NFT artist Beeple building a building museum for an immersive art

Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist, also known as Beeple, is planning to build his own museum in the US to exhibit digital art, including NFTs. Known for his record-breaking sale of NFT artwork at a Christie’s auction, the artist is now aiming to bring the NFT world to a broader audience by establishing a real-world studio that will host exhibitions.

Speaking at The WSJ’s Tech Live conference, the artist said he is currently constructing a vast exhibit space in Charleston, South Carolina, to display digital art, including his own.

Beeple said he rarely visited art museums before he sold a digital collage at Christie’s for nearly $70 million in 2021. Now, he is planning to build a museum of his own.

Beeple joins a list of major artists opening their own museums, but he thinks he will show digital art differently from the immersive art productions popping up lately that center on artists such as Vincent van Gogh. The artist also thinks he can do better than the handful of blue-chip galleries showing room-engulfing digital art.

Blockchain technologies represent “a much more sort of meaningful way to collect this work,” he said. “You could have collected it before, collect prints or collect floppy drives, but it wasn’t that popular,” he said. “It didn’t resonate with people the same way.”

Beeple made headlines last year with his record-breaking $69.3 million sale of NFT artwork at a Christie’s auction and followed that up with a Time magazine cover and “The Tonight Show” appearances. Now he’s aiming to bring the NFT world to even more people by establishing a real-world studio that will host exhibitions.

Earlier in October, he shared a video showing the construction of his sizable new studio in Charleston, which appears to be set in an overhauled warehouse. In the video, we see the first steps as workers tear down walls and develop the space within the future Beeple Studios.