It looks like Art Basel’s viral ATM machine from the weekend is still making waves. The piece, aptly titled ‘ATM Leaderboard’ by Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, drew attention for ranking the wealthiest people at the art fair and has ultimately been sold.
It works as a regular ATM, but when you put your card in and take out the cash you need, the machine takes a photo of you and makes note of your bank balance, displaying both on a screen above the ATM for everyone to see. Reminiscent of an arcade game, the person with the most money “scores” the highest and cartoon-like animations pop up on the screen for every user.
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“ATM Leaderboard is an extremely literal distillation of wealth-flaunting impulses,” Daniel Greenberg, co-founder of MSCHF, told NPR. “From its conception, we had mentally earmarked this work for a location like Miami Basel, a place where there is a dense concentration of people renting Lamborghinis and wearing Rolexes.”
While some people were more humble about their cash and didn’t want it out there for people to see, others wanted to join in on the viral cash competition while they could. As of this week, the ATM has been sold for $75,000 to a local collector who plans to place the work in a public setting, as reported by WSVN 7 News. It sure would be cool if it stayed in the city.
Wondering which account balance made it to the top of “ATM Leaderboard”? One person who held the top spot was DJ and producer Diplo, who appeared to have $3 million.
i just won art basel pic.twitter.com/2WVPtFwUHa
— diplo (@diplo) December 2, 2022
But he didn’t hold it for long. An unknown ATM user with a balance of over $5 million took the spot over the weekend.
Unsurprisingly, the art piece has been compared to the 2019 Basel moment where a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000. In fact, this piece was a partnership between MSCHF and Perrotin Gallery, the same gallery that presented the famed banana. MSCHF is also no stranger to attention-grabbing projects — they were behind the infamous Lil Nas X “Satan” Nikes and “Ketchup or Makeup” Fenty collab.
What’s the next headline-worthy Basel piece next year? We’ll have to wait and see…