The auction world has been in the grip of a bad buzz in recent days. The renowned auction house Christie’s has announced a sale dedicated to artificial intelligence, which has caused quite a stir among artists…
On 7 February, Christie’s announced its first auction: ‘Augmented Intelligence’, to be held from 20 February to 5 March. According to Christie’s, the event will showcase ‘works by AI pioneers from the 1960s such as Harold Cohen, as well as contemporary artists such as Refik Anadol, Pindar Van Arman, Holly Herdnon & Mat Dryhusrt, Alexander Reben, Claire Silver, Sasha Stiles and many others’.
A sale right in the middle of the news
Christie’s intends to explore how technology is redefining art. ‘From robotics to GANs to interactive experiences, artists are integrating and collaborating with artificial intelligence in a variety of mediums, including paintings, sculptures, prints, digital art and more,’ explains the House, which will be auctioning around 20 works.
These include Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst’s ‘Embedding Study’ 1&2 from 2024, estimated at between $70,000 and $90,000, Pindar Van Arman’s ‘Emerging Faces’, estimated at between $180,000 and $250,000, and Refik Anadol’s ‘Machine Hallucinations – ISS Dreams – A’, estimated at between $150,000 and $200,000.
This is a topical issue, as President Emmanuel Macron announced in early February a colossal investment of €109 billion in AI over the next few years. ‘We want to be part of it and we want to invent, otherwise we’ll be dependent on others’, he said on the France 2 television channel on the eve of the Action Summit on Artificial Intelligence at the Grand Palais in Paris. In mid-January, US President Donald Trump announced a $500 billion investment in AI as part of the ‘Stargate’ plan.
‘These models […] exploit human artists’
But Christie’s sale did not go down well with industry professionals. The day after the auction was announced, an open letter was circulated calling on Christie’s to abandon the project. ‘We are writing to express our deep concern about the auction of IA works of art’, it read. The 4800 signatories criticise Christie’s for marketing pieces that ‘have been created using AI models known to have been trained on copyrighted works without a licence’. ‘These models, and the companies that use them, exploit human artists by using their work without permission or payment to create commercial AI products that compete with them.’
Christie’s, however, disagrees. In an interview with The Guardian, a spokesperson for Christie’s said that ‘the artists represented in this auction all have strong and existing multi-disciplinary artistic practices, some of which are recognised in leading museum collections. The works presented in this auction use artificial intelligence to enrich their corpus and, in most cases, artificial intelligence is used in a controlled way, with data formed from data provided by the artists themselves’.
Also in The Guardian, British artist Mat Dryhurst, one of the artists taking part in the auction, rejects the criticism of his counterparts. ‘I deplore the fact that an important debate, which should be about business and government policy, is focused on artists grappling with the technology of our time’.
While opinions differ, the solution could lie in stronger legislation to protect artists and, above all, to differentiate between works produced by humans and those accompanied or created by AI. A framework that could protect copyright and rule out unfair competition.
Read also: Karl Lagerfeld’s last personal effects put up for auction
Featured photo: ‘Emerging Faces’ by Pindar Van Arman © Christie’s
