Summer light spills softly through the windows at Christie’s New York headquarters, illuminating white walls stripped bare between exhibitions.

The last show just came down, and the next hasn’t been hung yet, leaving the building in a rare and conspicuously vacant state.

To Nicole Sales Giles — Christie’s Vice President of Digital Art — the blank canvas feels oddly fitting. The art she champions has never depended on drywall and track lights. However, in a space that found its footing on the internet, even that is changing fast.

“Our department is not just NFTs, it’s digital art,” she says. “Whether it’s AI, video, VR, or interactive, a lot of times the end medium isn’t even digital. It might be a bronze sculpture or a tapestry made with digital tools. That’s why showing it physically is so important — to help people understand we’re not still talking about monkey JPEGs.”

It’s a remarkably clear-eyed perspective for someone working inside a centuries-old institution, but Nicole’s path to Christie’s was anything but conventional. Born into a family of doctors and psychologists, she found her way to art through her grandmother, a passionate collector who introduced her to galleries and museums at a young age. “Her house was covered in these Impressionist paintings that my great-grandfather had done,” she recalls.

Nicole’s passion for art history started early. “I remember one time we were in Vienna, and no one wanted to go to the museum except for me,” she smiles. “So they dropped me off to go see the Klimt.” But as she got older, it wasn’t curating or academia that drew her in. It was the business side of the art world. She majored in art history and economics at Duke University, establishing the duality that would define her career.

Nicole Sales Giles at Christie’s. Credit: Oveck

Fresh out of Duke in 2012, Nicole joined Christie’s in a data research entry role — “whatever job I could get,” she laughs. She reflects on those days with a hint of nostalgia. “It was the heyday of the art world. We had Christmas parties in these old Manhattan banks. People dressed up, brought plus ones. One year, it was on a rooftop. It was very much a work-hard, play-hard culture.”

Her early responsibilities were rigorous analytics, poring over data to forecast artist trends and market behaviors. “I was obsessed with Excel at the time,” she laughs. Her analytical insights quickly proved indispensable, elevating her into broader business management roles overseeing private sales and online auctions.

Nicole’s role became pivotal during COVID, a period when traditional auction activity stalled and digital and private sales soared. “Everything sort of stopped except for private sales and online sales,” she says. “So I was quite busy during that time, but that was really fun.”

She was also beginning to think about what might come next. “I had been doing what I was doing for almost four years,” she says. “And I was getting my MBA at Columbia on Fridays and Saturdays.” She wasn’t planning to leave Christie’s, but she wasn’t standing still either. “I’m not going to be a historian of one art movement,” she says. “I like learning about new stuff all the time. I’m more of a general industry person.”

Nicole Sales Giles and Matt Medved at Christie’s. Credit: Oveck

Beeple and the Bull Run

Then came Beeple.

When a colleague floated the idea of selling a work by an artist with an unfamiliar name in early 2021, Nicole didn’t hesitate. “We were like, who’s Beeple and what’s an NFT?” she laughs. At the time, she was the business manager for online sales, working closely with digital sales head Noah Davis, who would go on to lead Christie’s NFT efforts. “He was basically my work husband,” she says.

Together, they slotted the piece into an online sale with no reserve and a $100 starting bid. Overwhelming interest from the crypto community triggered an internal scramble. Christie’s had never accepted cryptocurrency before, and suddenly it needed to — fast.

“People started coming to us saying we really should take cryptocurrency for this,” she says. “So I figured out, with a lot of people internally, how we could do it and convinced people that we should.”

“We were like, ‘who’s Beeple and what’s an NFT?'”
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Nicole worked with legal, compliance, and treasury to answer questions that had never been asked before. What wallet provider would they use? How would they handle exchange rates? What did KYC look like for anonymous bidders with crypto wallets? “This was all in the span of ten days,” she says. “We were just figuring it out. Learning on the job.”

Her efforts were well worth it. The auction closed at a staggering $69 million, paid in Ethereum, a record-breaking price that made global headlines. “It went from 100 to a million in eight minutes,” Nicole says. “We were like, ‘Oh my god.’”

The historic sale made NFTs a household name, drawing unprecedented attention to digital art and providing the catalyst for the 2021 NFT bull run. It also elevated Nicole’s standing at Christie’s, catapulting her to the forefront of a new movement that many struggled to understand.

Nicole Sales Giles at Christie’s Art + Tech Summit 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s.

“Everybody wanted to talk to me and Noah,” she recounts. “We were back-to-back all day explaining what the hell was going on to all of our colleagues and clients globally.” Suddenly at the epicenter of a digital revolution, Nicole deftly navigated internal bureaucracy, propelled by the undeniable momentum of big-ticket success. “A $69 million sale gives you ammunition internally,” she says.

Extraordinary success brought outsized expectations. Companies clamored for NFT collaborations, often without a clear vision.

“People would come to us wanting to do NFT projects, but it’s not just about slapping an NFT on something. It’s about the art itself,” she explains. “We always asked, ‘Why does this need to be an NFT?’ If you can sell it without one, you should. We even had people ask if we could sell NFTs of Picassos. We said, ‘No. Do you want to sell your Picasso? Because we do that too.’”

“We even had people ask if we could sell NFTs of Picassos. We said, ‘No. Do you want to sell your Picasso? Because we do that too.’”
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After Davis’ departure in 2022, Nicole spearheaded Christie’s ambitious push deeper into digital. Under her guidance, the company launched Christie’s 3.0, their proprietary onchain auction platform. Reflecting on that period, she says, “Launching in eight months was insane for a 250-year-old institution. It was my baby… probably the biggest accomplishment of my career.”

Nicole lights up while describing the rapid development of Christie’s 3.0. The intense process, marked by marathon whiteboard sessions and late nights, became a trial by fire that accelerated her professional growth.

“It wasn’t about delegating to developers,” she emphasizes. “We were all deeply involved, a small, dedicated team working side by side.”

Christie’s 3.0 wasn’t built on a whim. It came directly from community demand. “We decided to build this because of feedback from artists, from collectors saying, ‘I really want to buy things on chain. This matters to me,’” Nicole explains. For many, the inability to connect a wallet and verify provenance was a dealbreaker.

“If we want to be the best in the business, we have to provide that service,” she says. And so they did. Christie’s 3.0 launched with a white glove, single-artist sale by Diana Sinclair — a milestone moment that validated the platform’s purpose. “It was incredible. It was the best thing,” Nicole gushes.

Nicole Sales Giles at Christie’s. Credit: Oveck

Braving the Bear Market

Just as the dust settled, Nicole faced a new kind of challenge: motherhood. Returning from maternity leave six months later, she encountered a very different market, shaken by a harsh downturn. The speculative frenzy of 2021 had collapsed, leaving buyers cautious and the landscape uncertain. “People who bought art in 2021 wanted to flip it immediately,” she recalls, shaking her head. “That’s unheard of in the traditional art world.”

Navigating the bear market tested Nicole’s resilience and strategic agility. She recalls one sale where Christie’s invested heavily in marketing, only for it to sell on a single bid without the market impact they had hoped for. “That was tough,” she admits.

The trials didn’t stop there. In 2024, two major consignments she had nurtured for over a year fell through for very different reasons. Reflecting on those setbacks, Nicole says, “You feel like you’re wasting people’s time, and internally it can hurt your reputation. It’s hard when you’re known for working on big deals that don’t come to fruition.”

Despite these difficulties, Nicole remains optimistic about the future of digital art. “We still believe in the long-term value of digital art and that it’s here to stay. Christie’s needs to have expertise in it and have a brand that represents that we’re ahead of our time.”

“We still believe in the long-term value of digital art and that it’s here to stay.”
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One memorable endeavor was Christie’s landmark AI art auction, “Augmented Intelligence,” which ignited a firestorm of debate and made Nicole a lightning rod for controversy. “I woke up to emails and voicemails accusing me of ‘raping artists,’ instilling a ‘new form of slavery,’” she recalls soberly. “Some were like ‘I know where Christie’s is. We’re gonna come and have a very stern talking to.'”

Amid the backlash, Nicole found strength in seeing artists like Claire Silver, Pindar van Arman, and Mat Dryhurst rally to her defense. “Claire wrote a manifesto that deeply resonated,” she says. “Mat was actively engaging critics online. The community was incredibly supportive.” Undeterred, Nicole stood her ground. “Anytime you provoke this kind of reaction, it means you’re doing something right. You’re tapping into a major disruption.”

Nicole Sales Giles with Colby Mugrabi and Daniel Maegaard (aka Seedphrase). Credit: Kevin Czopek/BFA.

From Fringe to Foreground

Looking ahead, Nicole sees encouraging signs of adoption and increased acceptance for digital art from the traditional art world.

“I think the further we get from the FTX fall, the easier it is for people to understand that this is just art made digitally,” she says.

Nicole points to a wave of institutional momentum as evidence that perceptions are shifting. Museums and galleries are increasingly embracing the medium: the Whitney and Rhizome are mounting forward-thinking exhibitions, the Toledo Museum is debuting its “Infinite Images” show, and longtime digital pioneers like bitforms gallery are gaining broader recognition after decades of championing the form.

“I cannot overstate the importance of seeing digital art in real life.”
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“It’s being able to talk about digital in that context,” Nicole says, “which I think is a lot easier for the traditional art world to understand.”

That context, she adds, is best conveyed through physical presentation. Just as museums have long used curation and spatial design to signal meaning and value, exhibiting digital work in person helps align emerging mediums with traditional expectations.

“I cannot overstate the importance of seeing digital art in real life,” she says.

It’s what drove Christie’s to partner with Now Media on four immersive Gateway exhibitions during Art Basel Miami and Frieze Seoul.

“We were like, we’re Christie’s, people think we’re inaccessible,” Nicole recalls. “Let’s partner with a group that has such clout and respect from the audience that we want to show who we are to.”

Christie’s activation at Now Media’s Gateway Miami 2023. Credit: Now Media

The power of IRL is also a driving force behind Christie’s annual Art + Tech Summit, kicking off this week, which brings together leading voices in art, technology, and culture. Nicole has moderated panels over the past three years and collaborates with the Christie’s Ventures team on programming.

As the landscape continues to evolve, so too does the role that a 259-year-old auction house like Christie’s plays within it. For Nicole, that role is still being written. “You know, I think we’re still figuring it out,” she says. “I’ll be totally blunt with you.”

What she does know is that Christie’s offers something few others can: the ability to elevate an artist without claiming them. “We offer artists a really great opportunity to be able to not represent them exclusively… but still get that recognition and justification from a big luxury brand, our high-end art brand.”

That visibility can be transformative. She points to a collaboration last May with Korean artist DeeKay, who created a new work that Christie’s placed in its Post-War and Contemporary Day Sale. “It sold like four times the estimate,” she says. “That kind of opportunity and support — helping an artist take the next step in their career — really offers a lot.”

“The secondary market is small now, but at some point it’s going to be bigger than the primary market.”
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Beyond curation and storytelling, Nicole believes the long game lies in the secondary market — a space auction houses were built to serve.

“The secondary market is small now,” she says, “but at some point it’s going to be bigger than the primary market. I don’t know if that’s five, ten, fifteen years from now, but that is really the role of an auction house.”

While the full shape of that role is still emerging, early signals are promising. The approach Nicole has helped shape has become a critical pipeline to the next generation of collectors. It’s bringing younger, digitally fluent audiences into the fold and expanding the definition of what belongs in a Christie’s sale.

“Half the clients at our sales are completely new to Christie’s,” she says. “The average age of our sales is 42, which is 7 years younger than the Christie’s average. So we’re still in a growth phase.”

Editor’s note: Premium members are invited to an upcoming private Luminaries Salon Q&A with Nicole. Want access? Join us here.