Charleston-based digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, celebrated the Saturday grand opening of his new gallery space on Daniel Island.
Beeple Studios is a 50,000-square-foot studio created to “bring the community together around education and a love of digital art,” according to its website.
It includes a 13,000-square-foot gallery and an “experiential space” of the same size.
Winkelmann is considered one of the world’s top crypto artists whose digital artwork NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, sell for millions of dollars. He rocketed to success in December 2021 after debuting his NFTs on digital art auction platform Nifty Gateway, selling more than $3.5 million worth of art in one weekend.
Just three months later, his famous work “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” sold for $69.3 million. It is currently the most expensive NFT ever sold to a single person. The piece is a collage of different works the artist created once a day for 5,000 consecutive days.
Guests from around the country gathered at the studio Saturday to meet the artist, explore the space and enjoy Beeple’s work in addition to other artists’ pieces.
Participating artists included Fvckrender, Blake Kathryn, Smearballs (Nick denBoer), Dee Kay Motion, Raw & Rendered, Smeccea, Raoul Marks, XCOPY, Ash Thorp, GMUNK, Joshua Davis, Revilo Stuff, Victor Duarte, Brilly, David Ariew, Chelsea Evenstar, Refik Anadol, Justin Maller, Jason Ebeyer, Coldie, Pak and Gabe Damast.
Photos by Steve Aycock Photography
Love Best of Charleston?
Help the Charleston City Paper keep Best of Charleston going every year with a donation. Or sign up to become a member of the Charleston City Paper club.