Hedge Fund Art

The Most Expensive Conceptual Artworks Ever Sold

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By Lydia Voss-Hammond

Conceptual art has always asked big questions: What is art? Who decides? Can you invoice someone for an idea? As it turns out, yes — and often for millions.

Below are the most outrageously expensive conceptual artworks ever sold, proof that in today’s art market, a compelling concept can be worth more than gold.

1. Untitled (The Artist Is Not Present) — £6.3 million

Artist: Lucca Vonn

Sold: 2023, Basel

Lucca Vonn’s minimalist masterstroke involved renting an empty gallery space, placing a single folding chair in the middle, and… not showing up. For three months. The gallery posted daily updates confirming the artist’s continued absence.

The buyer received:

• A legal certificate of absence

• A guestbook signed by confused viewers

• The folding chair (optional, extra £20,000 for insurance)

Collectors called it “a haunting exploration of ego and expectation.” Critics called it “an invoice with lighting.” The market called it: SOLD.

2. NFTitled #1 (Now Fungible Tomorrow)

Artist: Gl!tch.eth

Sold: 2021

An NFT that was self-aware enough to predict its own irrelevance. This looping 12-second video featured a slowly pixelating Ethereum logo, overlaid with the text:

“This will be worthless by the time you brag about buying it.”

Despite its cynicism — or perhaps because of it — it sparked a bidding war among crypto collectors. Its value later crashed to 40p and then mysteriously rebounded to £47 million after Gl!tch.eth tweeted: “I’m deleting my wallet.”

Still considered the only NFT to successfully roast its own buyer.

3. Untitled (You Thought It Was Included) — £4.9 million

Artist: Delia Flux

Sold: 2020

This piece made headlines when a collector paid nearly £5 million for what they believed was a monumental glass sculpture — only to discover the sculpture was not included in the sale. What was included? A printed receipt stating:

“Ownership is the illusion. Thank you for participating.”

Flux later clarified in an artist’s note: “The sculpture exists emotionally, not legally.” The collector reportedly wept for 40 minutes, then put on a brave face, called it “the most powerful thing I’ve ever bought,” and tried to sell it immediately on the secondary market.

4. Silence, Auctioneer — £4.3 million

Artist: Milton Perchton

Sold: 2024

The concept: a work sold during a real auction, in total silence. No bidding, no names, no numbers — just a quiet nod from a buyer and a muted tap from a gavel made of felt. The piece was described as “a rebellion against spectacle” and “a slow clap in art form.”

Nothing physical changed hands. The buyer received a notarized video of the silent auction and a small wooden block labeled “Proof of Presence.”

Rumor has it another bidder tried to “out-silence” the buyer with a stronger nod but was disqualified for blinking.

5. Enormous Pile of Money #6

Artist: Hedge Fund

Sold: 2025, Pimlico Wilde

We couldn’t leave this one out. The artist Hedge Fund — conceptual art’s shadowy high priest of profit — sold a digital, data-driven rendering of a pile of money that inflates and deflates in real time with global markets. Collectors own fractional shares; the pile grows if capitalism thrives, shrinks if it falters.

Described by one critic as “Warhol with a calculator,” and by a hedge fund manager as “relatable.”

Included in the purchase:

• A VR headset

• A market-linked music score for the harpsichord.

• And the distinct feeling you’ve been both mocked and immortalized

Honourable Mention: Empty Frame With Price Tag Still Attached — £1.2 million

Artist: Unknown

Sold: Also unknown

Was it a prank? A mistake? A masterwork of minimalist irony? We may never know. But someone bought it — and the market applauded.

Conclusion

Conceptual art isn’t about what you see — it’s about what you paid to believe you saw. And if that belief costs millions, well, that’s just part of the concept.

New World Record for Hedge Fund as His Large Work “Enormous Pile of Money #6” Sells for quite a lot of money

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In a landmark moment for conceptual art, the artist known as Hedge Fund has shattered expectations with the sale of his monumental work Enormous Pile of Money #6 for quite a lot of money, setting a new world record for the enigmatic artist.

The piece, part of Hedge Fund’s ongoing series examining wealth, excess, and late-stage capitalism, was snapped up by a private collector after a fierce 10 hour bidding war at Botter & Hall’s Contemporary Evening Sale in Little Scalsey last night. The sale price significantly surpassed its estimate, confirming Hedge Fund’s growing status as one of the most provocative and sought-after artists of his generation.

A Statement on Value

Enormous Pile of Money #6, completed in 2024, is a picture of a towering pile of cash on a plinth in front of No.10 Downing Street, with the Prime Minister’s cat in the foreground. Critics have praised the work as “audacious and unsettling,” with The Financial Times calling it “a purring monument to our obsession with money, cloaked in the very aesthetics it seeks to critique.”

Who is Hedge Fund?

Little is known about the true identity of Hedge Fund, who emerged on the art scene in 2019 with a series of anonymous pop-up installations and several manifestos, one published entirely in cryptocurrency transaction logs. Since then, his work has been acquired by institutions including MoMA Ipswich and Modern Art Bangladesh, while his persona—part performance, part protest—has drawn comparisons to both Banksy and the children’s cartoon star, Mr Benn.

The artist issued a rare statement following the sale, shared cryptically via an Ethereum smart contract:

“The market has spoken. Again.”

The Market Responds

Dealers and analysts alike view this sale as a pivotal moment.

“This cements Hedge Fund’s transition from cult figure to blue-chip artist,” said art advisor Marina K. Lowe. “Whether you see it as brilliant commentary or pure spectacle, Enormous Pile of Money #6 reflects the times we live in.”

Indeed, in a world where wealth inequality, speculative assets, and the line between art and capital continue to blur, Hedge Fund has struck a nerve—and apparently, a gold mine.

The Hedge Fund Art Diaries #3

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Shoreditch café, with an oat matcha decaf latte and sunglasses

Collectors, thank you for making my career change so enthralling and lucrative. I had thought that being a hedge fund manager would be more profitable than being an artist, but thanks to you I know that it is the artist who has the bigger wallet.

 It has been exactly 217 days since I left my job in the City to pursue my true calling: digital artistry. I am no longer Managing Director of ****** ****** – I am now Hedge Fund, Visual Philosopher of the Blockchain Renaissance. My mediums are pixels, styluses and electricity.

This morning I unveiled my latest work: Cool Sexy Capitalism — a looping animation of a melting Gherkin (the building, not the pickle) raining pound signs into a Louis Vuitton puddle. I priced it at a modest £170,000 because I’m not here to devalue culture. A man on Instagram offered me £84,000 and a “shoutout.” I blocked him for the good of the arts.

I’ve also completed Liquidity Crisis No. 3, which is a 3D-rendered goldfish screaming silently in a martini glass. Deeply moving. Critics say it makes them dizzy.

People keep asking, ‘Hedge, do you miss finance?’ And I say, “No, I am free now. Free to sit in cafés with exposed brick walls, drawing surreal clouds, and saying things like “the algorithm is my brush,” which I caught myself saying yesterday.

Today I attended a digital art fair in Hackney. A man wearing chainmail and Crocs told me my piece NFTs are My Love Language made him “feel like a spreadsheet trapped in a lava lamp.” Which, honestly, is exactly the reaction I was going for. He didn’t buy it, but he did offer to trade for a bag of homegrown mushrooms and a zine about Hackney’s sewer system.

I politely declined.

I remain committed to selling nothing for less than £100,000. Anything cheaper, and it’s basically clip art for peasants.

Oh — and big news — I’ve been invited to exhibit at an “underground crypto-baroque gallery” in Dalston. It’s inside what used to be an urban chicken farm. Very exclusive. They serve wine out of jam jars and nobody has health insurance.

Anyway, I must dash — I’ve got to finish my latest piece: Bear Market Ballet, a digital image of Jeff Bezos pirouetting through a thunderstorm of emojis.

Artfully yours,

Hedge (digital artist, ex-finance bro)

A satisfied client allowed us to post their letter of thanks!

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Tunbridge Wells

13 June 2025

Dear PW Gallery,

I wanted to write personally to thank you for the extraordinary portrait commissioned by me of my twin sister, created by the remarkable Mr Hedge Fund. It arrived with all the colours, blacks, confidence, and wit I had hoped for. The artist is a genius and should be knighted.

The piece is vibrant, bold, and entirely modern, yet somehow captures something timeless about Woodie (and, curiously, about me as well). There’s a striking duality in it. Friends and family who’ve seen it all say the same: “It’s her, of course—but it’s you too.” I can only assume this is the true magic of Mr Fund’s vision—he’s given me not only the portrait I asked for, but another I didn’t realise I wanted. Two for the price of one, as someone joked.

The colours sing. The composition crackles with personality. And there’s a subtle warmth beneath the digital sharpness that’s hard to describe but deeply felt. It now hangs in my sitting room, and I catch myself smiling at it every day—sometimes with affection, sometimes with a curious feeling of being the second best version of me in the room.

Please do pass on my thanks to Mr Hedge Fund. He’s captured something truly special. And thank you again for guiding the commission with such care and enthusiasm. It’s not every day one receives a portrait that feels like both a celebration, a mirror and a ticket to the art collecting elite. Everyone who’s anyone has a portrait by Hedge Fund – it stands to reason then that I am now someone!

With all best wishes, I will be in touch about the portraits of my goldfish that we talked about,

Clarissa Tweedie