Ep. 4: Noah Davis

In Episode 4 of Probably Nothing TZ (@TZhongg) and Alexis Ohanian (@alexisohanian) chat with Noah Davis (@NonFungibleNoah) of Christie's. Noah is the former Head of Online Sales for contemporary art at Christie's, but is now primarily focused on NFTs and crypto related digital art projects. Noah discusses how he first got into NFTs, and how he was able to convince a 200+ year old company to begin auctioning NFTs this year. TZ, Alexis, and him also discuss a bit of art history, how NFTs align incentives between artists and curators/collectors, and the future of smart contracts in the art world. This wide ranging discussion shows how NFTs are starting to bridge both the fine art world and the crypto community.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

• Beeple's first Christie's auction
• MakersPlace NFT
• NFT Now
• Christie's x OpenSea

Timestamps

00:30: Noah Davis intro

01:20: How did Noah convince Christie's to get into NFTs?

02:30: How did Noah first get into NFTs and what helped him understand them?

04:20: What is the future of NFTs in the art world?

06:50: Art Basel NFT prediction?

11:30: What was the internal process on convincing Christie's to do a project with OpenSea?

14:08: wen christie's dao?

16:12: What was the process like of promoting Beeple's sale on Discord?

19:40: What is "absurdist post-war French theater" and why did he study it in school?

24:00: Secondary sales in a world of smart contracts

28:40: Future hope for artist and smart contracts

29:50: Working with artists compared to working with collectors

32:48: Noah's experience in the NFT space

33:34: If you were stranded on an island which NFT would you take from your collection? What about anyone's NFT collection?

Mentions

• Beeple - @beeple
• Tom Sachs - @tom_sachs
• Damian Hurst - @hirst_official
• MakesPlace - @makersplaceco
• NFT now - @nftnow
• collector 33 - @33NFT
• Justin Aversano - @justinaversano
• Superrare - @SuperRare
• Joshua Davis - @JoshuaDavis
• fewocious - @fewocious 
• Punk 4301

Show Notes

Who is Noah Davis?

• Specialist at Christie's in the contemporary arts department with a focus in NFTs.
• He started working on NFTs in March with his intro to NFTs during the first Beeple @beeple sale.

Getting into NFTs and bringing them to Christie's

How did Noah first get into NFTs?

• "NFTs really found me."
• Before he was head of