Courtesy of Obvious, 2018
In October 2018, for the first time in its history, Christie’s in New York auctioned an artwork created by an AI. Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, the work of the French art collective Obvious, went on auction with an estimated price of $7,000 to $10,000. In the end, it sold to an anonymous phone bidder for an amazing $432,500.
Obvious were soon followed by another artist. On March 6, 2019, Sotheby’s in London auctioned an installation by Mario Klingemann. Disappointingly his work went for only $51,000. For the back story to this extraordinary episode in which AI-created art hit the high end art market see my article in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/04/can-machines-be-more-creative-than-humans.
For more see Chapter 14 in The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity.