NFT’s wonky planets go interstellar
The NFT Block Universe (2021) by the Studio DRIFT artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, showing cube-ish planets floating around a rectangular sun with a soundscape by the Dutch DJ Don Diablo, has been sold for $550,000 by Pace Verso, the New York gallery’s new dedicated NFT platform, at Art Basel in Miami Beach. The buyer has previously acquired other NFTs by Don Diablo.
Red Grooms’s Flatiron Building (1995) Photo: Eric Thayer
No escape from NYC's rush hour
Red Grooms’s Flatiron Building (1995) protrudes precipitously off the wall at Michael Rosenfeld’s Art Basel in Miami Beach stand, looming over rushing traffic and pedestrians in a lively mixed-media construction. According to a gallery spokesperson, a collector was interested in taking home this piece of New York real estate, priced at $350,000, on the fair’s opening days.
Untitled (Portrait of Julian) (2015) doubles up as a candle that will take four months to melt Photo: Eric Thayer
Schnabel sculpture burns brightly
A wax effigy of the artist Julian Schnabel by Urs Fischer dominates the stand of the UK dealer Sadie Coles HQ. The huge sculpture, Untitled (Portrait of Julian) (2015), is also a candle that a prospective buyer may light. The work, priced at $2.5m, would subsequently take around four months to melt. “Degradation is part of the concept,” Coles says.