Page 38 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

38customers, it is becoming increasingly common to purchase all kinds of products online, even luxury objects [Fig. 2], while speculative trends are making it necessary to rapidly glean all kinds of information on the most coveted works and artists. This information can be obtained much more quickly on the Internet than by visiting galleries or art fairs.and sell work at no cost and without the involvement of the gallery of collector Charles Saatchi (Vogel, 2006). Within less than a year, the website attracted more than 70,000 artists, whose sales generated an estimated turnover of 130 million dollars (Edgecli e Johnson, 2007). This rapid growth prompted Saatchi to renew the site in 2010, charging 30% commission on the sales of its more than 100,000 users and becoming more directly involved in promoting some of them. Although Saatchi’s platform appeared to demonstrate the success of online sales, the business incurred constant losses, leading its shareholders to sell it in 2014.3 Another initiative that has failed to yield pro table results is VIP Art Fair,4 the rst exclusively online contemporary art fair. Between 2011 and 2012 its two editions brought together 138 galleries from 30 countries (among them the prestigious David Zwirner, Gagosian, White Cube and Hauser and Wirth) and attracted between 40,000 and 160,000 visitors. The temporary nature of the event (accessible for several days only) and its format resulted in rather poor sales gures (Thompson, 2014, pos. 4275) which disappointed galleries and prompted the organisers to redesign the fair as a permanent platform that functioned as an intermediary between galleries and collectors. VIP Art never got to develop this aspect, as it was purchased by Artspace,5 a similar platform created in 2011. With approximately 200,000 collectors and several hundred galleries as its clients, Artspace became a reference in the art market. In 2014 it was acquired by Phaidon publishers, and its scope was thus broadened to art publications, museums and collections.The contemporary art market’s renewed interest in digital technologies has not particularly bene ted digital art save for rare exceptions.As well as bringing the art market to the Internet, other initiatives are exploring new forms of accessing works and di erent sales formats. Artsy,6 a platform with functions similarFIG.2: Advertisement of VIP Art Fair published in Artforum magazine, vol. 51, no. 1, September 2012. Photo: Pau Waelder.All this has spurred the rapid emergence, chie y in the past ve years, of a variety of online platforms for selling contemporary art, which seek to expand the traditional market or explore new formats. These platformsare not a substitute for galleries and auction houses; rather, they help expand their business: prominent names such as Saatchi, Gagosian, David Zwirner and White Cube support these initiatives, while Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips currently have online auction platforms. The aim is generally to sell online the sameart that can be found in a gallery or auction,and therefore the contemporary art market’s newfound interest in digital technologies has not particularly bene ted digital art save for a few rare exceptions.The oldest of these new platforms is Saatchi Art2 (formerly Saatchi Online), which started out in 2006 as a space where any artist could showTHE ART MARKET IN THE AGE OF ACCESS · PAU WAELDERSmart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation