Beeple / Mike Winkelmann

About

Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, is a digital artist and graphic designer best known for his work in crypto art and NFTs. Beeple is also known as one of the originators of the “everyday movement” that creates an original artwork every day and shares it online through social media. His work features characters from pop culture, namely Disney, in dystopian settings and also includes elements of internet and meme culture, such as Baby Yoda. In December 2020, Beeple sold an NFT collection of his art for over $3.5 million, the most valuable of its time. In February 2021, Beeple also made history when another of his digital art collections was auctioned off on Christie’s, the first major auction house to sell NFT-based artwork.

Career

On May 1st, 2007, Beeple launched his Everydays project where he spends a few hours each day creating an original artwork from scratch and shares it online (shown below).^[1] The intent behind Everydays is to challenge himself to keep learning and practicing new techniques and mediums, such as Cinema 4D, After Effects and Octane. As of February 25th, 2021, Beeple’s Everydays collection has been consistently ongoing for 5,049 consecutive days and on its 14th round.^[2]

On April 21st, 2015, Beeple made his first public speech at FITC Toronto where he discussed his Everydays project and encouraged others to start their own as a way to learn new skills, challenge themselves and avoid pitfalls that cause people to fall out of their everydays projects (shown below).^[3]

Baby Yoda Robot Dog

On December 16th, 2019, Beeple shared one of his works titled STRAY BABY YODA ROBOT DOGS to his Instagram^[4] account, depicting a robotic dog with the head of Baby Yoda eating babies (seen below). The post received nearly 1 million views and over 109,000 likes in roughly one year.

In an interview with The Verge,^[5] Beeple explained the theme behind the video and said, “What if, in the future, you could buy a Baby Yoda puppy, and it knew to play with kids. But then it got screwed up, and it got confused, and the algorithm got messed up, and it started eating kids, and it got stray, and there were these attacks of stray Baby Yoda robots that used to be toys, but they got so much AI in the future that they got loose, and they’re fricking eating kids.”

Nifty Gateway Sale

On December 13th, 2020, Beeple sold the most valuable NFT collection at the time for over $3.5 million via the Nifty Gateway marketplace.^[6] His collection included 21 single-edition, unique pieces in the form of NFTs and helped to propel crypto art into the mainstream (shown below).

Christie’s 2021 NFT Art Auction

On February 18th, 2021, Christie’s announced that it would become the first major auction house to sell fully digital NFT-based artwork with the sale of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days collection between February 25th and March 11th (seen below).^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References