Beeple

Michael Joseph Winkelmann (born 1981), known professionally as Beeple or Beeple Crap, is an American digital artist, graphic designer, and animator. He is known for using various mediums in creating comical, phantasmagoric works that makes political, social commentary while using pop culture figures as references. Everydays: the First 5000 Days, a collage of images from his "Everydays" series, sold for $69,346,250 on March 11, 2021, making it the third-most expensive artwork by a living artist. It is the first purely non-fungible token to be sold by Christie's. The auction house had previously sold Block 21, an NFT with accompanying physical painting for approximately $130,000 in October 2020.


In early 2021, Beeple released the 5000 Day Selects as a commemorative piece to the Christie's auction with 105 editions.


Winkelmann was born in 1981. He grew up in North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and retains the Wisconsin accent. His father worked as an electrical engineer, and his mother worked at a senior center. Winkelmann graduated from Purdue University in 2003 majoring in computer science.


Winkelmann started "Everydays," which involved creating a piece of art every day, on May 1, 2007. Since then, he has not missed a day; Winkelmann has discussed keeping it up even on his wedding day and the day of his children's births.
The project was inspired by Tom Judd, who did a drawing every day for a year. Winkelmann thought it was a beneficial way to sharpen his drawing skills. In the following years, he focused on one skill or medium per year, including Adobe Illustrator in 2012 and Cinema 4D in 2015. Winklemann's works often depict dystopian futures. Frequently, he uses recognizable figures from popular culture or politics to satirize current events.


Some of Winkelmann's works were incorporated into Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer 2019 ready-to-wear collection.


Winkelmann started selling non-fungible tokens, digital representations of art whose ownership is verified by a blockchain, on Nifty Gateway in October 2020. One of these works, Crossroads, would change into one of two animations depending on the victor of the 2020 United States presidential election; it was sold for $66,666.66 and resold for $6.6 million in February 2021.


Everydays: the First 5000 Days, a collage of images from the "Everydays" series, was put up for auction at Christie's on February 25 and sold for $69,346,250 on March 11, 2021. Everydays is the first NFT to be sold by a legacy auction house, and is the first sale at Christie's that could be paid in Ether.


Winklemann has said that the prices paid for NFTs are "absolutely" a bubble, comparing the situation to the beginning of the internet. He converted $53 million of his NFT earnings from Ether to US Dollars.


Winkelmann is based in North Charleston, South Carolina, having moved from Wisconsin in 2017. He is married and has two children.

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