Art Basel is working to engage with the changing behavior and taste of the new generation of collectors – those who will shape the future of the art world – and the audience is increasingly exposed to technology and digital goods. Many of these collectors will travel to Miami during the city’s Buzzy Arty Week thinking they might encounter offerings that reflect their interests at the Mega Fair. But Art Basel Miami Beach will look different this year with the launch of ZERO 10, putting digital art front and center at the highest level. “Not over the top, not offsite. This will be central to the experience of the Miami fair and 10,000 collectors,” Digital Art Strategist Scheinman, announced at X.
Launched with the support of OpenShia, zero 10 – which is withdrawing from Miami but will release other ART Basel Faires next year – connects the growing digital community of the established structures of the international art market. Borrowing its name from “0,10,” (Zimir Madlevich’s GroundBreak Exhibition 1915 in Petrograd exhibition that renews the possibilities of the language of art), zero 10 is Art Basel’s attempt to rediscover the way digital art can be realized, understood and found in today’s art market.
The Inaugural zero presentation will include 12 of the best shows in the Digital Sphere, including AOTM, Aspel blocks, Heft, fellowship, Heft Wah, paper gallery and solos. There will also be a digital solo presentation by digital artist Lu Yang, with work on loan from the UBS art collection.
The introduction of the category comes amid major changes in collecting practices. If the pandemic accelerates the digitization of the world of art, digital channels and art formats have been increasingly integrated into the “Mtalipha and Ndori” program. The study of ART Basel and UBS collecting worldwide reveals that digital art has officially emerged as a category of discovery, which includes online platforms – including social media sales – now general sales – now general distribution.
Digital art editing
Fifty-one percent of high-net-worth collectors report buying digital art in 2024/25, making digital art the 14th category in art (almost 14 percent), while painting remains dominant at 27 percent. Looking ahead, 23 percent of HNW collectors plan to expand their digital art, up from 19 percent in the previous survey. The next generation of buyers is driving this growth, with Gen Z collectors representing 26 percent of respondents and 63 percent of them reporting digital art purchases in 2024 or 2025.
ZERO 10 builds on Art Basel’s latest series of initiatives that advance the intersection of art, technology and market infrastructure. These include the digital arts council, which brings together leading collectors, artists and institutional voices to guide Art Basel’s involvement with Digital Conptional; Digital Conversations, a global conversation series exploring art and technology; and large digital displays all paintings such as bright moments’ Dream-0 By Huemin at ART Basel Miami Beach 2024 and a limited presentation of digital works within the ART Basel Hong Kong 2025 app. It emphasized ART Basels commitment to work across all physical and digital platforms.
At the same time, museums are embracing digital art with a new urgency, moving from a distorted assessment to ensure the involvement of institutions. The Buffalo AKG Art Museum recently launched “Peer to Watch: Digital Art as a Community,” one of the first US exhibitions dedicated to Blockchain and broader art production practices. After the exhibition ended, the Museum acquired tokenized Editions of all sixteen works – making it the first large collection of NFTs acquired by an American art museum. The museum has also expanded its holdings of digital art in recent years, adding works by creative and Native artists such as Casey Reare, Sara Mewohas and IX Shells. Recently, it announced the acquisition of three portfolios and eight works of original art, taken from the early 1960s to the early 1960s.
The Toledo Museum of Art is another US institution at the forefront of this field, combining digital and offline approaches to both collections and curatorial programming. Under the leadership of Director and CEO Adam Levine, the Museum has shown its awareness of the exchange of ingredients and ways of seeing new generations by showing that the recent exhibitions “ARTIAL TEACTIONS,” and the acquisition of data, Acconds Peartures, Digital Media convey today’s dialogue between technology and form.
The Whitney Museum of American Annal Art has expanded its online gallery to display digital birth commissions – working with existing birth discovery on the web, opening up new questions of access, authorship and preservation. At Moma, what started as a RefIK ANADOL data installation in the museum’s atrium has been transformed into an ongoing program that explores the aesthetics and behavior of photography and art. On the west coast, lacma has been among the most active institutions in this area, starting ARTURTICE for its technical lab and collaborating with artists and technologists to actively explore NFTS and time-based digital works.
At the same time, a new generation of institutions dedicated entirely to Digital and Scyrive Archworks is expanding rapidly around the world. ANADOL is set to make history by opening the world’s first center entirely dedicated to diversion, promotion and a growing network of artists, from Tokyo to Abu Dhabi and Hamburg – redefining what is digital. By combining large-scale projections, algorithmic and natural images, they create multiple spaces that blur the boundaries between art, technology and architecture. Their popularity with the audience is not only the increasing desire for technologically prepared experiences but also the change of wider cultures with effective artistic methods – signing digital art from the waters of the visual culture of the world.
