The artist Mike Winkelmann (also known as Beeple) is a graphic designer from Charleston, South Carolina, USA. He depicts the rapid development of the Crypto world by focusing on the images of the artistic creation process. Readers are brought into the world of “canvas”. The cover picture of the latest issue of “Time” is the computer design interface when he created it. The bottom left is the complete wireframe rendering, and the bottom right is the final artwork after creation.
Beeple said: “People are increasingly transferring their interests and identities to the Internet. This work also wants to show how people are gradually becoming Crypto, and how people’s self-awareness becomes a mixture of reality and virtuality.” His works often include dystopian and post-world elements featuring political leaders and current events. Many futuristic, cyberpunk, and dystopian works are by-products of video games and feature films, and audiences rarely see these crazy, complex, and excellent works from other channels.
Over the past 10 years, Beeple has been creating Crypto art works and posting them on the Internet to his millions of fans. In addition, his other identity is the initiator of the current “Everydays” movement in the field of 3D Crypto art, and he is famous for it. On March 11th, he sold the NFT work titled “The First 5000 Days” at Christie’s auction house for a record price of $69 million. This is the third most expensive artwork sold by a living artist after Jeff Koons and David Hockney.
As the author Andrew R. Chow wrote in Time magazine in March this year, NFT can be understood as a computer file that combines ownership and authenticity. Like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, NFT also exists in a tamper-proof Digital public ledger on the blockchain. But unlike the equivalent of the US dollar and cryptocurrency, NFT has a unique value set by the highest bidder, just like Picasso’s work. If an artist wants to sell his work as an NFT, he must register in the market, and then use the chain (usually the Ethereum chain) and verify the information to mint Crypto tokens. The cost is usually between 40 and 200 US dollars. It can be auctioned on the NFT market.
Beeple said: “In the past 20 years, artists have been creating Crypto art, which has the same craftsmanship, information, and intention as anything made on canvas, and it can also affect people’s emotions. NFT has also begun to make people aware. When it comes to the value of Crypto art, I think we are at the beginning of the next chapter in art history.”
Beeple’s work always makes people realize how ridiculous what they do. His black humor allows every viewer to repeatedly scrutinize the details in the image that make them uncomfortable. Through exaggerated deduction, it gives people space to explore and think about their standpoints, and even makes the opposing parties question their beliefs. , Which is why Beeple’s works are so exciting.
In addition to the Crypto Everydays portfolio, he has also created various Crypto art works, including short videos, Creative Commons VJ loops, and VR and AR works. He has also created concert visual works for Imagine Dragons, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Eminem. His commercial clients include Louis Vuitton, SpaceX, Apple, Samsung, Nike, Coca-Cola and Sony Pictures, etc. the company. In addition, Beeple will release its spring collection on the NFT website Nifty Gateway on April 30 (Friday).