Christie’s Debuts Design NFTs Created by Misha Kahn

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Artworks created and stored in the format of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming more diversified and abundant.

Christie’s, the first major auction house to officially endorse NFT art with its record US$69 million sale of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days in March, has launched the first design NFT collection in partnership with furniture designer Misha
Kahn.

The collection comprises 10 NFTs, each including a 3-D model rendered as an FBX (filmbox) file, a format used for 3-D geometry and animation, and a single-channel MP4 video demonstrating the object spinning on a pedestal, according to Christie’s.  

Kahn, 32, is a Brooklyn-based furniture and lighting designer known for using refuse and found objects. His work has been exhibited internationally and held in the permanent collection of museums, including the Corning Museum of Glass in New York; Dallas Museum of Art; and Speed Museum of Art in Louisville, Ky. 

“What is really interesting to me about the idea of selling an NFT of a design object is that you can express yourself in an object that doesn’t need to be materialized,” Kahn said in a statement via Christie’s.

However, buyers of the NFTs can 3-D-print as many physical examples of their FBX as they want. They may also commission a signed example which Kahn will render in a material they can mutually agree on, Christie’s said. 

One of the lots offered, It Must Have Been The Clams, comes with a physical example rendered in PETG thermoplastic polyester, epoxy, and paint. The lot has already attracted 46 bids with the highest reaching US$24,000 as of Friday afternoon.

The online sale, titled “
Misha Kahn
: Furniture Unhinged,” will close next Tuesday.