Reaching New Art Markets Online By

The internet has created a new first rung on the art market ladder for art buyers, emerging and unrepresented artists. Reaching New Art Markets Online helps artists make sense of the growing online art market and the many different marketing platforms and sales models available.

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Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 The potential of the online art market.................................................................................................. 3 The audience..................................................................................................................................... 3 The Internet’s Long Tail..................................................................................................................... 9 The elephant in the room ............................................................................................................... 11 Structure of the art market ................................................................................................................. 11 Offline Art Market ........................................................................................................................... 12 Online Art Market ........................................................................................................................... 13 Online support for offline models ............................................................................................... 13 Offline Models adapted for online use ....................................................................................... 14 New Online Only Models ............................................................................................................ 18 A new future for the online art market ............................................................................................... 21 Discover art online, view art offline ................................................................................................ 21 Listening to the public..................................................................................................................... 22 Accessing and utilising the Long Tail ............................................................................................... 23 To Conclude ........................................................................................................................................ 31

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Introduction Reaching New Art Markets Online is based on a lecture series that has now been toured by Visual Art Trader at over 40 UK universities between 2012 and 2014. The lecture is constantly evolving and changing to keep up with the dynamic growth of the market. This is the latest version as of February 2014.

The potential of the online art market The internet already offers great potential to the already established art market. The Hiscox report’s findings were based on the responses from 101 art buyers surveyed through ArtTactic’s client database, and a further 130 established art collectors (those that spend over £75k pa on art) as well as 58 international art galleries. Of the galleries it questioned 89% said they had sold art unseen, based just on a jpeg or from their website. Of those, 72% were new clients to them. As the report says, “this signals a significant opportunity for traditional galleries to engage and build new audiences online.” When asked what was important about buying art online 86% said that buying from a reputable source such as a well-known gallery was vital. Again as the report points out “this suggests that the traditional galleries and auction houses, with an already established reputation, have a great advantage versus many of the new online-only players.” This report offers a very encouraging online future for those in the established art market that are able to build on their reputations. However these figures only highlight the growing trend for consumers to shop around online and do not necessarily reflect any significant art market growth. Where the online art market shows the most potential for growth is in its ability to support artists who have yet to build a reputation and gain regular gallery representation, and in its ability to draw in a new audience of buyers disenfranchised and alienated by the established art market.

The audience The Arts Council’s most recent survey into the art market was in 2004: “Taste Buds, How to cultivate the art market”. The report made a startling discovery; it found that “there is the potential to more than double the size of the market for original art – that is, double the number of people who own any original art” (figure 1).

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Figure 1

There are more potential, or as we call them emerging buyers, than there are existing buyers. So what are the six million emerging buyers waiting for? Taste Buds’ key findings are very clear in their blame of the art markets inability to cater for this huge potential audience. It doesn’t blame the artists or the buyers but the way in which art is currently marketed and sold. The following four key findings raise this problem and in so doing highlight some areas where the internet might be able to offer a viable alternative solution for attracting this potential audience. Key finding: “It is the sector itself which is contributing to the current smallness of the collector base” What makes up the sector? In today’s art market the commercial gallery is the dominant sales model. According to Taste Buds, 80% of the art market is made up of commercial galleries. Now this figure doesn’t include art fairs, which are made up of commercial galleries. Taking into consideration all art outlets that use the same commission-based retail model as the commercial galleries, the figure raises to 97%! By contrast online 4

platforms are less reliant on commission based retail sales models, which can therefore offer the sector some much needed diversity. Key finding: “The way in which contemporary art is sold, rather than the art itself, can deter the potential market.”

So how is art sold? Firstly 97% of the market uses the sales commission model. Does the commission based sales model raise the price of emerging art too high for emerging buyers? There is access online to genuinely emerging artists whose values have yet to be established by the market and therefore whose prices are yet to be inflated by sales commissions.

Secondly 80% of the market sells art using the physical space of a gallery. Are gallery locations convenient or numerous enough? A report by Art & Business found that 27% of those not attending museums and galleries said it was because “they didn’t have the time”. Online platforms offer a very convenient method for vetting art first before viewing it. Also are audiences alienated by the galleries’ “white cube effect”? It is often mentioned that the atmosphere of a gallery can be intimidating and uneasy. Online there is no institutional atmosphere.

Key finding: “Conventions within the visual arts sector are also responsible for the underdevelopment of the market rather than alleged philistine tendencies on the part of the public.”

What could these conventions be? Is the gallery as tastemaker still required? In today’s world is their role as tastemaker patronizing? People have very differing tastes. Anything can be found online to match all artistic tastes, whereas galleries are limited often to their specialist areas.

Key finding: “The process of legitimisation by which critically engaged art aspires to attract `subscription’ is predicated upon ultimate rarity. Therefore, the subscription system can be seen to be incompatible with market development.”

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Subscription is the accumulation of endorsements from the art world in order to create a rare luxury product. It is an elitist system that implies the existence of the “perfect” artwork at the top. The online art market acknowledges that in the shifting sands of taste and opinion anything can stand at the top, depending on the artwork and your point of view. The online art market has the potential to offer a pluralist or populist outlook on art following open market forces, rather than the restrictive elitist view. The online art world has the potential to be a democratic art community. Empowering the public as tastemakers will create a culture more representative of all society, not just the Curator Class.

So why has nothing been done about this before? Well here are two more key findings from Taste Buds:

Key finding: “Resistance to market development is generally veiled by an unfounded assertion that the public in England does not respond well to contemporary art.”

…and as a result…

Key finding: “Hardly any dealers or suppliers have tested the current assumptions and assertions about the market by trying to develop it.”

The internet represents an opportunity for the art market to reach out to a new audience of emerging buyers and to test the “current assumption and assertions”. An “Emerging Buyer” is not just someone who buys artworks by “Emerging Artists”; established collectors buy artworks by emerging artists too. An emerging buyer is similar to an emerging artists, they are both at the beginning of their careers, in the emerging buyers case their collecting career. It is likely however that emerging buyers will more often buy from emerging or unrepresented artists, because primarily they are more affordable. The Art Market Pyramid (figure 2) is a very simple visual representation of the hierarchical structure of the art market.

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Figure 2

The further up the pyramid you go the more money there is in the market, but the smaller the market becomes. The market is made up of all visual artists and both established collectors and emerging buyers. Above the red line there is an established market with an established audience of buyers supporting that market. Below the red line there is no established market of buyers. The line is positioned just under regional galleries to acknowledge that some temporary sales models do contribute to the establish art market (e.g. competitions, degree shows, studio events). Gaining exposure to the established market is the goal of every artist. It is not possible for every artist to climb the ladder because as you ascend the size of the market’s audience diminishes; it is also not possible for all emerging buyers as they become established collectors to move up the pyramid because prices of artworks also increase as you progress up the pyramid. Just as there are artists unable to gain access to the established market so too are there potential audiences unable to gain access, currently estimated at 5.9 million in the UK.

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The internet if correctly integrated into the working practices of artists’ offers a potential new model for buying art that might just appeal to this new audience of emerging buyers and lower that red line, and ultimately provide an income for more emerging artists. This is vital for the growth of the rest of the market too. Key finding: “Collectors evolve gradually as collectors of innovative contemporary art. Many start by buying accessible work and become more interested in innovative, critically engaged work as their knowledge and discernment grows, often through mentoring.” The online world will become a stepping stone into the rest of the art market; it is the first rung on the ladder. In time some emerging buyers will want to climb up the ladder. The art market has expanded rapidly twice before in its history. The first time was during the enlightenment of the 18th and 19th century, when Salons dominated. Then in the late 19th and 20th century with the emergence of modernism and the avant-garde, the Salons were replaced by the commercial gallery, and a second expansion of the art market took place. These expansions were possible due to the large increases in the number of educated and wealthy Bourgeoisie, and were also facilitated by a change in how art was sold, affecting why, what and by whom art was bought.

Figure 3

Today we are better educated and wealthier than ever before (figure 3). The internet offers the art market an opportunity to find a new retail model, one capable attracting a new 21st century audience of emerging buyers and of kick start a third expansion.

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The Internet’s Long Tail While the UK high streets feel the pinch the UK’s online sales are in rude health (figure 4).

Figure 4

The future of the internet is secure; its influence in society will only grow. The Arts have adapted. Many have changed their retail models to cater for the new audiences emerging through the online market. In 2012 for the first time both the US and the UK music industry reported that digital sales out performed physical sales thanks to online platforms like iTunes and Amazon. These figures don’t take into account streaming on YouTube and subscription services such as Spotify. In 2011 eBooks had 6% of the literature market by value; in 2012 this had risen to 22%. The performing arts (film and theatre) have multiple downloading and streaming platforms. DVD rental stores are a thing of the past. Large cultural shifts are taking place as a result of this new accessibility and affordability. This has been achieved by retail models that have used the internet’s ability to allow a user access to their market’s Long Tail (figure 5).

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Figure 5

In traditional retail, you have the 80/20 rule, with 20 percent of the products accounting for 80 percent of the revenue. Online, instead, there is the "98 percent rule." Where 98 percent of all the possible choices get chosen by someone, and where the 90 percent that is only available online accounts for half the revenue and two-thirds of the profits. Amazon claim that half of its book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. How many traditional high street bookshops can claim to stock 130,000 titles! Blockbuster stores on average used to hold 3000 movies. Netflix has 75,000 titles and 40 million global users. Judging by Amazon’s success with books, one can only start to imagine how many titles outside the top 3,000 Netflix must rent. Online people are going deep into the catalogue, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster, HMV, and Waterstones. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).

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The same could be true for the Visual Art Market. Galleries only push a small proportion of available art. Unfortunately the Visual Art Market is lagging a long way behind. According to the report “The Online Art Trade 2013” by Hiscox Insurance and ArtTactic, online sales made up just 1.6% ($870m) of the global art market in 2012 ($56bn).

The elephant in the room The visual art industry has been slow to adapt primarily because of its medium. For the mediums of the visual arts such as painting and sculpture (but not digital editions) the internet remains a barrier to experiencing the medium, as Matthew Caines of the Guardian’s Culture Professionals Network explains: “Buying and experiencing art is about being up close: the minute details of texture and brush stroke; that initial visceral reaction; vivid colours you can't appreciate on a print-off; the size, scale and even smell – how could buying art digitally recreate that magic?” Developments in 3D screen technology and virtual reality goggles will only ever partially offer a solution. Digital art circumnavigates this problem, because when you view your potential purchase you are viewing it in its correct digital medium, the digital medium in which you will later display it. Nothing gets lost in translation from the offline to the online and back again. The majority of established collectors and emerging buyers would not consider buying other mediums of the visual arts online, unseen. The Hiscox’s report noted that of those not buying art online, 79% said it was because they were not able to inspect the artwork before purchase.

The visual art market must find a way of integrating the internet, one that allows for traditional visual art mediums to be found online and then viewed and bought offline. The aim of Reaching New Art Markets Online is to not only put forward a solution to this problem but to also emphasise the essential role the internet can play in expanding the art market by reaching new audiences.

Structure of the art market To find a new online retail model capable of significantly expanding the art market it is necessary to analyse current online retail models and to understand their relationships with offline retail models (figure 6).

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Figure 6

The art market can be divided initially in two: Primary sales and secondary sales. Secondary sales are the resale market. For example a gallery like Messum’s on Cork Street who specialise in British Art from 1750 to the present day. And there are of course auction houses. With the exception of Hirst’s infamous sale at Christie’s London in 2008, auctions focus on the secondary market, and on the very top performing artists. Taste Bud’s report and Reaching New Art Markets Online are interested in the primary market, in other words ‘first time sales’. With the emergence of the internet the primary art market can now be divided into two: The offline art market and the online art market.

Offline Art Market Art galleries we all know, they are currently the dominant model and are structured around charging commission on sales and closely selecting the art on display. Galleries are and always will be the top players in the art market pyramid, something to aspire to both as an artist and as a collector.

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Art Fairs have gone from strength to strength. In 1970, there were just three main international events (Cologne, Basel and the Brussels-based Art Actuel), in 2005 there were 68 and by 2011 189. Their popularity stems from the convenience of being able to find art in one location. Something the online art market can offer its audiences too. Competitions such as Discerning Eye in the Mall Galleries London, are excellent ways to gain exposure, sales and if artists do well in the competition, recognition too. Framers/print galleries: Great commercial option for artists with prints of their work. Temporary exhibitions in temporary spaces such as degree shows and regional studio open day events make up a very small part of the established art market, but they do still contribute. The Studio, shed, workshop, garage, spare room, whatever an artist calls the space where they create art, is in effect a permanent exhibition of their work, and makes an ideal location to view their work.

Online Art Market The online art market can be divided into three types depending on the retail models they employ. Online support for offline models

The role of this group is to support the offline business (e.g. www.whitecube.com, www.affordableartfair.com and www.discerningeye.org). The Hiscox’s report found that of those who bought art online 49% had bought from a gallery website and 45% from an auction website. However half the galleries surveyed stated that the percentage of their overall sale made up by online sales currently accounted for less than 10%. Generally these websites do not generate sales from new clients but rather are a marketing tool to support and manage existing client base. Half the galleries surveyed said that the lack of a relationship was the major obstacle for clients buying online. These websites act as mobile portfolios, platforms for announcing exhibitions, and a channel for correspondence. Sales are conducted through the main business rather than online. If this wasn’t the case, then the company would drop its offline enterprise and all its expensive overheads, becoming online only. Artists’ personal websites are the online back up for their studios. Like the other

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websites they are an essential marketing tool for keeping an existing client base informed. However unlike the other venues studios are unable to generate large numbers of new clients and so traffic to personal websites will be low. It is very hard for individual artist to generate the presence and traffic required to be at the top of a search engines results page. Buyers tend to only find an artist’s website if they already know about them from offline activities. To maximise sales online artists need to group together, to become a known destination for those looking for art. The next two branches of the online art market offer this opportunity to artists. Offline Models adapted for online use

These are sales models and marketing platforms that exist solely online. They have no presence offline. These online models are based on the structure and operating procedures of offline models, mimicking how they run, how they select art for sale and how they sell it. Online Galleries currently dominate the online art market, a quick look online will show you that. In the Hiscox’s report 66% of its collectors said they had bought art online. Of those, 26% had bought art from an online only gallery. Not all online galleries operate exactly the same but like their offline counterparts they either charge a commission on sales or curate their art, or both. It is because of this reliance on the traditional gallery business model that they find themselves categorised as they are (figure 7).

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Figure 7

With the exception of S[edition] that specialises in digital prints, Axisweb, which is more of an industry resource and networking tool than a sales platform, and Degree Art which has expanded offline, the medium scale to large scale online art galleries face a big problem generating loyalty. It is all too easy for the audience to use one of these online galleries to find art and then use the internet to circumnavigate the commission by contacting the artist directly. Online galleries often try and encourage artists to make sales through their sites by offering a sales performance rating, but the truth is online galleries do not command the same loyalty as traditional offline galleries because they don’t support artists’ careers in the same way with private views, good contacts and dedicated sales teams. In the offline world artists should always pass on any sales enquiries received to the gallery hosting their exhibition because it shows the gallery they are commercially viable, which will encourage the gallery to exhibit them again in the future. Passing online sales enquiries back to the online gallery would appear to make little difference. This might explain why in part Degree

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Art, which initially started solely online in 2003, decided to open a gallery in London in 2008. Their expansion also highlights how alike the online and offline gallery models are. The floored nature of the online gallery model is of no concern to artists as they can effectively squat on these sites for free. However there are three consequences of lazily dragging the gallery’s commission retail model online that should be of concern to artists. Firstly not many buyers will purchase art online unseen. Online galleries are financed by sales commissions which mean they have to mediate the sale. The result is that the first time a buyer sees an artwork is when it is delivered. This ridiculous situation is made worse by the fact that artists are expected to cover the cost of returning artworks and of course artworks could well get damaged during transit. Why won’t the online galleries cover the cost of returns? Are there too many? Secondly unlike traditional offline galleries the necessity to sell artists’ works is not vital to the survival of online galleries because they are able to generate additional revenue through external advertising. This is possible because of the large traffic generated by the artists taking advantage of the free membership. Finally artists cannot employ two agents on commission at the same time. What if an artist sold an artwork through an online gallery while it was on display in a traditional gallery? Who gets the commission? This conflict requires artists to remove, or mark as sold, artworks that are online just when they need to be online for promotional purposes! Gallery listing platforms and Online Auctions Galleries need to group together online just as artists do. The online auction and gallery listing platforms are predominantly designed to help the established western art market break down geographical boundaries enabling galleries to reach new wealthy audiences in the ‘B.R.I.C. Block’ (Brazil, Russia, India and China). They act like art fairs, grouping galleries together in one convenient location. Gallery listings platforms only exist online despite the galleries and museums they represent being offline. Paddle8.com is a virtual auction site with traditional auctions and daily “flash” auctions. It was launched in May 2011 after $4million of investment and has forged relationships with known brands: Armory Show, Nada Miami Beach. In 2012 bought online auction house Blacklots. In June 2013 secured $6 million in a new round of funding from a consortium of investors including art world luminaries Damien Hirst and White Cube gallery owner Jay 16

Jopling, along with the Mellon family, Alexander von Furstenberg, international luxury brand Mousse Partners, and venture capital firm Founder Collective. Princess Eugenie the Queen of England’s granddaughter will be joining their New York team before moving back to London when their new offices open. Online profiles are slowly rising! Artsy.net is a gallery listing site and was launched in 2012 after $7.5 million of investment. Galleries pay Artsy a 3% commission. It has been capturing headlines thanks to its complex “Gene” algorithm that recommends similar artworks to buyers and because of its big name backers: Larry Gagosian, Wendi Deng (Rupert Murdoch’s wife), Dasha Zhukova (collector) and Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder). VIPArt.com was launched in 2011 and follows the art fair model the closest. Galleries buy online booths, from which they promote and sell their art. Unlike traditional fairs this “fair” is open all year round. In April 2013 it was acquired by Artspace. Artspace.com launched March 2011 after $3.7million of investment. At the beginning of 2013 it has received a further $8.5 million investment. Artspace is an ecommerce platform that acts as an online marketplace for high-end art. Its inventory has grown from $7 million worth of art at its launch to $100 million worth of art by the beginning of 2013. Again aligned with powerful art world players: David Zwimer, White Cube, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Amazonart.com is the most recent and most high profile addition to the online art world. Launched in August 2013 it is working with 150 galleries to help promote their artists work (e.g. Degree Art, Rise Art and Paddle 8). Print on demand They sell every form of merchandising available. From posters to canvas prints, from postcards to calendars, for example Artflakes.com. Merchandising offers a great way for artists to supplement their income. Most print on demand websites are free to join and once artworks are uploaded the website will handle all the logistics from there on: payments, printing and shipping. Artists simply get their percentage from the sales at the end of the month. To give two very obvious examples, both Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami, two of the world’s biggest living artists have made full use of the gift shops 17

provided for them by galleries and museums. It in no way undermines an artist’s work. It is a benefit, a very real way of promoting your art to others. The two negative aspects of these sites are that they only work in reproductions, so no originals, which cuts out the 6 million potential emerging buyers highlighted in the Art Council’s report, and the other problem for artists is there is no contact with the buyer, so no opportunity to build mailing list. New Online Only Models

The following three models are new to the art market and unique to the online art market. They all developed to work with the internet. However both social media and crowd funding are not sales platforms. Social Media Sales

Emerging buyers wouldn’t think to go on Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter to buy art. Much like an artist’s personal website social media is another way to manage an existing client base. Unlike personal websites social media has a much better viral reach, and as such can help artists reach outside their immediate network to establish new contacts. Just to highlight the question marks hanging over the viability of social networking’s sales ability it is worth looking at ArtStack, a purpose built social art networking group. It has been described as “Facebook for the soul.” On ArtStack users create networks of friends by sharing their favourite works of art, “stacking” them into personal online collections. In an interview with the Art Newspaper the site’s co-founder Ezra Konvitz points out their uncertain sales future: “We want to stay focused on making sure that people like using ArtStack, then we will work it out. If no one likes ‘stacking’, then it doesn’t matter how good a business plan we have.” Crowd Funding

Like social media emerging buyers wouldn’t think to go on a crowd funding website to buy art. However it could become more relevant if more installation and performance artists were to use it as a way of seeking private funding through the commodification of their artwork rather than relying on state funding. Buyers might be tempted to back the installation if they were to be rewarded with some limited edition merchandise or memorabilia. It could also prove useful in raising funds for exhibitions such as degree shows. Possible incentives could be an exclusive RCA Secrets inspired postcard sale for backers.

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Online Art Directories

Unlike crowd funding and social media online art directories are designed specifically for the visual art market, with the purpose of selling existing works of art as well generating future commissions. Online Art Directories differ from the other online models because in two crucial ways. 1. No Commission a. No contract or exclusivity rights. Artists are able to sell their images on any number of websites or through any number of galleries, and promote any exhibitions they may be in. b. Lower prices for emerging artists. This means that emerging artists whose prices are influx at the beginning of their careers can price their art a lower more attainable level for emerging buyers. Artists who have had their market prices set as the result of regular gallery sales get to keep the commission they might otherwise have had to pass on. c. Direct contact between the artist and the audience, a very important innovation for two reasons: Firstly artist and buyer handle the sale which leads to more control, understanding, and trust and hopefully fun. Secondly the most important innovation of them all because it allows for artworks to be viewed in the real world before purchase.

2. No Vetting – democratic selection policy a. Diversity, variety and choice of art for sale increases, appealing to a wider audience of tastes. b. Power to the people. Public curate their own galleries. The public creates their curatorial programme. A disenfranchised buyer often states “I know what I like.” The technology of the internet allows them to curate a gallery of the art they want, based on their own tastes and their own ideas. Visual Art Trader believes that if an artist sees fit to hold something up as Art, from paintings of kittens and clowns to ready-made sculptures and interventions, then there will be an audience somewhere that agrees. The role of the art market is to bring these two groups together. An egalitarian selection policy is integral to fulfilling this role. 19

c. Quality is regulated naturally by open market forces. Therefore reputations are not manipulated by dealers, online art directories attain a natural integrity that the public responds well to, desires and respects. Conceptual artists should not worry about their work sharing a website with paintings of kittens and clowns. The search system only brings back similar artworks. Therefore artists should fear there direct competitors as it is them whom they will be judged against. Buyers will also have no dealer to hide behind, the choices they make will be there own. Figure 8 is a small cross section of some of the different types of online art directories.

Figure 8 Online Art Networks

Online art directories were the first platforms for the sale of art online, predating online galleries. Their initial success was their ability to offer a cost effective method for artists to create an online portfolio. That role has diminished as the production of personal websites have become cheaper and easier. Their role as a sales platform has also been diminished by 20

the growth of online galleries. Online Art Networks are an evolution of the Online Art Directory. Taking the very best of parts of online art directories (no commission and no vetting) and utilising them to work more closely with the established offline art market. Online Art Networks like Visual Art Trader offer a new future for the online art market.

A new future for the online art market The following three sections highlight how Visual Art Trader is engaging with audiences to create a new future for the art market.

Discover art online, view art offline To attract new audiences, artworks for sale online need to be available to be viewed offline, in traditional galleries and studios but also in venues that engage with the audience on their terms, and in their time and space. Only a small proportion will buy art “unseen”. Most will want to view it face to face first. Creating the connection between the online and offline world is vital to engaging the audience. Pop-up exhibitions in public venues

At the European Union’s Culture in Motion conference in October 2012, 800 senior cultural practitioners from around Europe came together to consider audience development and public engagement. Here is an extract from a review of the event by one of the attendees Rich Hadley, who is the Coordinator and Founder of Audiences Europe Network: “One of the most striking aspects of the gathering was the simple realisation that it is probably buildings which most get in the way of public engagement with culture. Out on the streets, in unexpected places and at odd times of day, fantastic art has the power to interrupt people’s routines and create moments of illumination, meaning and life-enhancing shared experience. Crossing the thresholds of theatres, galleries and libraries is sometimes a daunting experience, and it is also for many people, tinged with long-time associations and memories, not always pleasing or fulfilling.” Visual Art Trader organises, and encourages artists to organise pop-up exhibitions in their local restaurants, bars, cafes, delis, pubs etc. They can be easily found on our interactive art exhibitions map. These friendly and informal exhibition spaces take art to the public, and allow them to view the art on their terms, in convenient locations free from the intimidating

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forces of the white cube. It is vital for art to be seen in the real world and this is a great way to not only achieve this but to also promote the group. This practice has been carried out by artists throughout history, for example Andy Warhol displaying his work at the New York café Serendipity 3 in the late 1950’s. Visual Art Trader hopes to legitimise this form of exhibition and bring it back to the public’s attention. With the support of Visual Art Trader behind them, artists will hopefully find public venues more willing to display art. Vacant venues awaiting displays will also remain on the map helping artists to find new spaces for their work. Open studios

An artist’s studio, shed, workshop, garage, spare room, whatever they call the space where their art is created and stored, is the ideal location to view the artist’s work! It is in effect a permanent exhibition of their work, so we encourage all artists to list their studios on our interactive map to invite the public to view by appointment. Listing studios on Visual Art Trader as permanent exhibitions means the public know they can always view the art if they want to. With no middleman open studios can help foster relationships between artists and buyers, and also enable buyers to see more of the artist’s works in the flesh. Big annual or bi-annual open studio events are disruptive to an artist’s routine. Listing studios does not require any special change in routine; buyers prefer to see the natural side of the studio, to witness the natural genesis of the artist’s works. Open studios also enable artists to more efficiently network with other local artists.

Listening to the public Artists can engage further with audiences by listening to their expectations, limitations, requirements and demands. Artists have access to the public’s search patterns on Visual Art Trader. It is apparent that audiences do tend to buy art of a certain size and price. Paul Durand-Ruel one of the founding fathers of the modern commercial gallery and the man responsible for the initial commercial success of Impressionism (he organised the first Impressionist exhibition back in 1874), encouraged his impressionist artists to paint smaller paintings so they could fit on the smaller walls of less wealthy collectors! Artists can use the data to help value their art and potentially influence other factors such as size and even content. Studying user search patterns can help artists avoid potentially expensive follies, while also possibly appealing to the public. This is a very controversial development. On the 22

one hand it can be seen as a development of Relational Aesthetics however on the other it could be construed as rampant commercialism. Either way the one positive of this concept is that artists do have the ability should they wish to listen to their audience, which may be seen as a welcoming gesture by previously alienated audiences. It does also bring fresh impetuous to the debate surrounding artistic influences. At what point does an artist listen to their audience, and at what point do they stand alone? We are currently in an era where artistic development has taken an interest in quasi-Situationist nostalgia for ideas of collectivity, collaboration, participation and relational aesthetics. By going online and offering search pattern analysis the art market is mirroring this development. It will encourage a large audience to become involved in the visual arts, to interact, participate and possibly influence future developments in the visual arts.

Accessing and utilising the Long Tail To engage with art through an online sales platform audiences need an easy and intuitive search system for accessing art. The homepage of Spotify could features Britney Spears. Next to the listings of her work is a box of "similar artists." Among them is Pink. If you click on that and are pleased with what you hear, you may do the same for Pink's similar artists, which include No Doubt. And on No Doubt's page, the list includes a few "followers" and "influencers," the last of which includes the Selecter, a 1980s ska band from Coventry, England. In three clicks, Spotify may have enticed a Britney Spears fan to try an album that can hardly be found in a record store (figure 9).

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Spotify does this with a combination of human editors and genre guides. On Netflix 60% of rentals come from recommendations. Amazon employs collaborative filtering, which uses the browsing and purchasing patterns of users to guide those who follow them ("Customers who bought this also bought ..."). In each of these three cases, the aim is the same: Use recommendations to drive demand down the Long Tail. The gallery listing site Artsy employs a similar system with its Genome Project, a complicated algorithm to push artwork recommendations at users. In addition to the gene algorithm Artsy also uses a standard artwork search. This is by far the most effective method of driving traffic down visual art’s long tail and is employed by all online sales platforms. Listing artworks online for an audience to find requires data basing the individual attributes of visual art into clearly defined categories that are easy and intuitive for users to understand. Some attributes are easier to define and categorise than others, for example: Price, Size, Medium, Support, Location, Edition size and whether it is framed or not, they are all fairly self-explanatory. However defining the content (the object, the subject and the style) of visual artworks takes a little more thought. The object is what is depicted in the artwork, for example: animals, mountains, the human body, food etc. This is a fairly selfexplanatory task to carry out, as is defining an artwork’s subject, its meaning or the idea behind it, and would include for example: romance, death, politics, religion, the surreal etc. Defining style categories however is far more challenging prospect. Style or visual style is defined by how an artwork “looks”. For example when two separate artworks of similar medium and size portray the same object, the object never looks the same (unless it is a reproduction or forgery). This difference is caused by artist’s individual perception of how objects should look. This difference is Visual Style. Traditionally different visual styles have been defined and categorised by the chronology of art movements (the “isms”, e.g. Cubism, Impressionism, Fauvism and so on), rather than by visual art’s unique and defining feature, that it is visual. When style is shoe horned into a history of art based on the chronology of movements it becomes confusing (figure 10).

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Figure 10: Alfred Barr, Cubism and Abstraction, MoMA, 1936 Describing the art you want can be very difficult if you don’t know the language of art history and all its defining “isms”. For example not everyone will know about impressionism in the same way not all Europeans will know about the Chinese scroll style Gong-bi, meaning "meticulous", or the looser ink and wash painting style of Shui-mo. The first task therefore when

data basing visual style is to categorise it by its primary defining feature, how it looks, and then by its chronology. Visual Art Trader has created four intuitive style categories that allow audiences to find art based upon what they see, rather than what they know. Representational Art

In this category the intention of the artist and the focus of the artwork are on imitating objects accurately. The artist does not use the materials to add any expressive or visually stylistic qualities to alter the object's form.

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Semi-representational Art

In this category the intention of the artist and the focus of the artwork are no longer solely on imitating objects accurately but also to add expressive and visually stylistic qualities. Through the use of materials the objects portrayed in the artwork are still clearly recognisable, but their forms will differ in appearance from the objects' in reality.

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Semi-Abstract Art

In this category the intention of the artist and the focus of the artwork are no longer on the imitation of objects but on the distortion of the objects' forms and the creation of new forms. Forms are observed and then converted into patterns which are read by the spectator primarily as independent relationships, however visual references remain that give clues to the original source.

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Abstract Art

In this category the artwork will no longer imitates objects, instead it has become an object in its own right. Any object that the artwork may have been based on is no longer discernible. The intention of the artist is to create new unique forms.

The borders between all these categories are not clear cut, they are blurred. In due course Visual Art Trader will be offering a more sophisticated search that will incorporate global historical art movements based around the four new style categories (figure 11).

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Figure 11: The Global Style Wheel The style wheel is based on the principles of the four visual style categories, but they are now no longer clearly divided. New sub categories have been developed, which in turn are further divided up by traditional movements and styles from the History of Art. The borders have been replaced by a graduation of styles. The wheel enables the traditional movement categories such as Impressionism and Cubism to be included. The Visual Style Wheel will hopefully offer, and eventually come to represent, a new simpler understanding of how style works in the visual arts. For more information on Visual Art Trader’s style categories, the style border between representational art and abstract art, how we account for western art history in a global 30

ahistorical model, and for an intuitive and practical application of semiotics please read our essay: Data Basing Visual Art: Establishing a global framework for visual style.

To Conclude The internet represents a very exciting opportunity to change how art is sold, to bring diversity to the art market and to offer a previously alienated audience an accessible stepping stone into the art market. Online art directories like Visual Art Trader that enable art to be found online, then viewed and bought offline will have a pivotal role to play; they represent the logical path for the visual art market to follow online.

Combine the time saving efficiency of the internet with an educated public confident in their artistic tastes, and change becomes not only essential but inevitable. The art market’s reliance on galleries and the commission based system while it supports and will continue to support the top of the art market, is strangling growth at the base of the art market. If visual art wants to lay a legitimate claim to reflecting culture then it needs to represent all of society, from the top to the bottom. Galleries helped artists break the grip of the Salons 140 odd years ago. Now the internet can help the public loosen the grip of the galleries, and create a new inclusive art market fit for the 21st century.

In the 21st Century, the internet offers a limitless audience, limitless access to a limitless choice of art.

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