Emily Ratajkowski sold an NFT for $175,000 in an auction at Christie’s on Friday afternoon.
The token is tied to an image called “Buying Myself Back: A Model for Redistribution,” which takes its title from a piece Ratajkowski wrote for The Cut late last year.
In the essay, she describes the uncanny experience of realizing one of her Instagram posts had been repurposed by the artist Richard Prince for his controversial “Instagram Paintings” exhibition. The works in the show were essentially large, printed versions of popular Instagram posts; Ratajkowski’s, which was displayed without her express permission, was priced at $90,000.
“Buying Myself Back: A Model for Redistribution” is a photo of Ratajkowski standing in front of Prince’s piece.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a form of cryptocurrency that can be sold as proof of ownership for files on the internet. They’ve become a popular way to monetize images and short video clips in recent months—the artist behin
