‘The Last Supper,‘ a work by the artist Grant Yun, will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated sale later this month. The news was announced via X (Twitter) on September 19th by Michael Bouhanna, the VP and Head of Digital Art at Sotheby’s.
The inclusion of Grant Yun is significant because he will be the only representative of Web3 at the prestigious annual auction. The auction will consist of 300 replicas of ‘The Last Supper‘ to be minted as NFTs, alongside other physical artworks from some of the world’s top contemporary artists.
The artwork depicts 13 cows in front of a cattle gate, created in 2022 using the artist’s signature blue, green, and white shades. Besides the 300 NFTs up for auction, the physical 1/1 work will be displayed in collaboration with Avant Arte — a curated ownership and art discovery marketplace.
Yun said that he was honored to participate in the auction, and to be creating “a voice for our community in Web3.” He added that his work is “built on a foundation of realism,” and guides people through their “personal emotions, reflections, and memories.”
Yun is a digitally native artist that has been a prominent supporter of blockchain and Web3 technology for some time. He was born in San Jose, California, grew up in South Korea and Japan, and is currently based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — where he works and studies. His work, which draws inspiration from “Neo-Precisionism” and 20th-century artistic movements, reveals the beauty of everyday experiences through precision and the use of a limited color palette.
The Contemporary Curated series began in 2013, and has become one of Sotheby’s most important exhibitions of contemporary artwork. This year’s auction will be guest curated by Kevin Love — a five-time NBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist, who also happens to be a philanthropist and avid art collector.
‘The Last Supper‘ will be auctioned on September 28th, at 12 p.m. Central Time. It has an initial bid of $50,000 USD and is estimated to sell between $50,000 and $70,000 —although we suspect it could go for much higher.
Sotheby’s Continues to Be Bullish on NFTs
The inclusion of a digitally native artist working in Web3 at Sotheby’s iconic auction is more evidence that the iconic auction house is bullish on Web3. But this is far from the first move we’ve seen from Sotheby’s in the space. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered several articles about Sotheby’s this year. Here are the top three stories.
First, in July, Sotheby’s celebrated its 300-year history with its first Dutch Auction of an NFT collection by the French-Hungarian artist Vera Molnár. Themes and Variations consisted of 500 unique onchain artworks that were minted on the Ethereum blockchain. The current floor price for one of the NFTs is 4.7 ETH on OpenSea.
Next, in June, Sotheby’s made Web3 headlines when it netted $11 million for its Sotheby’s GRAIL collection. One work, “The Goose” by Dmitri Cherniak, was purchased by NFT maxi Punk #6529 for a jaw-dropping $6.2 million.
Lastly, about five months ago, Sotheby’s launched a peer-to-peer NFT marketplace on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. The marketplace will facilitate the sale of fine art curated by in-house digital art experts.
When NFTs first exploded in popularity in 2021, many people in the art world were skeptical of digital artworks‘ ability to retain value and cultural significance. But the repeated big sales of NFTs by Sotheby‘s, and its most recent collaboration with Grant Yun, continue to poke holes in the doubters‘ arguments.
We’ll have to wait until September 28th to see the final price of Grant Yun’s ‘The Last Supper.‘ But if Sotheby’s previously NFT sales are any indication of what’s to come, we expect it could fetch a high price. At Rarity Sniper, we’ll be keeping our eyes on the story and following up on any related news.