New Kids on the Blockchain: Who Buys Digital Art?

The 2024 SPACES exhibition, by Refik Anadol and Random International (Image credit: Phillips and HOFA)

Who do you see when you picture an art collector? It is a couple with some spare cash looking to buy a living-room centrepiece, or a billionaire sourcing images for a private museum? Common though these types are, there’s a new kind of buyer coming to prominence. They’re interested in digital artwork, and this passion could transform the way in which all art is displayed and appreciated. 

If you think of digital art, NFTs—digital images utilising cryptocurrency-like blockchain technology—will likely come to mind. They hit the headlines a few years ago, when a work by Beeple sold for $69m at Christie’s, then saw an equally spectacular downturn when the market crashed in 2022. But even though NFTs brought mainstream attention to digital art, they’re not the only form this category takes. 

In March, Christie’s courted controversy by holding an auction of art created with artificial intelligence (AI), named the ‘augmented intelligence’ sale. Over 6,000 artists and industry professionals condemned the event, signing an open letter calling for its cancellation and arguing that it rewarded the unethical use of AI models trained on human-made artworks without consent.

Miss Denmark, Gretchen Andrews, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Gretchen Andrews)

But despite the furore, such events have their fans. ‘Digital art buyers tend to be younger and more tech-savvy compared to traditional art collectors,’ Nicole Sales Giles, the director of digital art at Christie's, told us. ‘Our digital art clients have an average age of 39, which is 12 years younger than Christie's average. In fact, nearly 50% of the clients from our Augmented Intelligence sale were Millennials or Gen Z.’ 

There’s a crossover between digital buyers and Christie’s Luxury departments, particularly watches and prints. 

Michael Bouhanna, Director of Digital Art at Sotheby’s, echoed this, ‘By offering digital art and NFTs, the percentage of new clients at Sotheby’s has increased, and we have onboarded a new profile of collectors, primarily from the tech and crypto industries.’ In Sotheby’s inaugural cross-category sale in Saudi Arabia, an AI work by Anadol was sold for $900,000 – crucially, this went to a new buyer, entering the market via digital.

Whereas the rise and fall of the NFT market was driven by gambling and guesswork, Sales Giles says that the market has matured. She notes that buyers are looking to build hybrid collections and identifies a crossover between digital buyers and interest in Christie’s Luxury departments, particularly watches and prints. 

It’s a view that David Gryn, founder and director of the online commissioning platform Daata Editions, agrees with, saying that the NFT buyer base was and remains ‘a different group with different goals and aspirations’ in collecting art. Gryn adds that the ‘art fair and dominant art gallery world is still not attracting that new “digital fixated” audience’, in part because they’re not looking for the same VIP rewards that traditional collectors aspire to. ‘My gut feeling is that it may still take some time,’ Gryn says. ‘Appreciation of art can take generations to garner real trust, and as digital art is so aligned with the craze of ever-shifting new technologies it faces challenges.’

The Nagel Draxler booth at Art Basel 2021, one of the first times that NFTs were featured in the contemporary art world. (Image credit: Simon Vogel)

Naturally, some galleries are trying to actively tap into these new buying demographics. Kennedy, who’s the founding director of Unit London, a gallery selling both digital and traditional art, says these new collectors are also defined by their curiosity. They ‘tend to be more agnostic [when it comes to buying physical or digital artworks], and therefore have been the ones we have truly nurtured.’

Miss Nigeria, Gretchen Andrews, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Gretchen Andrews)

Gazelli Art House, which has sites in London and Baku, also sees reason to be optimistic. ‘The initial wave of speculative buyers has receded, leaving a more engaged audience of digital-native collectors, contemporary art patrons, and those seriously interested in the intersection of art and blockchain,’ founder Mila Askarova says.

‘Appreciation of art can take generations to garner real trust.’

This insight is echoed by Aki Abiola, CEO and founder of Hope 93 Gallery in London, ‘I think the NFT boom helped peak and sustain the appetite for digital art, making it more mainstream and accessible. But it also blurred the lines with collectors conflating NFTs and digital art. In the nicest possible way, I think the younger generation are much better suited to the complexity of wallets and blockchain technology.’

Hope 93 will be showing the works of American artist Gretchen Andrew in London this May. Andrew worked in Silicon Valley before transitioning into art and describes herself as someone who ‘hacks systems of power with art, code, and glitter.’ She famously created a cover of the magazine Artforum with her work on it, and then gamed search engine algorithms to ensure it became a top result when searching for the publication. Her impression, as an artist, not a gallerist, is that there is a generational trend in collecting, though she cautions against assumptions: ‘The beauty of art is that just when you think it’s safe to come up with wide-sweeping generalisations, you are always pleasantly surprised.’

‘I am observing a strong interest in artworks executed with sophisticated code.’

It’s not just the demographic of digital art buyers that can be surprising—it’s the way in which they may present the artwork. Georg Bak, a curator who specialises in digital art, NFTs, and generative photography, observed that collectors are displaying generative art or digital painting not just as framed prints on paper, but also on screens. The nature of these works also means that whereas a painting might be judged by how its creator employs mediums like oil paints or pastels, discerning buyers today are evaluating digital pieces based on the software they’re composed of. ‘I am observing a strong interest in artworks executed with sophisticated code,’ Bak says.

Artist, writer, and curator Kenny Schachter stresses that significant improvements are needed in how we sell digital art: ‘There need to be better-dedicated devices for the display of digital art for it to ever be collected with the degree of global fervour that traditional art has. Regarding NFTs, the debilitating levels of greed, complexity and criminality must abate before there will be widespread adaptation. Until then, the digital art market—including NFTs, AI and computer-generated art, will be characterised by niche collectors siloed in their neat, compartmentalised collecting cul-de-sacs’.

Miss Great Britain, Gretchen Andrews, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Gretchen Andrews)

Many collectors share Schachter’s frustration: digital works are often sold on USB drives and require projectors or screens, which makes them harder to integrate into home displays than a painting on a wall.

Zeitgeist—the spirit of an age—is the right word to use here.

Platforms like Sedition are seeking to fill that gap, allowing users to purchase original and editioned digital artworks that can be displayed on their phones or any other device. The works can also be displayed as a playlist—as with a music collection. Sedition hosts and sells works by many established artists, including Tracey Emin, Mat Collishaw, and Elgreem & Dragset. The boundaries between digital and traditional collecting are thus beginning to blur. While NFTs burned some fingers, they also sparked broader interest in digital art from collectors and institutions alike. 

Jo Lawson-Tancred, author of AI and the Art Market, notes that AI is accelerating this convergence: ‘A growing number of established traditional artists are also experimenting with AI in some capacity, just as contemporary artists have always been interested in new mediums and interrogating the complex issues of their time. Art with AI-generated elements has a zeitgeisty appeal, helping it become a particularly fast-growing category within digital art.’

Zeitgeist—the spirit of an age—is the right word to use here. This new generation of digital art buyers aren’t just interested in new kinds of artwork. They’re a diverse demographic, some interested in digital creations as investments, others fascinated by their aesthetic value. There is a collision of software and artistry, digital finance and human creativity, and all we know for sure is, it won’t be slowing down anytime soon.