What made me question the nature of the VIP Art Fair were their numbers. Virtual "booths" cost $4000 - 20,000 to rent for the week-long show. Visitors must pay $100 to access to “interactive features” on the first two days of the fair; the rate drops to $20 afterwards. And of course, you are asked to "request an invitation;” the website insinuates that their invitations are released depending on how they prioritize your access to the show. The costs seem ludicrous to me, but the practice takes it further.
Honestly, my first thought after I finished reading the press release was "this is so 1995." The concept of a "virtual art fair" that the VIP Fair touts sounds like the founders have a lack of understanding of how art works on the internet. First, no amount of jargon can change what the VIP Fair is building - Amazon.com for paintings with the AIM screenames of the dealers attached. Hoodwinked galleries are paying out the nose because (presumably) they're imagining the fair as hosting their works in a kind of Utopian Second Life. It's not that hard to put photos of the current work in your gallery and a phone number on your own website, and if that isn't bringing in revenue, I doubt that the panacea is going to be an expensive monstrosity charging your viewers for the "extra" feature of zooming in on your paintings. The economics of the situation don't work.
Second, it's important to keep in mind that once you place any media online, it's gone; it's no longer yours. Everything can be copied, downloaded, remixed into a techno song, and accompanied by funny pictures of cats. As Paddy Johnson said on her blog, Art Fag City: "Up until recently a low res video image in circulation devalued the work. I’ve always thought that was stupid, and would have to change, but I don’t control the behavior of collectors." If digitally reproduced images and recordings of works significantly reduce the value of artwork, then the VIP Fair is a huge financial liability for the participating galleries. As much as I am in favor of what Warhol called "Business Art," the internet is not Business Art friendly. Digital reproduction means infinite copies, means infinite eyeballs, means why worry about the 24 year old trying to scrape by selling editions of his films when you can watch them on Youtube whenever you want?
Lastly, participators are ditching the human element of art fairs - cramming semi-famous people together into muggy booths and halls, getting collectors out of their comfort zones, throwing late-night exclusive parties, and generally getting trashed in Miami or wherever - for the ease of moving capital in the form of art. That's the business of the collectors, I'm not going to knock them too much for it, but I will say that the internet is like a warm blanket, in that once you've gotten in a comfortable spot and warmed yourself up, there's no reason to move. The internet polarizes people, and amplifies comfy little communities that never have to interact with anyone else, anyone not like them, ever again. You have to fight hard to elevate new content online. If galleries and collectors become accustomed to their cozy little VIP trading ring, it means murder for anyone wanting to get a leg up in the art world by trying something new.
THIS IN MIND, it's 10 AM on Thursday, August 19th and my coffee is still warming up. I think to myself,
"Wouldn't it be interesting to have artists participate in a fair where they already understand the danger
of putting their work on the Internet?" The call was opened to artists with no charges for “booth space,”
no one was refused, and here we are admission-free.
A massive thanks to all of the participating artists
in the show for their bravery.
Duncan Alexander (Hypothete)
| August 23, 2010, 10:23 am | Good | ||
| August 27, 2010, 7:20 am | Roger Cummiskey | Artroger1@yahoo.com | Half the first week over. How´s it going Stateside? |
| February 23, 2011, 2:50 pm |