AI art— a $75 million category — is beautiful, divisive, and so hot right now.
The debate about the validity of AI art (digital art generally created in programs like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E) rages on. Do artists need to disclose that it is AI? What about publishing the prompts they used to make them? Is AI art… even art?
Anonymous AI artist Claire Silver says “taste is the new skill.” Her literary-inspired, dreamy, narrative works have ramped up in volume, making her the top-selling AI artist. Now, her work will be the first AI art displayed in the Louvre. 🖼️
Here is why 2023 has been Claire Silver’s year.
FROM ZERO TO ALL-TIME-HIGHS 📈
In 2016, Claire Silver started creating oil paintings when diagnosed with a chronic illness. She later discovered NFTs and Cryptopunks, and started making digital versions of her art, while experimenting with artificial intelligence tools.
Her Genesis collection originally launched on Braindrops AI. It has skyrocketed from a floor price of 4.75 ETH at the beginning of 2023 to 24 ETH now. Claire’s work Pieces sold for 52.69 ETH in February to jabdoteth, an all-time high for the artist (at least for now).
Pieces was her first work minted with DALL-E 2. It “suggests a lifetime of singular, chaotic moments, all coalescing into a figure of coherence and purpose.”
QQL x PACE GALLERY
QQL (don’t worry, it doesn’t actually stand for anything) has been one of the most exciting experiments to come along in the past six months. It allows co-creation of generative art using an algorithm that anyone can use, whether they own a QQL NFT or not.
In February, Claire Silver was selected by another iconic artist, Tyler Hobbs, to create a QQL NFT for an upcoming auction. This auction will take place at Pace Gallery as part of the “QQL: Analogs” exhibition in New York.
Claire is in good company, and was hand-selected to participate alongside William Mapan, Grant Riven Yun, and more. “QQL: Analogs” starts on March 30 and runs through April 22.
PART OF LACMA (PERMANENTLY)
In February, collector Cozomo de’ Medici announced that they would be donating many pieces to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Claire Silver’s self-portrait A feeling I can’t put my finger on was one of these pieces.
Claire’s description of the piece says: “This piece is comprised of several layers of dried acrylic skins, photographed and digitally mixed into abstractions. The acrylic blooms are layered over a face created with Artificial Intelligence.” It was minted on October 11, 2021.
This is representative of the year of 2021…the joy, the fear, the disorienting beauty, the first conceptualization of a new self.
THE LOUVRE & WME SIGNING
The huge news this week was that Claire Silver’s work will be in the Louvre, courtesy of Superchief Gallery. Her piece Love in the 4th Turning is the 1-of-1 that will be shown there, and she will also be debuting a new collection there on March 21.
This will be the first AI piece of art displayed in the iconic museum. As if this news wasn’t enough, WME (a top Hollywood agency) has signed the artist. 🖊️
The current high bid for the 1-of-1 is 44.44 ETH, but let’s be honest… it’s going to get a lot higher than that before it’s sold.
Love in the 4th Turning
It’s already been a whirlwind of a year for Claire Silver, but despite her massive success, she continues to promote and encourage artists in the AI community.
As she has for years, she holds AI art contests in order to put the spotlight on new artists in the collaborative genre. Claire also often tweets about upcoming NFT drops and collections.
Want to own work by Claire? Her editions, like Imprimatura and Mischtechnik, are the most affordable entries at the moment.
For more in-depth detail on the AI art industry, check out this post by Tim Salikhov. ⬇️
If you enjoyed this, you’ll also enjoy:
