Fad or innovation? First ever entirely online art fair to launch next year

ART EVENTS PROMOTING CONTEMPORARY ART ART SALES ART FAIRS ONLINE

Art Radar Asia was recently sent information on an event new to the art promotion circuit – VIP Art Fair is the first fair to be run entirely online. The event will launch on 22 January, 2011 and was founded by experienced art professionals James and Jane Cohan from James Cohan Gallery and Silicon Valley-trained technology and marketing specialists Jonas and Alessandra Almgren.

The fair will be free of charge and 45 international galleries have already signed up. Standout features include a VIP Lounge where special films of private collections and artist studios will be available to view, interaction between buyers and dealers through Skype and instant messaging, and a function which will allow fair attendees to take tours of the virtual gallery including the ability to zoom in on artwork detail.

A snapshot of a VIP Art Fair gallery page. Image courtesy of VIP Art Fair.

Read the press release:

HONG KONG, August 19, 2010 – VIP Art Fair, the first art fair to mobilize the collective force of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries with the unlimited reach of the Internet, announces its inaugural fair taking place exclusively online for one week only, January 22-30, 2011, at www.vipartfair.com.

An unprecedented event, VIP Art Fair gives contemporary art collectors access to artworks by critically acclaimed artists and the ability to connect one-on-one with internationally renowned dealers—from anywhere in the world and without leaving home.

“For anyone passionate about art, the Fair is a transformative experience: it delivers all the excitement of world-class art fairs with the convenience and personalization of the Internet,” said James Cohan, co-founder of VIP Art Fair in collaboration with Jane Cohan, Jonas Almgren and Alessandra Almgren. “We’ve invited the most prestigious international galleries, both established and emerging, to come together for an online event, creating a virtual community that will allow collectors, curators and the public to access distinguished galleries and learn about their artists, all with unparalleled ease and absolute discretion.”

VIP Art Fair Founding Galleries David Zwirner (New York), Galerie Max Hetzler (Berlin), White Cube (London), Gagosian Gallery (New York, London, Beverly Hills, Rome, and Athens), Gallery Koyanagi (Tokyo), Hauser & Wirth (Zürich, London, and New York), Anna Schwartz Gallery (Melbourne and Sydney), Xavier Hufkens (Brussels), Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco), Kukje Gallery (Seoul), Sadie Coles HQ (London), and James Cohan Gallery (New York and Shanghai) will be joined by other international contemporary galleries. A partial gallery list is now available online. A complete list will be made public this fall.

VIP Art Fair Features

The revolutionary design of VIP Art Fair allows art collectors the opportunity to view artwork online as never before. VIP Art Fair’s innovative technology presents artworks in relation to other works of art and in relative scale to the human figure. Inquisitive visitors can zoom in to examine details of a painting’s surface, get multiple views of a three-dimensional work, and watch videos of a multimedia piece. Galleries will provide comprehensive details on artworks and artists, including biographies, catalogue essays, artist films and interviews, and in-depth information that will empower collectors.

One of the many distinct features of the Fair is the interactivity between dealer and collector. Each dealer has the ability to hold conversations with collectors via instant messaging, Skype, and telephone to discuss works on offer in the virtual booth. Dealers can also provide access to their gallery’s back room inventory, sharing works in real time with clients in specially-created Private Rooms on the client’s own computer screen.

There are many ways to explore the Fair, including online tours which are core to the VIP Art Fair experience. Visitors to the Fair can choose from a wide selection of tours—whether of featured works or a tour created by collectors, critics, and curators from participating museums. Visitors also can design their own personalized tours of the Fair that showcase their favorite works and can be shared with friends or posted in the VIP Lounge. Other ways to navigate the site include the Fair Map and advanced searches based on criteria of interest, such as artist’s name, medium, or price range.

The VIP Lounge is where visitors can watch specially commissioned films of leading private art collections and artists’ studios, check out Fair tours created by other visitors, access status updates on art market news, and learn about new works on view in the Fair.

Accessing VIP Art Fair

The Fair will open on Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 8:00 a.m. EST and conclude on Sunday, January 30, 2011, at 7:59 a.m. EST. Browsing the Fair is free of charge. To access interactive capabilities, visitors must have a VIP Ticket, which on January 22 and 23 will cost $100 and thereafter will cost $20. Visitors are encouraged to register in advance.

Editors’ Note

It seems the international art community is divided in its opinions regarding the success of online sales of artworks.

Pearl Lam, Director of Contrasts Gallery, speaking at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum, stated that,

“We have been selling paintings [through the Internet], that was in the good season, but at the present moment all the collectors … want to see the paintings…. Today, there are still collectors who are buying [through the Internet] but it’s less than what we used to have. We used to have ninety percent of them, … all [through the Internet] and they were not cheap … paintings. We still [sell through the Internet] but reduced and also depending on the price of the painting.”

However, Saffronart, a constant pioneer of new technologies in the art auction arena, recently introduced a mobile phone bidding application to it’s seasonal auctions.

With increasingly more mobile ways to access the Internet and new features which allow users to better explore and interact with virtual space, such as those that will be presented at VIP Art Fair, it’s hard to tell if this is a fad or the first successful move into better utilising this new sales territory.

What do you, our readers, think?

KN

Related Topics: promoting art, art collectors, art fairs, art and the Internet

Related Posts:

• A Sunday at Art Taipei – gallery comments, Australian media art, Pearl Lam – August 2010 – a bundle of images and quotes relaying what was seen and heard at the fair
• Will Youtube become a new platform for for video art? Guggenheim experiments – July 2010 – report on art promotion collaboration between these two organisations
• World’s top collectors and art professionals attend ART HK: a testament to fair’s growing importance – June 2010 – an overview of who sold what to whom and why
• American visual artists react to Google’s book grab – April 2010 – a New York Times article outlines the copyright issues involved in the building of Google’s new online “library”
• Krishna Khanna traces evolution of Indian modern art: innovative interview technology used – April 2010 – this 30 minute podcast is organised into searchable snippets of information

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on the ways the art industry is using new technology

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A Sunday at Art Taipei – gallery comments, Australian media art, Pearl Lam

ART FAIRS TAIWANESE ART EVENTS INTERNATIONAL ART ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ART

Art Radar presents a Sunday at Art Taipei 2010 in nine images accompanied by quotes from Korean gallery director Jung Yong Lee and the refreshingly honest Pearl Lam, panel members at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum, five gallerists presenting their thoughts on the fair, and Australian new media artist Josephine Starrs who spoke at the one of the Art Taipei 2010 Weekend Art Lectures.

Pearl Lam, Director of Contrasts Gallery, and Jung Yong Lee, Director of Gana Art, speaking at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Pearl Lam, Director, Contrasts Gallery, as heard at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum conversation, Asia International Galleries: The Next Movement: “When the price goes up very high it goes down very fast. It happens to design and it happens to contemporary art. So in the last six months people have been very careful and very cautious about contemporary art, but in blue chip artworks like the post-war or the impressionist it is just going up. And there are a lot of private sales, a lot of secondary market sales. So most of the galleries are actually making money from the secondary market.

Collectors are actually referring to the auction prices as a reference and a lot of young collectors need the auction to validate the price. But I have my thoughts about auctions because auction prices, for me, are never accurate unless they are a really high price like 20, 30, 40 million USD 1. Because it’s very easy; you can put a painting in an auction, we can get all our friends sticking our hands up, push the price up…. So my way of seeing things … most of the auction houses are making money from private clients.”

Joanna Li, Fish Art Center, beside Huang Poren's stainless steel sculpture 'What the heck!'. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Joanna Li, Fish Art Center: “This is my fifth time at Art Taipei. In the past two years we have brought brand new artworks [to the fair] and all the artists are Taiwanese. They’re still young, around 26 years old. We also have modern artists…. We have sculptures, oil paintings. We have sold more medium priced artworks…. [The collectors are] from Taiwan, a few customers are from Hong Kong and China.”

Outside Art Taipei 2010's main exhibition hall. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Mizuma Sueo, Director, Mizuma Art Gallery (Tokyo, Beijing): “This is our second time at Art Taipei. Today’s audience, there are so many people … but the last three days a little less. It’s a little less than last year. Sales are stable. We have sold some [works by] young Japanese artists and Chinese artists, but we have sold only one piece to a Taiwanese collector. The other pieces were sold to a Korean collector, Hong Kong and Japan. The audience is mainly Asian.”

Inside Art Taipei 2010's main exhibition hall. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Jung Yong Lee, Director, Gana Art, as heard at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum conversation, Asia International Galleries: The Next Movement: “When the crisis came we had a very hard time,… I’m from a commercial gallery and we have to sell a lot of artwork to maintain our operation. But when the crisis came there were literally no sales for at least six months to over a year. So what we ended up doing was, since we couldn’t find a client who was investing, who was collecting art for their collections, finding clients who were companies and local governments who had a lot of promotional money to spend. We did consulting for companies. We made outdoor sculptures, we decorated lobbies for hotels, the façades of buildings; we did a lot of projects like that. And we also helped to make art parks or small private museums.”

Chen Liu, 'Blue Blossom Standing above the sea', 2010, oil on canvas, 200 x 140 cm. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Junghwa Ryu, Curator, Arario Gallery (Cheonan, Beijing, Seoul, New York): “Art Taipei 2010 is more organised than the last one. Many visitors are interested in new contemporary art and we feel that the Taipei government has supported the fair well with their policy of focusing on an international base. However, the results for the sales are … not good as of now. Hanna Kim (1981, Korea) and Osang Gwon (1973, Korea) have been paid much attention. I guess in general the Taiwanese love a more light and cozy style than heavy and serious.… They are sensitive to trends and new skills.”

Sculptures by Taiwanese artist Ju Ming. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

James Hsu and Elise Chen, Ping Art Space (Taipei): “This is our third time here. Obviously it’s more international this year because there are more galleries participating in this art fair and we have collectors from Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia. In the past we would mainly have Taiwanese collectors…. Five years ago there might be just one Japanese gallery here but after this year there is this reputation in Japan that there is a good market in Taiwan. So this year there are 26 galleries from Japan. Also, in Taiwan, we have this history of collecting contemporary art for 20 years [and] after this period of time you can see that the market is getting better and better. Last year the economic crisis affected the market a lot and so this is like a rebound.”

Digital print by Australian media artists Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, part of their 'Downstream' installation, as exhibited at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Josephine Starrs, as heard at the weekend art lecture, Recent and emerging trends in Australian media art: “This is some of the work that we are exhibiting here at Art Taipei in the <Encoded> exhibition. ‘Downstream’ explores new ways of representing the relationship between nature and culture. We are imbedding poetic text into [satellite] images of landscapes at particular risk from climate change. The work focusses on the degradation of the Murray-Darling, the largest river system in Australia, but it could be any river system in the world that is in danger from changes in climate.

We have changed the satellite imagery to write text in the landscape imagery, as if the landscape is sending us messages. When we started looking at this landscape imagery we noticed that the river almost looked like writing already. So we decided to change the river and embed this text from a famous Australian poem. The words say, ‘and the river was dust’.”

Shen Bo-Cheng's 'Read- Lleine Eschichte Der Photographie' (2010), exhibited as part of Art Taipei's MADE in TAIWAN - Young Artist Discovery event. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

E.D.Lee Gallery Co., Ltd (Taipei): “We have been to Art Taipei twice. This year it is more international, a lot of foreign galleries have joined us here and there are a lot more people. We have sold many works today. This year all of our artists are from Taiwan. Almost all of our collectors are Taiwanese but we also have collectors from Japan and Korea.”

Yan Chao, 'The Width of the Strait', 2009, mixed media on canvas, 150 x 180 cm. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

We hope to bring you more on Art Taipei 2010 in the coming weeks, including an overview of what was said at the 2010 Art Taipei Forum sessions and public art lectures we attended.

KN

Related Topics: art fairs, collectors, business of art, gallerists/dealers

Related Posts:

• Tsong Pu discusses six artworks: Part I – Chasing lines across space – August 2010 – part one of a three part series in which this influential Taiwanese artist speaks in detail about his work
• Three sculptors who influenced the Taiwanese art landscape: Yang Ying-feng, Ju Ming and Pu Hao-ming – February 2010 – an overview of these artists’ careers
• The ones to watch: four young Taiwanese artists in Taipei Art Awards – January 2010 – names the artists, accompanied by large images
• Globalisation of the contemporary art market evident in growth of art fairs – The Economist – August 2010 – outlines the geographical hierarchy of art fairs today and explains why this is hard to define
• What did the galleries say about ART HK 10? Art Radar Asia speaks to 19 dealers – June 2010 – read this to find out who sold what to whom

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on art fairs in Asia