The global AI Art Generate System market trends research analyzes the current competitive development of the market. The study evaluates the economic health of the AI Art Generate System company in both domestic and foreign markets, providing data acquired from reliable sources and proven analytical approaches.

The research provides a clearer understanding of the primary opinions, growth strategies, product offerings, development ambitions, and other characteristics of the sector for over 100 multi-country markets, rivals, and Fortune 500 businesses. It also offers effective approaches for new entrants into the global AI Art Generate System sector, along with a thorough examination of market size, market data, and opportunity assessments. The study investigates market drivers, opportunities, unique challenges, and potential dangers in the global AI Art Generate System market.

The evolution of the AI Art Generate System business is examined through an in-depth analysis of scholarly publications and prominent sources in the field. The research looks at technologies that have increased market competitiveness, saved time, improved decision-making, and increased productivity.

This research contains an in-depth analysis of existing trends, fresh projections, and market dynamics. It also examines market-influencing and limiting factors. Furthermore, extensive industry research based on product category and intended use assists in identifying the most sought-after products globally. The study also focuses on key product positioning and analyzes the market’s leading competitors, providing financial assessments, market-winning strategies, new breakthroughs, and products accessible from the world’s key competitors.

The research investigates the influence of the deadly COVID-19 outbreak on global AI Art Generate System market dynamics. It examines the consequences of an unprepared workplace and the impact of continuous lockdowns on business activity. The study also looks at the change in consumer demand and the impact on the global AI Art Generate System business. It explores how the epidemic has fundamentally changed commercial practices in the industry and addresses the issues caused by government measures to address the outbreak’s destruction.

The study ranks each competitor’s capacity from top to lowest in terms of demand to supply ratio and investigates individual growth objectives and corporate development strategies. It also evaluates the infrastructure capabilities that will allow the international AI Art Generate System market to realize its full growth potential.

The global market for AI Art Generate System has been significantly influenced by the COVID-19 outbreak, which has raised concerns regarding supply, demand, and manufacturing.

Overall, the research provides valuable insights into the global AI Art Generate System market, helping market participants improve their export, readiness, and production capacities. It also aims to support government activities targeted at growing the domestic AI Art Generate System market.

Please note that this article has been rewritten without the original author information, contact information, sources of information, and quotes.

This September, Christie’s Education introduces its most comprehensive course to date with a dynamic syllabus spanning centuries of art history. Taught by experts at the forefront of the industry, the year-long programme is tailor-made for individuals passionate about the history of art and those aspiring to a career in the art world. With weekly live-stream lectures, in-person art handling sessions and interactive drawing lessons at Christie’s London flagship site in the heart of St James’s, the course culminates in a field trip to Paris, Florence, Rome or Venice, where students will immerse themselves in the vibrant art scenes of these iconic cities and broaden their understanding of art’s global influence outside the classroom.

A survey of 500 years of art

The curriculum comprises ten modules covering a wide range of essential topics — at its core, a chronological survey spanning the past 500 years of art. With a focus on history’s most visionary artists and pivotal artistic movements that have shaped the world, the course guides students through the intricacies of reading a painting and interpreting the symbols, classical myths and biblical narratives that feature most prominently in art. They also acquire first-hand insights from artists and collectors on curating, managing, conserving and exhibiting a collection.

Under the guidance of Christie’s auction house specialists, students are invited to handle paintings and decorative works of art and learn about the materials and techniques used to make them. Lifting the veil on how works of art are prepared and valued for sale, students are guided through the process of cataloguing with an emphasis on the meticulous research carried out by Christie’s specialists, yielding significant artistic discoveries and record-breaking auction results. With the largest and most experienced Restitution team of any international auction house, Christie’s makes provenance research an essential part of the cataloguing process. Students are guided through the complexities surrounding the restitution of Nazi-era theft and dispossession, as well as the topical debate surrounding the repatriation of cultural property. With poignant relevance, this module offers an alternative perspective of the art world and sheds light on events that have shaped its history.

Another course module explores the evolution and economics of the art industry and how and why it functions as it does today. The extraordinary rise of contemporary art as the leading collecting category in recent years is a focal point of the course, with students being introduced to the major modern and contemporary art movements and the influence that politics and social change have had on artists. It also examines the emergence of contemporary art as a source of personal fascination as well as a strategic avenue for investment.

Participants are treated to a masterclass in Renaissance drawing techniques, showcasing the principles of figurative and naturalistic drawing as honed by the Old Masters. Guided tours of galleries, museums and exhibitions occur throughout the programme, with field trips in France and Italy marking its conclusion in June 2024. The course is led by Glen Hardwick-Bruce, Programme Director of Continuing Education at Christie’s London, who is supported by award-winning artists, tutors and industry experts. A centre of excellence with sites in London, New York and Hong Kong, Christie’s Education offers tuition in a wide spectrum of subjects ranging from the origin of Western art to the contemporary art and luxury market.

• Exploring Art: From the Renaissance to Contemporary starts on 11 September. Enrol now and enter promo code ART10 for a 10% discount, exclusively for readers of The Art Newspaper.

St. Louis, Mo. – Washington University in St. Louis Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs & John M. Schael Director of Athletics Anthony J. Azama along with Senior Associate Director for External Operations, D’Angelo Solomon, have announced the hiring of Symone Palmer as the new Marketing and Multimedia Manager
 
“We are extremely excited to add a unique talent to the Bears family,” said Solomon. “Symone’s ability to see the big picture and devise strategies to better market WashU Athletics & Recreation was evident from the beginning. We look forward to the journey ahead.”
 
Palmer joins WashU after serving as the Director of Marketing and Digital Media at the Arts and Education Council of St. Louis. In this role, she developed blog content and press releases to promote programming, funding opportunities and partner art organizations’ events. Palmer also enhanced the organization’s social media presence, growing reach on Instagram by 140 percent within the first three months. Additionally, she worked on new branding material to highlight brand messaging and handled the in-house creation of brand collateral for the 32^nd Annual St. Louis Arts Awards.
 
Prior to that, Palmer spent one-and-a-half years as a Digital Media Strategist for ArchCity Defenders. In this role, she was responsible for the daily development of graphic, photographic, video graphic and written content and branded materials. She led and managed creative projects to highlight the organization’s advocacy work to raise public awareness and inspire action. In her time there, Palmer increased social media presence by more than 50 percent.
 
Additionally, has owned Designs by Monie since 2015, serving as a freelance graphic designer. She has served organizations, school districts and small businesses for their logo, web and print design needs.
 
Palmer is a 2018 graduate of WashU, earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing with a minor in design. During her time on the Danforth campus, she worked as a student designer for the Olin Business School, creating original artwork to promote business school campaigns, updated visual brand identities for business school programs and groups and created a logo for the Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
 
Palmer begins her appointment at WashU on Monday, August 7.
 

Generative digital art remains in demand, even as the broader NFT market struggles. This summer alone, the medium has garnered eye-popping sales, the doting attention of elite brands and institutions, and the emergence of new platforms. But it wasn’t always that way.

Casey Reas, an artist and software designer who has pioneered the use of automated computer code in creating digital art for over 20 years, recalls how much lonelier—and cumbersome—things used to be prior to the rise of NFTs, which made it much easier to sell original digital artwork.

“If I was showing a piece of generative art in a gallery, the collector base was extremely small,” Reas told Decrypt of the bygone aughts and 2010s. “I would have to produce a documentation box that would include source code, the files on a storage medium, and a lot of documentation credits—all these mechanisms just to make it possible to collect a generative work.”

How things have changed. Next week, Reas will debut “923 Empty Rooms,” a series of just as many digital artworks minted on Ethereum as NFTs and released in collaboration with generative art startups Bright Moments and Art Blocks, at six live minting events held across three continents.

At the gatherings, members of the vibrant, global generative art community will watch as Reas’ works come alive for the first time, birthed by code of his design. 

“It’s been a dream of mine, for decades, to have generative art scale—to have a community of artists and collectors working in this medium,” Reas said. “And now it’s here, after so much slow-burn, pioneering work going all the way back to the 1960s.”

Reas’ connection to that history fuels much of his output, including his latest collection. Earlier this year, the artist—who co-created the influential, visual design-oriented programming language Processing—was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to riff on an exhibition chronicling the evolution of computer-generated art in the pre-internet age.

For the occasion, Reas created the software equivalent of a machine once envisioned by 20th-century optical art pioneer Victor Vasarely, which could replicate any one of the French-Hungarian artist’s works in infinite permutations. The physical machine would have cost nearly $11 million in today’s dollars; it was never built.

Reas took his reflections from that experiment and incorporated them into his own work, which at the time focused on putting the history of still life paintings in conversation with modern conceptual software. Layers of history on top of history, pulled apart and put together again by technology—the result, he called “An Empty Room.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly for Reas, who’s been on the faculty of UCLA’s Design Media Arts department since 2003, the layers of reflection didn’t stop there. As he watched museum patrons interact with his collection for long stretches, the artist further pondered the indeterminate possibilities lying in wait within seemingly simple shapes and colorforms.

If you were to take just six colorforms—let’s say, for argument’s sake, representative of the six cities in which Bright Moments has already launched its unique mix of immersive art minting experiences and community galleries—you could combine them to create 923 unique permutations. 

And so that’s what Reas did. He created every 923 combinations of six base colorforms inspired by Bright Moments cities; they will be released next week in batches, one day at a time, at the galleries that inspired them: first Tokyo, on August 14, then Berlin, London, New York, and Mexico City, followed finally by Los Angeles. The pieces will be sold daily via Dutch auction on the Art Blocks website.

Though Reas makes a point of remaining connected to generative art’s decades-spanning history, he also acknowledges that the last two years have permanently changed both the medium and his connection to it.

Even half a decade ago, the artist couldn’t have dreamed of distributing so much of his generative art to such a large and collaborative audience, let alone one spread so far across the world. 

But then came two seminal events: the innovation of the blockchain, which allowed for the dissemination of digital art via the internet, and the creation in 2020 of Art Blocks, the collective founded by Erick “Snowfro” Calderon that fused the permanence of the NFT minting process with generative code, and by doing so ushered in demand for owning such art.

“As a distribution mechanism, it’s been extraordinary.” Reas said of the blockchain. “But what Erick did, by launching Art Blocks, changed generative art forever.”

Calderon sees things a little differently. 

“The reality is that Art Blocks would likely not be what it is today if it were not for [Reas’] contributions to creative coding,” Calderon said.

Perhaps after so many years dissecting and reflecting on the strands of art history that led to this moment, it’s hard to see your own place in the big picture. But given the global scale of the rollout and growing anticipation around the events, Reas may soon have hundreds of new collectors affirming his status in the generative art world.

“What I’m Looking at” is a monthly column where I digest art worth seeing, writings worth consuming, and other tidbits. Below, thoughts from the first weeks of July 2023.

Unplaceable Goodness

This one-gallery White Columns survey of the recent output of the well-regarded Brooklyn-based sculptor Carol Bruns (b. 1943) makes me think of ghosts. Not just because these sculptures are mainly all in ghostly white, but because ghosts are border characters, between alive and dead. And I take the attempt to achieve a kind of eerie, resonant in-between-ness to be where Bruns’s head is at.

Bruns’s sculptures are in-between in at least three ways. First, in that they are made with found materials, and both show it and don’t show it—you can sense the underlying forms of Styrofoam pieces or pipes found on the street, but Bruns has semi-finished them in white plaster and paint so that they hold together into one, gawky form. Second, they are in-between in that they conjure faces and figures, but always in a not-quite-there way, the final form being half-creaturely, half-object-like. And, finally and most subtly, they are in-between in emotional tone: Are these mask-like reliefs and sculptures spooky or lovable? They exist just at the point where you have to project into them, and they shift states if you stay with them.

There’s a lot of control in holding all these levels of irresolution together at once in an artwork. And if you let yourself steep in Bruns’s show, it’s mind-expanding. (On view through August 26.)

Carol Bruns, Archaic Man, New Man (2021), Fox Totem (2022), Techno Man II (2022), and Techno Man (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.

Carol Bruns, Guardian (2022), The Afflicted Man (2023), and The Third Eye (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.

Carol Bruns, Fringe Elements (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.

SCRY Movie (and Paintings)

There’s more unsettled-ness in Rachel Rossin’s “SCRY” (through August 11 at Magenta Plains)—it’s almost like we live in a time where things feel really uneasy and unresolved!

The literal centerpiece of this show is The Maw of, a LED tondo (part of a project also seen at the Whitney last year and, to crowds, in Berlin). Hung on the ceiling, it radiates a digital glow over everything, playing out a broken, elliptical narrative featuring fragments of an anime girl, animated diagrams, landscapes, and data clusters. The uneasy sense Rossin creates is something like a kind of cyborg consciousness either on the cusp of being born or in the throes of dying.

The suite of paintings hung around the gallery manifest shadowy figures that look alternatively like mechs and angels (or mecha-angels?), based, I gather, on Rossin’s childhood drawings. They capture a similar mood to the LED work, like some kind of sinister memory or liberating epiphany in formation. The miasmic quality of The Maw of is mirrored in the shifting layers of the marks in the paint, as if the canvas was some kind of visual receiver that was being tuned, and alien transmissions were veering into focus through the static.

The painting-on-canvas and the digital-art parts of the show fit together a little unstably, but I realized that this is also part of the whole idea of “SCRY”: The space between the mediums was also the space between different forms of consciousness; it feels as if a new hybrid art is wrestling to be born, either drawing painting and digital-art together, or thwarted by the air-gap between them.

“Rachel Rossin: SCRY” at Magenta Plains. Photo by Ben Davis.

Rachel Rossin, The Maw of (2022) at Magenta Plains. Photo by Ben Davis.

Rachel Rossin, haha. Regarding states of looking back (2023). Photo by Ben Davis.

The Weed Pot Avant-Garde

“No secret, just work.” So said the late art ceramicist Doyle Lane (1923–2002) when asked about the secret of his glazes, in an interview that was displayed in a vitrine near the entrance of David Kordansky for this show (which closed, lamentably, before I could get my act together to write this). His “Weed Pots” from the ’60 and ‘70s (no, not that kind of weed; it’s a term for a vessel meant to display a leaf of grass or a sprig of wheat or the like) are individually great. Each is a tiny, complete, confident thing, exploring color or texture.

But—credit where credit is due—the display of 100 Lane-made weed pots at Kordansky (including one that came from the collection of the great painter Charles White) by artist-curator Ricky Swallow was greater than the sum of its parts. It gave a sense, via the clarity of its juxtapositions, of how much delightful variation Lane was able to create within a sober, gimmick-free commitment to craft fundamentals.

Installation view of “Doyle Lane: Weed Pots” at David Kordansky Gallery. Photo by Ben Davis.

Installation view of “Doyle Lane: Weed Pots.” Photo by Ben Davis.

Display of material relating to the life of Doyle Lane at David Kordansky. Photo by Ben Davis.

The “Aesthetic Turn” Gathers Force…

The best thing to read of the last few weeks is definitely “On the Aesthetic Turn” by Anastasia Berg, the scene-setter for The Point’s summer issue on the question “What Is Beauty For?” (the issue also has a bunch of good essays in it). “The critical tide is turning, once again,” she wrote. In my own review of the mess that is “It’s Pablo-matic” at the Brooklyn Museum, I talked about how we were at an inflection point, where the “moralism” that has been dominant for the better part of a decade in culture writing was increasingly uncool. Berg’s “On the Aesthetic Turn” surveys the different types of positions people are taking as they respond to this shift, while also noting that what this “aesthetic turn” means remains somewhat unsettled, more a negative rejection of a dominant style than a new consensus (for this reason, I would call the new style “anti-moralism” rather than an “aesthetic turn,” personally).

Berg’s essay inspires three (very-compressed) thoughts.

“The critics of self-righteousness and trauma mongering are for the most part not calling for a return to the amoral ironism that governed the Nineties and early Aughts—the sensibility that surely gave rise, at least in part, to the overgrowth of didacticism that followed,” Berg wrote. My first thought is that, yes, I think that’s true—but also, in part, there is definitely a contingent that wants exactly a return to amoral ironism. So any argument for an “aesthetic turn” has to be centrally about distinguishing itself, not just from “moralism” but from “bad aestheticism.”

Second, the opposition between “moralism” and “aestheticism” is unstable. As Berg wrote, “In the very way we have posed the question—what is beauty for?—the magazine signals agreement in at least one regard with the moralizers about art: art and beatify must in some sense be salutary.” That is, arguments for the value of aesthetic complexity are often about acknowledging real human complexity, or taking a stand against the instrumentalization of art, or other goals that arrive at a moral or political project by another door. Meanwhile, there’s a coded aesthetic dimension to the “moral” lens on art too: Clear, direct, socially resonant, even overtly didactic art can feel fresh and original (aesthetic virtues) against the background of a lot of over-refined, deliberately obscure stuff, where it stands out as different (which, in turn, is part of where ideas about “performative activism” come from—essentially the accusation that a righteous cultural posture is merely aesthetic).

Third (and following from the second), critical insight has to be located at a level above the “moralism” versus “aesthetics” debate. You can’t actually pick a right side in that fight, because the sides have an elastic and overlapping relationship to one another. It is more a matter of local and specific calculations, and how different values are being put to work or combined at a given time and place than it is of right and wrong sides. Critics need specific historical arguments rather than overall theoretical defenses of “the aesthetic” or “the political” or whatever. Framing the matter in terms of sides tends to feed the unhelpful polarization and oscillation between the two, where, for instance, what is really a rejection of sloppy, superficial moralizing becomes conflated with an attack on any moral claims on art, in general.

That’s my three cents on that.

The cover of The Point, issue 30.

Holographic Media and Target Modernism

Two other things to read…

It’s a couple of months old now already, but I just caught this banger of an essay by Caroline Busta and Lil Internet (of New Models fame) on Outland, “Holographic Media.” Looking at the evolution of media—art-based and otherwise—Busta/Internet offer a kind of combined manifesto and prophecy of what comes next, spinning out the implications of the increasing realization that authentic-feeling culture has to exist outside of the big tech platforms if it is to survive.

There’s a lot in their analysis, from their prognosis that “community itself becomes a form of media” to their prediction of the great “Voiding of the Mid”: “Younger generations are already suffering from Mid-exhaustion as endless culture-warring and grandstanding didacticism have made “👏using 👏your👏voice” on social media seem extremely cringe.” It’s all worth chewing on.

Warhol-inspired products on view inside a pop-up Target. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/WireImage)

Finally, speaking of “the Mid”… check out Molly Osberg’s essay from July on art grads putting their skills to use in the alternate-universe art world dedicated to hotel and office art. Among other things, it teases out a telling turn towards “unique” experiences in mass-ified consumer design, and gives you the category of “Target modern” to think about. Above all, it’s a lot of fun:

These jobs are often to graft together art-world concepts—”modern,” “impressionistic”—and the kinds of adjectives brand managers favor like “gritty” or “airy” or “classic.” In less ambitious settings, the goal is to create something that telegraphs the idea of art without the potentially alienating qualities of an actual piece. Abstract works are popular for this reason: They communicate a vague sense of design history without much in the way of a specific point. Also, the piece has to complement a particular shade of paint.

La Grande Mistake

Just to see how it works, I’ve enabled Google’s A.I.-enabled Search queries—the giant corporation’s latest endeavor to slurp all the value of the internet into its own gullet, and leave as little as possible for anyone else. I find these A.I.-enabled little summaries mainly annoying.

But at least this query for Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte informs me of this huge piece of recent art-market news that I have somehow missed.

Page of Google A.I.-enabled search results for “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

A real loss for Chicago!

And even so, it looks like the Art Institute of Chicago got really ripped off. Because if I try again with Google’s A.I., it tells me that Seurat’s painting has been valued at a whopping $650 million!

Page of Google A.I.-enabled search results for “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

The very-specific number for the almost-certainly-priceless painting comes from a light-hearted and unscientific thought experiment in a post by Evan Beard, speculating on what the uber-rich might pay for major masterpieces. It illustrates Google A.I.’s habit of yoinking sources and remixing them in its own language—in this case stealing Beard’s fun speculations while mangling the fact that they were either fun or speculative.

Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.

Nearly five years in the making, a 12-meter-high confectionary has emerged on the grounds of the sprawling Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos (previously) designed an enormous “Wedding Cake” pavilion to sit near the 19th-century Dairy, which was built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to entertain guests, drawing on the location’s history of charming visitors and providing an architectural focal point within the expansive parkland.

“Wedding Cake” playfully avails itself of the architectural legacy of follies, a type of building constructed primarily for decoration, with famous examples like Marie Antoinette’s hamlet at Versailles or the Dunmore Pineapple in Scotland. Vasconcelos’ design was inspired by Baroque style, Waddesdon Manor’s reputation for events and hospitality, and the symbolism and traditions of the sweet treat through time.

Commissioned by the Rothschild Foundation, the three-layered cake is clad entirely in ornate ceramic tiles, a craft tradition rooted in Vasconcelos’ home in Lisbon. Pâtisserie-worthy adornments like fish diving into shell bowls and corniced platforms complement lacy ironwork and pastel hues. Part sculpture and part building, the immersive installation invites visitors to walk up winding inner stairwells and traipse around the tiers.

See more of the artist’s work on her website and Instagram. (via Dezeen)

Photo by Chris Lacey

Left: Photo by Lionel Balteiro. Right: Photo by Chris Lacey

Photo by Lionel Balteiro

Photo by Chris Lacey

Photo by Lionel Balteiro

Photo by Chris Lacey

Photo by Chris Lacey

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article A 12-Meter-High Wedding Cake by Joana Vasconcelos Rises From the Grounds of an English Estate appeared first on Colossal.

Paciolan will power a campus-wide platform for Mustang fans and Performing Arts Center patrons.

Irvine, CA — Paciolan, a renowned ticketing, marketing, and fundraising solutions provider for college athletics, has forged an exciting partnership with Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, to deliver a campus-centric ticketing system to serve events, the Performing Arts Center, and Mustang Athletics. The collaboration ushers in a new era of innovation and convenience through a streamlined mobile ticketing experience and customer engagement technologies.

“Cal Poly is thrilled to be utilizing Paciolan to improve the experience of all who attend an event on campus. Their team and product open many doors for us to provide the best possible support to our campus and community partners and excellent service to our customers,” said Ryan Gruss, Managing Director, Performing Arts Center San Luis Obispo.

Cal Poly aims to enhance the ticketing processes and overall experience for student activities and athletics events by embracing Paciolan’s comprehensive suite of solutions and offerings. By leveraging state-of-the-art technology, the university will deliver the latest ticketing advancements for their fans, patrons, and donors. Cal Poly will take advantage of Paciolan’s campus portal integration, enhanced online renewal and online subscription capabilities, providing university customers with an efficient, modern, and enjoyable experience.

Paciolan will also provide Cal Poly with marketing services to connect with fans and patrons through personalized digital campaigns encompassing search, social media, display, and video content. Paciolan’s digital marketing experts collaborate to design and implement highly effective strategies, elevating event visibility and driving ticket sales. Cal Poly is set to adopt Paciolan’s marketing automation solution, enabling the creation of personalized customer campaigns and automated communications that cater to the unique preferences of each patron.

With this new partnership, attendees will benefit from enhanced ticketing options, providing them with a user-friendly and efficient way to access events across the campus, whether it’s a thrilling Mustang Athletics game or a captivating performance at the Performing Arts Center.

“We are incredibly proud of our new partnership with Cal Poly. We are excited to bring innovative technology to empower Mustang Athletics and the Performing Arts Center, enabling them to access an integrated, campus-wide solution,” said Kim Damron, President of Paciolan, and LEARFIELD President of Digital and Technology.

Read the original release here.

Paciolan is a division of LEARFIELD, a media, data, and technology services leader in intercollegiate athletics. LEARFIELD also represents Cal Poly through CLC (licensing), Mustangs Sports Properties (multimedia rights), and SIDEARM Sports (website). Paciolan will power Cal Poly with an enhanced ticketing solution and modernized digital technologies alongside LEARFIELD’s additional divisions.

Lightning might never strike the same place twice, but in Chicago this last week, it did strike three spots at the same time.

During the early hours of July 29, a volatile storm rolled into the Midwestern city, and photographer Barry Butler hunkered down west of the skyline to watch the action. “The skyscrapers in our town were getting battered with lightning. I thought it was just a matter of time before all three of the main skyscrapers in Chicago got it simultaneously,” he told PetaPixel. “The storm was too active for not to happen.”

Around 12:30 a.m., Butler was proved right and snapped a photo of the bolts illuminating the summer sky and hitting the city’s three tallest buildings, including the John Hancock Center and Willis Tower. While capturing three strikes in a single shot is already rare, this photo is even more stunning considering that, due to Lake Michigan, most storms wane or change direction before reaching downtown.

Find more images from the storm on Butler’s Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Three Bolts of Lightning Simultaneously Strike the Chicago Skyline During a Wild Summer Storm appeared first on Colossal.