The Artist’s Digital Toolkit: Part 4
October 14, 2011 at 8:21 pm Michael Royce 4 comments
Online Exhibition
My earlier posts in this series have focused on new ways that artists are utilizing digital resources in order to network, collaborate, and fundraise. With the planning stages complete, the work done, and the objet d’art realized, many artists turn to traditional outlets for exhibition of their work. Whether that means submitting an updated portfolio to galleries, applying to competitions, or performing your work at a local venue, the primary goal is to get as many people as possible to engage with your art in a meaningful way.
The evolution of digital media has made it increasingly easy to broadcast your artistic message to anyone with internet access. Consequently it has also made it difficult to cut through the noise and generate significant, continued interest in any single event.
Below are some of the resources and trends that emerging artists are using to help promote themselves and their art.
Online Galleries
Initially optimistic given the plethora of search results for “online art gallery,” I quickly realized that most of these websites are little more than thumbnail warehouses. Little if any attention is paid to the display of the images and there is no sense of space or curatorial critique. The few innovative sites I came across represent early stages of what may well represent a unique opportunity at the intersection of digital media and art.
Culturehall, one of the more established online resources, is a “curated online resource for contemporary art where selected artists can share their work with curators, gallerists, collectors and other artists.” The site holds periodic juried applications where artists are asked to submit work for consideration in upcoming ‘issues.’ Once accepted, the artist is given web space as part of the online, curated exhibit where she can upload and display photographs of work. Fortunately, Culturehall has managed to cultivate a unique and consistent aesthetic, well-suited to online art exhibitions.
Light, Space & Time is another online gallery featuring rotating exhibitions of digital editions of works. This model differs slightly from Culturehall in that their exhibitions are billed as competitions with the winning works gaining more notable exposure and marketing. While this may be the case, the exhibition losses much of the curatorial interest since it results in a “Top 5” scenario rather than a carefully curated space.
Vimeo offers a freemium resource for video artists and musicians to upload and share high-quality digital video files. While the site is free to use for anyone, there is a weekly upload limit for free users. Last year, Vimeo hosted a two-day festival in New York featuring professional development programs, panel discussions, screenings, and awards. The site also attempts to foster an online community where video artists collaborate on projects and share information about upcoming events.
Despite the few spaces online dedicated to a provocative and informative exhibition of (pictures of) art, there appears to be significant room for improvement, With related projects like Google’s Art Project and the Smithsonian Institute’s virtual exhibitions, we can expect to see more ambitious and creative manifestations of online exhibitions in the near future.
Crowd Sourcing Shows
An interesting application of one of the tools mentioned in an earlier post is using crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo as tools for market research in planning a tour. This was one of the original uses of crowd funding platforms when the British rock band Marillion used crowd funding principles to finance and plan its 1996 US tour. More recently, Arianna Huffington used crowdsourcing to help plan and organize portions of her Third World America book tour. The crowdsourcing model can be used effectively to gauge interest in certain markets and to pre-sell records, tickets, prints, in order to raise money up front.
NeuvoStage is service built specifically for this purpose. Bands and performers are able to search for prospective venues and dates and propose potential shows. If the show gains enough pledged support through the site, the band is awarded the contract and books the gig. The site, still in its nascent stages, only offers a few venues in Boston but has intriguing potential for growth.
Embracing Piracy
Brian Newman had an interesting post on his blog about how the film industry in China has started adjusting to the rampant piracy of new films. Instead of relying only on sales from opening night tickets sales, filmmakers are increasingly using product placement in films as a means to finance production. Though this may help curb the profit losses from piracy, it remains to be seen whether this practice poses issues for the artistic integrity of new films.
Interestingly, it is precisely this artistic integrity that led the video artist Nina Paley to embrace ‘piracy’ as a distribution method for one of her films. The difficulties she faced in securing rights for music used in her 2008 film, Sita Sings the Blues, caused her to offer the movie as a free download. This unorthodox distribution method not only opens her film to a wider audience, but Paley has also managed to make money from donations.
Though there are hundreds of new resources for emerging artists to promote their work online, it appears that we have only begun to scrape the surface of the possibilities. Online exhibition gives us not only an opportunity to re-imagine our physical relationship to art but also poses fascinating and important questions about copyright, ownership, and artificial intelligence. Will there come a time when online exhibitions are competitive with live shows? What kinds of implications might this have for the art world? Do you use digital and online resources to share, promote, or exhibit your work?
In my next post, I will examine how emerging artists are using the internet and digital resources to sell their art…
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Entry filed under: Digital Culture, General Arts News, Professional Development. Tags: Art, Artist, Professional Development, Social Media, Technology.
1.
coachforbusinessperformance | November 1, 2011 at 4:56 pm
This is very interesting blog. I like it.
2.
Rachel S. | November 9, 2011 at 5:16 pm
I’m on Culture Hall’s e-mail list and got their recent one, which was a call to artists for their online exhibit. As I read further, I found there was a $35 charge to have your work considered. There’s no indication of what that $35 goes toward and it makes me suspicious when fees are charged. Like most grants and competitions of one sort or another, the competition is fierce and the numbers are often stacked against you. In the case of Culture Hall, they will pick 4 artists. How many more artists will spend $35 for their chance to win?
It seems like there are more and more online opportunities for artists that charge fees. Are they simply money-making schemes taking advantage of artists eager to find a venue to show their work? I don’t know, but it’s certainly not unheard of.
I chose not to pay for the opportunity to be featured on Culture Hall. My money can be better spent!
3.
Amy Davila | February 1, 2012 at 5:52 pm
I love this blog because these are not only good resources for artists but anyone interested in art and wants to learn more about the complexities of the art world. Please share more!
4.
felicia Belair-Rigdon | February 13, 2012 at 7:10 pm
I believe NY Artists Equity does not approve of fees being charged for shows – that being said, every one does it.