Page 37 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

accepted until only a few years ago. This article examines the changes that have taken place in the contemporary art market over the past ve years, paying special attention to the appearance of new platforms and devices and how this market is perceived by Spanish artists who work with the new media. The situation to which the emerging channels for selling and disseminating artworks is giving rise points to the possible appearance of a new market sector.The online art marketThe contemporary art market did not start showing rm interest in the Internet’s business potential until the end of the 2000s, and the past ve years (2010–15) have witnessed the biggest development in online art sales platforms supported by the main galleries and auction houses. The fact that the mainstream contemporary art market was a latecomer to the Internet is due to several factors, among them the conviction that a work of art can only be appraised ‘in vivo’ (Lind and Velthuis, 2012, pp. 85–88) and many professionals’ reluctance to display the prices of the works on a website (Horowitz, 2012, p. 85). But it should also be pointed out that electronic commerce has been slow and complex to develop (Amazon did not start making a pro t until 2002, seven years after it was founded), hindered by the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2001. It was precisely in the context of this bubble that the rst major investments – and losses – were witnessed in contemporary art sales platforms: in 2009 eBay invested 260 million dollars in developing an art section in its auctions platform but was forced to abandoned the project; that year also saw the launch of Eyestorm Media, a website selling limited-edition and original works by artists such as Damien Hirst and Je Koons, which was forced to close down in 20021 after incurring losses of some 30 million dollars (Horowitz, 2012, p. 88). The artnet platform, one of the oldest dedicated to the art market, launched its online auction section in 1999, but also had to close afew years later after investing more than 11 million dollars. This string of commercial ops ended with the 80 million-dollar loss that Sotheby’s is reckoned to have incurred in its attempt to create an online auction section with Amazon, and subsequently eBay, between 2000 and 2003 (Horowitz, 2012, p. 86; Thompson, 2014, pos. 4195). These costly processes of trial and error in a technologically and socially immature environment led galleries and auction houses to pay scant attention to the Internet for nearly a decade.The art market is seeking business opportunities on the Internet: major galleries use online platforms and clients nd all the information online.However, around 2010 the situation changed, owing once again to a combination of factors related to the global economy and the development of the technological industry. First, the nancial crisis of 2008 had a harsh impact on the art market: galleries and auction houses saw their sales plummet and began to seek new markets, chie y in countries with booming economies but also through new channels. Second, the Internet had experienced an exponential growth in its number of users (more than 500% in a decade) owing chie y to the development of the social media and Web 2.0. platforms, while improved broadband technology made it possible to view high-resolution images and videos on any device. In 2010 the mainstream contemporary art market returned to pre-crisis prices (Boll, 2011, p. 28) and it started to be common for galleries to sell works to collectors by showing photos on iPads at art fairs or emailing them to their clients (Horowitz, 2012, p. 100). The globalisation of the art market is an additional factor that is leading players to explore the business potential of the Internet: the major galleries, which have sought to broaden their markets by opening branches in other countries, can now reach new customers more sustainably and sometimes more e ectively through an online platform. As forAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 201637Smart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation