The installation, titled 'Regular Animals', is by American artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), according to multiple reports. Curator Lisa Botti said that AI is one of the most impactful phenomena and that museums are places for reflection. Beeple noted that in the past, artists like Picasso and Warhol shaped our view of the world, but now tech billionaires who own powerful algorithms have immense power to shape our worldview without democratic oversight. The AI model used for the transformations has not been disclosed. According to reports, the dogs also wear heads in Beeple's own image, and the work was first shown at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025.
According to reports, Beeple is a graphic designer from South Carolina who founded the 'everyday' movement, creating a picture every day. According to Christie's, he is the third most expensive living artist at auction after David Hockney and Jeff Koons. In spring 2021, Christie's auctioned his digital collage 'Everydays: The First 5000 Days' for over $69 million, the first time a major auction house offered a digital-only artwork with an NFT as guarantee of authenticity and the first time cryptocurrency was used. Christie's described the artwork as a critique of modern society.
In the past, our view of the world was shaped in part by how artists saw the world. How Picasso painted changed how we saw the word, how Warhol talked about consumerism, pop culture, that changed how he saw those things.
That's an immense amount of power that I don’t think we’ve fully understood, especially because when they want to make a change, they don’t need to lobby the U.N. They don’t need to get something through Congress or the EU, they just wake up and change these algorithms.