Flower power: Andrés Reisinger’s Hortensia chair sold 168 editions at £860 ($1200) each
(Picture: via Nifty Gateway)No room in your one-bed flat for your dream pieces of furniture? Then why not buy them virtually instead?
That’s what Andrés Reisinger offered his fans when he put a 10-piece collection of non-existent furniture up for auction – and sold it for more than £320,000 ($450,000).
The Argentinian designer’s The Shipping collection sold out in just 10 minutes when it was released on digital art marketplace Nifty Gateway, with the most expensive lot – a custom design to be made in collaboration with the winning bidder – selling for in excess of £48,000 ($67,777).
Many of the designs would be practically impossible to construct in real life but the CGI-rendered digital furniture can be used on “metaverse” platforms such as Decentraland and Minecraft, where users can create 3D worlds in shared virtual spaces. They can also be implanted into virtual and augmented reality systems.
The main collection from the Barcelona-based designer included the Deep Space sofa, a lilac chaise lounge that wobbles and intermittently deflates; the millennial pink ABBA desk chair, and the Complicated Drawer, a deconstructed collection of metallic drawers joined together by pipes.
In the Open Edition sale, design enthusiasts could also get their hands (or mouses) on an edition of Reisinger’s signature Hortensia chair, which saw him go viral on Instagram in 2018.
The blush pink armchair appears to be made entirely of petals, and has been inspired by the blooms of the hydrangea flower. Nifty Gate shows that Reisinger sold 168 minted editions of the chair, priced at £860 ($1200) each.
