SPEAKER’S PROFILE

Michael Bouhanna joined Sotheby’s London as a Contemporary Art Specialist in 2017, assuming a leading role on the Contemporary Art Day auction team after previously heading the Contemporary Art auction in Paris. A specialist in the market for work by young and emerging artists, Bouhanna drove Sotheby’s first foray in the NFT art market in 2021 and was appointed head of Digital Art and NFTs the same year. Under Michael’s stewardship, Sotheby’s was recognized by Forbes Blockchain 50 and TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022 for its innovation in and expansion of the NFT art market. In June 2021, Michael spearheaded the company’s first curated NFT auction, Natively Digital, a showcase of leading artists in this space. Michael’s Natively Digital auctions set multiple artists’ all-time record and achieved a total sale of $40 million across three editions. The auction series also recorded some of the highest single-lot sale prices in the history of digital art, such as the sale of a rare Cryptopunk for $11 million, 101 Bored Apes Yacht Club for $24 million and a generative work by Dmitri Cherniak for close to $1 million. Also in 2021, Michael conceived, launched and curated Sotheby’s Metaverse, the auction house’s dedicated marketplace for digital art.Michael is also a leader in educating traditional art collectors and introducing a wider audience to the contemporary digital art landscape, such as by contextualizing digital artists who define different Contemporary Digital Art movements and sharing his passion for this new medium at global international fairs and conferences.