"2025-12-12T19:10:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T00:10:34","slug":"web3-zero-10-art-basel-digital-art-market-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/web3-zero-10-art-basel-digital-art-market-future\/","title":{"rendered":"What Zero 10 Can Tell Us About the Art World’s Next Chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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IX Shells, on view at Fellowship and ARTXCODE. Courtesy of Art Basel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a year when discussions about A.I. and the role of big tech giants have dominated the news, it feels almost inevitable that the most headline-grabbing artwork at Art Basel Miami Beach\u2014after Catellan\u2019s infamous banana<\/a> and ATM gimmicks of recent editions\u2014was a work of digital art (or rather, a digital-physical hybrid) by Mike Winkelmann (aka Beeple), the artist who also set the first major record for a purely digital work at a traditional auction with Everydays: The First 5000 Days<\/i> selling at Christie\u2019s for $69,346,250 in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beeple’s record came at the absolute peak of the NFT boom, a moment when speculation, hype and a flood of new collectors drove prices to historic extremes. Yet as crypto values plunged and speculation-driven production saturated the space, the correction was swift and brutal. Enthusiasm curdled into skepticism<\/a>, then into a cultural fatigue that often registered as outright NFT hate. This did not mean digital art was dead, as evidenced by the crowded VIP opening of Art Basel\u2019s inaugural digital section, Zero 10<\/a>, where digital connoisseurs mingled with curious traditional fairgoers.<\/p>\n

Beeple stole the show with Regular Animals<\/i>, a performance installation of humanoid robots with hyper-realistic heads of tech titans and art-historical icons\u2014including Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Andy Warhol, Picasso and Beeple himself\u2014roaming in a ring, capturing photos of visitors, \u201clearning\u201d in real time and excreting art prints and NFTs in their respective styles. Beneath its grotesque humor, the installation doubled as a critique of how technocrats now shape the collective imaginary and of the escalating tension between human creativity and machine intervention. Editions of each \u201cRegular Animal\u201d sold out immediately for $100,000 to longtime collectors, with an additional run of 1,024 prints and 256 NFTs generated from the robots\u2019 snapshots, turning the audience into co-producers.<\/p>\n

In an ArtTactic interview<\/a>, Beeple noted that Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz visited his studio multiple times, convincing the fair that it needed to integrate digital art amid clear shifts in collecting habits. \u201cZero 10 reflects a strategic conviction: digital art is no longer at the margins\u2014it is integral to how art and the market are evolving in real time,\u201d Horowitz said in last month\u2019s launch statement. Beeple welcomed the chance to show at Art Basel Miami Beach, seeing it as an opportunity to \u201clet the outside world peek into this corner of the internet we inhabit,\u201d acknowledging that digital art has long thrived within insider spaces and online echo chambers.<\/p>\n

Importantly, Horowitz chose not to treat the section as a satellite or appendage but to integrate it into the fabric of the fair itself, with 10,000 square feet of floor space adjacent to the curated sections at one of the main entrances of the convention center. “I think it is a great continuation of what we’ve been pushing since digital art sort of started to be on more people’s map in 2021,” Beeple told Observer, but he also still thinks there is a lot of work to be done. “One of the things that makes it both exciting and challenging versus other media is that it is changing very rapidly. What is possible, the tools, etc.\u2014these are moving at an insanely rapid pace relative to other mediums.”<\/p>\n

Beyond the virality of Beeple\u2019s installation, the twelve galleries and studios presenting in the inaugural edition of Zero 10\u2014curated by digital-art strategist Eli Scheinman\u2014demonstrated the range of evolving trajectories within digital art and how these practices are reshaping the way art is created, experienced and sold.<\/p>\n

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