![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SWISS-ART.jpg\" "\\"SWISS-ART\\"\/")
FRENCH ARTIST William Mapan stands in front of his artwork at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland, June 17. \u2014 REUTERS\/MARLEEN KAESEBIER<\/p>\n FRENCH ARTIST William Mapan stands in front of his artwork at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland, June 17. \u2014 REUTERS\/MARLEEN KAESEBIER<\/p>\n
BASEL, Switzerland \u2014 Art Basel, the world\u2019s biggest art fair, is this year embracing digital art with a new exhibition, betting that the market is set to take off.<\/p>\n
Digital art can encompass everything from work on screens and videos to paintings created with computer technology, including from Photoshop, coding, and even artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Dubbed Zero 10, the exhibition across the street from the fair\u2019s paintings and sculptures comes to the home of Art Basel for the first time after it premiered in Miami last December.<\/p>\n
Art Basel chief executive Noah Horowitz said the appeal of digital art was a natural bet for the future with a younger generation of people coming of age on screens.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of what that generation is going to be attracted to collecting and acquiring are going to be objects and things that speak that language,\u201d Mr. Horowitz told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Sales of digital art made up only 3% of the $59.6 billion worth of global art sales last year, but that was up from just 1% in 2024, according to the Art Basel & UBS Global Art Market Report 2026.<\/p>\n
UBS art adviser Eric Landolt said that reflected growing interest not just from millennial and Gen Z buyers, but also from seasoned collectors and institutions.<\/p>\n
\u2018IT\u2019S JUST LANGUAGE\u2019
William Mapan, a French artist who created paintings over two years through meticulous coding, said for the first decade, no one took an interest in his digital art. At Tuesday\u2019s opening, his work sold out in the first hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople usually say painting and coding are completely separate disciplines but it depends on the way you see it. It\u2019s just language \u2014 painting is a language, coding is a language, and you can make a third new language in between,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, there are concerns that digital art is exposed to technology that is constantly evolving.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might have digital formats that exist now, but how do you ensure they work in future too?\u201d said Mr. Landolt.<\/p>\n
Alejandro Cartagena, co-founder of Fellowship, a gallery which sold a $500,000 piece of digital art by john gerrard at Zero 10, said that risk was being factored in.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery collector has a breakdown of exactly what it needs to have this run forever,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re very committed to the conservation of the works.\u201d \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRENCH ARTIST William Mapan stands in front of his artwork at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland, June 17.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[77,5199],"class_list":["post-90756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basel","tag-basel","tag-reuters"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116801104973797693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}