Re-Air: The Rise of the Red Chip Art World

0:03I'm Kate Brown and this is The Art Angle, a podcast by Artnet News. When we first aired this episode about red chip art a few months ago, it captured a phenomenon hiding in plain sight. My colleague Annie Armstrong mapped out a world of cyber trucks, crypto wallets and Alec Monopoly openings. A scene where cause, mischief and Daniel Arshom are mainstays and where spectacle often outpaces substance. Then, Adrien Brody had an art show. At Eden Gallery in New York this summer, the Oscar-winning actor has unveiled an exhibition called Made in America, a show of his new paintings that includes Marilyn Monroe, Basquiat Crowns, and Mickey Mouse.

0:41There's even a participatory work that involves your chewing gum. And it's been getting some mixed reviews. But what's certain is that Brody isn't just dabbling in the so-called red-chip art phenomenon he's leaning all the way in. So in honor of this, we're re-airing our episode that breaks down this chrome-coated, algorithm-charmed corner of the art world.

1:08Annie Armstrong:But somehow, like, this type of art has gotten the attention of a lot of people who weren't otherwise interested in art or, like, having a digital collection of, like, images. Somehow it got new blood into the mix of, like, collecting.

1:25I'm Kate Brown, and this is The Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News.

1:35My colleague Annie Armstrong honed in on a new phenomenon in the art world recently, in all its chaotic glory. She's calling it red-chip art. It's the strange cousin of blue-chip art, and it's shiny, chrome-dipped, algorithmically boosted, and increasingly popular. According to Annie's recent essay, the archetype buyer of this kind of art is a man in a cyber truck checking his crypto wallet and queuing up a Joe Rogan episode while speeding towards an art opening. Maybe it's an Alec Monopoly show or a mischief drop. Red Chip art is, according to Annie, an aesthetic vibe and sensibility. And she joins me on the Art Angle to talk about the mood of this category, defining its lineage of fans from Crypto Bros to Kanye West, its canonical works from Cause's Companions to Daniel Arsham's sculptures of Mark Zuckerberg's wife in Tiffany Blue.

2:22Annie also notes that red chip art is also not not related to Trumpism. Hey Annie, how's it going today? I'm so good. How are you, Kate? I'm good. I'm good. It was a great pleasure to like reread this excellent piece that you wrote. It's so colorful. There's so much to get into. So I'm excited to talk to you today.

2:40Annie Armstrong:Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to talk about it. Yeah, let's get into red ship art. So this is like a term that has somewhat been floating around, but I think you really bring a definition to it that many people have wanted. Do you remember when you first heard it and like what was going on in the art world at the time when it cropped up? I mentioned pretty early on in the piece that my original understanding of what red ship art was a misunderstanding. I heard it for the first time after I went to but Art Basel in Switzerland for the first time in 2022. And that was kind of like at the very end of the post-pandemic boom where a bunch of ultra-contemporary artists were exploding.

3:16Annie Armstrong:A lot of people were selling new pieces of art like hotcakes. And I think that it was a blanket term used for artists if they were born after 1975. I think an advisor maybe said it to me, and it was used derogatorily. It was definitely used to reference like a bubble in the art market. And I don't think it really got much press after that summer. or at all, really. And I just clung on to it. And as you know, from being on the ArtNet team, I've been thinking about this concept for a long time and only recently finally got to write about it. Finally was able to like end my thesis or like find the full scope of it.

3:51For sure. And you did a very full color job of defining this and storytelling it. It was a pleasure to read. And I think also like starting with this misunderstanding and then forming your own definition of it, which is in a way somehow different from this pre-existing definition, which is probably dead since your article came out. So you're speaking about a different kind of hype cycle in your definition, one that's more about editions and online frenzies that's stemming not from maybe within the art world, but from within the collectible world. But as we'll talk about, it's not like a one-way flow.

4:20These are flowing back and forth. Yeah, like we'll get into that in a bit, but let's start with some examples of like so-called red chip art. So you can really illustrate what you mean for listeners.

4:29Annie Armstrong:I think the best examples are probably the most popular ones, which would be like a cause figurine. The cause companions, there's huge ones that he puts out in like the Hong Kong Harbor. And then there's the tiny collectible ones that I know a lot of collectors who have said that they started their art collecting practice with collecting these tiny cause figurines. You can get them at whatever price point. They can be in the millions and they can also be in, I don't know how much the little ones sell for, but I assume at least maybe under$10 ,000. I'm not sure. So I think that that's one example of it because I think something that is a positive maybe about red chip art, as I put it, is that it's pretty democratic.

5:05Annie Armstrong:There's kind of something for everyone at every price point. But then there's the super high-end examples like Beeple's 5 ,000 Days, which I think was the start of a different moment in this aesthetics journey. Kaz has been making the commandion pieces for a while, but the rise of NFTs and NFTs being considered art at all, I think is really when this became a different movement. And that's so much informed by the people who had money to spend that it became this kind of viable art form in a way. Could you unpack a bit more what you mean by these aesthetic parameters of what red ship art is? Yeah, I feel like if I go on a crawl in Chelsea, I'll always see something that has this super flat kind of cartoonish, mega colorful, eye grabbing aesthetic.

5:51Annie Armstrong:Maybe there's chrome, maybe there's a cartoon figure in it. there's a street art aesthetic to it sometimes. Other times it's just meant to look like a toy. Yeah, I think that that's how I'll put it. And I see it in a lot of different artist practices too. It's not totally just limited to a set of artists. I think it's also a type of aesthetic in art. Yeah, it struck me when I was reading it that it's a sort of art form that is not afraid of attaching itself to consumerism, which I feel like a lot of artists pretend that they're not attached to consumerism, even though they certainly are. I mean, when we're talking about red chip art, it's a definition that's set against so-called blue chip art, which I was thinking about it as I was reading your article and I was like, is there like a definition of blue chip art or is it more like of a vibe?

6:35Annie Armstrong:Well, before this, I looked up the definition of blue chip art as it is online, just blue chip in general, like anything that's blue chip, which obviously applies to a lot of different luxury products. And on Google, there are two definitions. One is it denotes companies or their shares that are considered to be a reliable investment. And the other definition of blue chip is of the highest quality. So I think blue chip art is definitely in between. Those are interwoven where it's high quality art that is a sound investment. And I guess the difference between blue chip and red chip per that parameter is I don't think quality is really necessarily at play in red chip art.

7:11Annie Armstrong:And I don't think it's necessarily a sound investment. It might be like a very quickly satisfying investment, but I don't think it's meant to be a long-term at all. It's that churn and burn sort of environment. Right. Like a pump and dump. There's a little more risk associated with it, perhaps. In your piece, you also talk about native red chip art versus like a more transitional figure of a red chip artist who kind of moves between the worlds of maybe the blue chip art world and the red chip art world. Can you describe these figures a little bit more? Yeah. I point out that Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons are the transitional figures between blue chip art and red chip art, joking that they're purple chip art.

7:50Annie Armstrong:I think that they are true artists where their practice began with a lot of reverence for art history. They started far more conceptual than where they've ended up now. But somewhere along their artistic journey, they came to this conclusion of hyper-commercialized art or I guess like repeating all these aesthetic tropes that have come to define how we see them now. But regardless of that, they have a foundation that is very conceptual and has a place in an art history book, whereas the native red chippers, I don't really ever see breaking into that mold. It's almost more decorative art. It's so interesting because like Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons or maybe Alex Israel, when they do these kinds of red chip art moments, you know, ultimately like maybe collab with luxury car brand or have some sort of public moment like that, they can do it under the auspices of it being like related to pop art.

8:43So they kind of are able to continue to sort of pull at art history, but it's tenuous, isn't it?

8:48Annie Armstrong:It's tenuous. And I think that maybe a big difference to between what I would define as red chip art and blue chip art is the relationship between artist and collector. Like I think that any traditional art world artist who like has their artwork flipped really quickly is going to be pissed about it or is going to be against whatever art market setup that makes it such that a collector can do that. But then a red chip artist is anticipating that their value is going to be like driven up to this wild point. They want it to go as high as it possibly can. They don't necessarily even need to see any returns from it.

9:21Annie Armstrong:It's like all the stock gamified version of their output. It reminds me of like the Joker, like burning that big thing of cash and being like, ha ha ha. And you know, the Joker, it's like his face appears a lot in red chip art. It makes sense that they like him. for sure well there's like definitely like some goofiness involved and as you say like new money's at play and a lot of this is about flaunting wealth which is like not to say that a lot of art collecting isn't about flaunting wealth it's just like done in a different way perhaps like i was even just thinking about the fact that crypto wallets are public like you might not be able to see the person's name but you can see everything they own there's like a more of like a flaunting quality to things like maybe we could talk a bit about red chip art buyers and what this kind of personality tends to be.

10:08You also mentioned to me off air something that was really interesting. You kind of draw an analogy to like architecture and how that relates to value.

10:15Annie Armstrong:I guess it's just like two different type of consumers, maybe, where federal banks were made for the longest time in this neoclassical structure. And it was made to like evoke, like we've been around since the Roman Empire. Like you can really trust that your money is in good hands, like historically protected because of the duration of humanity. And then there's the other type of consumer that eschews this historicized trust in federal wealth and then decided that all money should be decentralized and put on the blockchain, which is just taking money into our own hands and not trusting the government whatsoever.

10:51Annie Armstrong:So I think that that shift in like where you see faith in money and faith in the longevity, like it's analogous to how you see the value of your art. I think that a lot of blue chip art is historical because it's just agreed upon that the consensus of art history says that, yes, you want to buy this giant Joan Mitchell painting because we've agreed that this is good art. And then there's this other type of art consumer now that says, no, no, no, no. What I think is good art has nothing to do with the establishment. We're going to reimagine the rules entirely. So there's kind of like a refreshing rebelliousness to the core of Red Ship art.

11:27Annie Armstrong:I just wish it was cooler. Like, I just wish I liked how it looked better. Yeah. Cause when you say it like that, it is rebellious. It's kind of renegade. It's totally exciting. And it matches an era that we're in where like, we're just feeling like this tectonic shift and we don't know what's next, but it's like something. And I think you get to this in your piece that there's like a lack of experimentation. And that's because there is this sort of hype cycle of just selling additions and this kind of thing that maybe doesn't beget a person to maybe sit in a studio for a while and really like ponder or what their comment is, perhaps.

12:00Annie Armstrong:Yeah, it's totally formulaic. There's not much there in terms of concepts. So I like admire the framework, but I definitely am not a fan of the product. But that's me. I think that there's a lot of people who really see this as the next iteration of pop art. And I think that there's a big argument to be made that the new world order under tech oligarchs, this is what art is when Elon Musk is in the White House for however long he's going to remain in the White House. the fact that he's been there at all. Like, I think that to whatever extent art is a reflection of society. What we see is what we get.

12:33Yeah. And I mean, artists like people have been absorbed into the institutional framework. I think the blue chip artists are defined as such by a whole kind of canon that supports them, like the art critics, the newspapers and magazines and broadsheets and legacy media that like create a narrative. And I think that that is all broken away. So then you have this kind of, for lack of a better word, like Wild West, where it's like X threads and DMs. And that's what's kind of creating the discourse around this stuff.

13:03Annie Armstrong:It's super online. I think I kind of say in the essay, what I think is the farthest end of red ship, which is probably Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami, even though they're kind of founding, they really aren't red ship. But then I was thinking about like, what's on the other side. I thought of Thomas Hirshhorn's show at Barbara Gladstone this past year, which is sort of like analog red ship art. It has the look of what Ben Davis is coined the cursed vibe of AI slop, but he does it in a way that's just truly analog. I don't think there's any tech component to it. It's truly just an installation.

13:33Annie Armstrong:So I feel like in the traditional art world, there is a way that we've addressed this vibe shift or this new guard of aesthetics. Yeah. It's almost like we just haven't been adapting fast enough, one could say.

13:52it's interesting that the pressures of money will move things forward and i think that maybe that's a good segue to talk about the intelligence report which came out in march there were some interesting data points in there like millennials and gen zers accounted for a quarter to a third of bidders and buyers at two major auction houses in 2024 so they more than doubled their share in five years so there's this big wealth transfer happening where millennials are going to inherit something like$27 trillion, and Gen Z is going to inherit$11 trillion. So in this fold, we're seeing more cross-category sales at auction.

14:23And I wondered if you could talk a bit about that. Is this red-chip art the same that you're seeing appear at auction more and more? And are the auction houses also responding to this demand and trying to get it into the fold of their quote-unquote programming?

14:38Annie Armstrong:I feel like as far as the institutions, like old school art world reporters, non-redship people, reporters know. The auction houses, I think, have embraced this the most, which makes a lot of sense given Katia's findings. I pause a little bit in associating redship too much with millennial and Gen Z collectors because like I said, like I do know a lot of collectors whose collecting habits have moved past cause, but like started there. It makes a lot of sense to assume that this is the youth guard, but I think this has been around for a longer time. And it reminds me of the joke that like, Everybody says that there's iPad kids, but then everybody has an iPad uncle.

15:15Annie Armstrong:I think that that is kind of true to people that are attracted to this mentality of collecting. I don't think it's necessarily tethered to age, but obviously, as I mentioned in the essay, Gen Z buying habits and buying a bunch of Shein to just throw it away is inevitably tied to friendship art. I don't know if I answered your question. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I guess I was thinking just because there is such a strong online component. I assume maybe it would be a younger cohort, but then also, yeah, like your uncle is on Facebook and poking around. So it knows no bounds of age perhaps. Yeah.

15:51Annie Armstrong:When I was writing this, I tried to like fit it in. Did you see a Nora? Yes. Okay. So the Russian kid in it, like her husband, he is like the ultimate red chip collector to me. His wealth is mysterious. He just wants to smoke weed all day and like play video games. And he totally would have a bare brick in the corner of his room and just like buy it without really knowing what it is, but he wants to be part of the club. He is like the ultimate red chip collector in my mind. So there's also definitely like the trope of the young, mysteriously rich millennial slash young millennial slash old Gen Z.

16:20That are having a great time till their parents come and like reel them in. Exactly.

16:24Annie Armstrong:Yeah. You say in your piece that it's not unrelated to Trump aesthetics and on the surface, at least it's sort of apolitical. And I'm wondering about this because you also linked to this article from New Yorker staff writer Kyle Shacup about this AI propaganda video that Trump re-shared earlier this year, you know, the one with him and Bibi sipping cocktails in Gaza with Trump hotels, which is very heavily political piece of propaganda. So I'm wondering, like, can you unpack what the takeaway is here? Are red-chip art people red-pilled or are they just trolling the aesthetic? What's your kind of feeling around that?

16:57Annie Armstrong:I think that was maybe the most contentious point in the piece is when you have to address whether it's a political leaning, because as we know, lots of red-pilled people are buying Joan Mitchell paintings. and not just discriminating to cause. But I don't think that it necessarily has to do anything with your political beliefs. But I think how red ship art looks is the runoff of having somebody like Trump in office and having that mentality become more mainstream and not on the fringes. I think that that's what we get for centering that type of ideology, which is why it's inevitably political, but it also is just a side effect of the time.

17:38Annie Armstrong:But then it's also like I'm thinking about it, too. People is pretty political no matter what. But then like when you really think about the native redship art, like Alec Monopoly literally has nothing to do with politics. It's a good point. I mean, I think also maybe my understanding of it is that it's an aesthetic-led sensibility that maybe has secondary effects on politics because it sort of like normalizes a certain aesthetic and conversation. And I think, you know, you bring up the Trump voter who buys Joan Mitchell. I think that there are a lot of people that are very, very conservative in the blue chip art world.

18:13They just are expressing themselves differently.

18:15Annie Armstrong:Yeah, that's totally what I mean. And I just think it is political because it could probably only ever get this popular with somebody like Trump as the most famous man in the world. Maybe one of the most famous men in the world. No, we'll give him most famous right now. He's really dominating the headlines. Yeah, I think that like it could only get this popular when something like that is going on. This would never happen in the Obama era. So just to push back a bit and play the devil's advocate, what would you say is actually the difference between red chip art and, say, an art flipper? And like a person, you know, who pumps and dumps young artists.

18:52And I know this whole category is waning a bit in these like turbulent economic times that we've talked about a lot on the podcast and on Artnet News. But I'm still curious, like there was a lot of chatter about these male dominated WhatsApp groups and these Gmail art advisors where people were bragging about flipping an Adrian Genney or more recently, like scooping cheap art that belonged to Lisa Schiff and scrolling on their phones and looking at the hot emerging painters that they got good deals on and what their prices are now. Like there's some real Wall Street bets energy to that, even if it maybe is like Yale educated or something.

19:27And maybe these people have family collections. How do you delineate those two things?