Quintet, 6x6, Oil on Gessobord, available here.Today's post comes courtesy of Sharon Butler (phew, three down now, twenty-eight to go), who sent me a press release the other day announcing the formation of a new online marketplace for art launched at the Bridge Art Fair Miami. Obviously, the internet has been affecting the way galleries do business in the last several years, but it looks like this crappy economy will serve as another nudge to shifting the art business even further towards more online art galleries.
The relevant links to our recent project (smooth how I got that into the post today, huh?) are here and here. I frittered a good half a day browsing through these sites and while I enjoyed looking at the art, I did get my computer overuse headache in record time! These sites are probably most useful when one is looking for something or someone in particular.
I am off to paint now!
Palo Alto, Calif. And Miami Beach, Fla. (December 2, 2008) - The New York Art Exchange (www.nyaxe.com), an online marketplace for buying and selling of contemporary fine art, launched officially today at Bridge Art Fair Miami. The New York Art Exchange (NYAXE) is enabling the art community to capitalize on new digital mediums through technology by connecting artists, gallerists and collectors via the World Wide Web.
"We are thrilled to debut the launch of the New York Art Exchange online ecommerce platform at the Bridge Art Fair Miami event," commented Catherine McCormack-Skiba, CEO and founder of NYAXE. "It's been my vision for years to make great art accessible to a broader audience through technology and the internet. I'm excited that we can empower gallerists and artists to expand the awareness of their fine art and help them connect with a new audience of buyers on a global level."
Today's launch of NYAXE will connect collectors, artists and gallerists together, allowing buyers to quickly search through thousands of works of fine art on the site and navigate through numerous curated pieces of works.
Gallerists and artists can create a personal and customized branded online gallery storefront to begin selling on the NYAXE marketplace. The storefront gallery allows artists and gallerists to sell the following: an original piece of artwork, a digital version of the work (e.g. jpeg), or an on-demand version of the print on merchandise (e.g., poster, note cards, Giclee for example). Storefronts can be organized into categories such as watercolors, original works, sculptures, to make it easy for art collectors to find what they are looking for.
"Having a store where I can connect to collectors and appreciators is very exciting," remarked Mark Enger, artist. "I live in a small town and with my NYAXE gallery storefront I can reach collectors of my work in cosmopolitan areas that are thousands of miles away from me. NYAXE empowers me to reach buyers I would not otherwise have had an opportunity to reach."
There are five different levels to choose from in building a NYAXE gallery storefront. A basic storefront is free for the first five listings, and each level provides more advanced features and marketing capabilities and cost effective pricing structures. The various tiers of service are designed to enable artists and gallerists to try their hand at ecommerce to build a basic store at a low cost. Artists and gallerists subsequently can upgrade to higher tiers if they wish to expand their offerings. Subscription fees for NYAXE sites are very affordable and storefront pricing tiers.
NYAXE also offers a Trust Escrow/Buyer Satisfaction program -- NYAXE collects the cost of the funds from the buyer and distributes the shipping money to the artist to send the item first. Once the buyer receives the item, the buyer must be satisfied with the purchase, or a full refund less the shipping costs will be given.
The New York Art Exchange and myartspace partner with Bridge Art Fair
The New York Art Exchange and myartspace, both owned by parent company CatMacArt, and Bridge Art Fair collaborate and partner at the Bridge Art Fair Miami event (December 2 - 7).
Myartspace, the premier online venue for contemporary art and a social networking site with more than 50 thousand users, is co-sponsoring an artists' competition juried by a world class panel from Bridge Art Fair, SF MOMA, San Jose Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of Art. Fifty finalists will be selected and three winners will have their work represented at the Bridge Art Fair at the Miami event.
"We are delighted to be partnering with myartspace on this juried competition," said Michael Workman, director and founder of Bridge Art Fair. "We look forward to having selected winners' artwork displayed at Bridge Art Fair Miami and believe myartspace and the New York Art Exchange is offering the art world a fantastic opportunity to enter the new digital medium art space.
In addition, NYAXE and Bridge Art Fair are sponsoring a media lounge and digital gallery at Bridge Miami Wynwood. Designed by Greenlab Studios, the sleek lounge features a digital collection of select NYAXE's art work displayed on high-resolution screens installed throughout the lounge. NYAXE invites fair?goers and media representatives to available computers, create online galleries, check email, network, rest, and enjoy a complimentary beverage in the contemporary and exclusive surroundings. You can find the NYAXE media lounge and digital gallery at the Wynwood hotel.
ABOUT NEW YORK ART EXCHANGE
The New York Art Exchange (www.nyaxe.com), the premier an online marketplace for selling, buying and exploring contemporary fine art, is a complete ecommerce solution that empowers artists/gallerists to reach new customers and extend their brand and presence around the world via the internet. Nyaxe.com is created and run by CatMacArt Corporation. www.catmacart.com.
ABOUT MYARTSPACE
Launched in 2006, myartspace (www.myartspace.com ), the premier online venue for contemporary art, is one of the fastest growing and diverse communities on the internet. Its members include more than 50,000 artists, collectors, galleries and other art enthusiasts around the world. Membership is free and artist can upload an unlimited amount of work including images, music and video. Myartspace is created and run by CatMacArt Corporation. www.catmacart.com. Come visit us at the Bridge Art Fair Miami event (December 4 - 7) at The Catalina Hotel, booth number 108.
ABOUT BRIDGE ART FAIR
Bridge Art Fair, the Independent International Exposition of Art and Visual Culture, is a transnational art fair organization currently staging events in Berlin, Miami, New York and London. Bridge Art Fair currently presents a combined total of nearly 300 galleries and over 2,000 artists at four expositions throughout the year. Visitors will discover a truly global selection of contemporary work from every imaginable medium, including but not limited to painting, prints, photography, sculpture, installation, drawing, film, video, new media, and conceptual art. In the short time since the premier of Bridge Miami Beach in 2006, total sales of nearly $30 million and more than 100,000 visitors have confirmed Bridge as a leading voice in the global art market.
4 comments:
good post tracy, I have to say I have joined myartspace and have never gotten one single bit of traffic to my website or blog. I've gotten double the traffic in the last week just by being on the fine art department site and jeanne's site. Not that i've sold anything, but at least people dropped in. More than I can say for any artists site out there.
Those sites are good, for what I've yet to know personally, maybe you have to be a big up and coming flashy artist? who knows.
anyhow, thats my 2 cents worth.
Thanks Paula, glad to hear that the FAD has given you more traffic. Those big art sites are overwhelming and I think that is a pretty big kink if the art world is going to shift to online sales. I think they work if one knows what or who they are looking for, but to just browse? Painful after more than an hour (if that).
Little tip about art sites in general. You have to promote your pages. If you don't send links out or bookmark them on sites like Digg you probably will not get much traffic unless the site features you or if you already have a following. People thought that online stores were just a "fad". People thought the internet was a "fad".
Anyone know the address of the NYAXE gallery in Palo Alto? There's a competition and I don't know how to apply without knowing what the walls are like? Will it fit?
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