How will the Internet affect art galleries in the future?
By Lori Frary -
I have now been in the art gallery business for just over a year. I have learned as much as I can about how art galleries operate, both from the past and to the present day. I have dealt with artists and buyers and other galleries. As far as I’m concerned, things have certainly changed since the art world went online.
Everything is about websites and online marketing and publicity. It’s about search words and SEO and your online site position. If you’re not in top position for the search words people Google, you are at the mercy of your position.
It doesn’t matter whether you have the best art and artists. Fair prices don’t matter either, because no one can find you to take advantage of it. What matters is that people can find you. So…that leads me to the conclusion that bricks and mortar location no longer has the same meaning as it used to.
Location, location, location now means search engine optimization? Google search words? Even the misspelled ones?
The other mildly disturbing trend in the art world is that everyone and anyone that has something to sell can have a website, artists included. Now, if every artist on the planet has their own website, as well as every gallery, no wonder prices have bottomed out for a lot of the art that everyone has glutted the internet with!
What the heck ever happened to the long-lived concept of supply and demand? Has original art become so commonplace that it is as easy to get to as the millions of art and artist websites online? Just something to think about when wondering what happened to the special value and uniqueness of fine contemporary original artworks. There is no scarcity of art anymore.
I just watched a documentary about the heroic efforts European museums went through to move and hide and protect their valuable art collections from the Nazi’s during WW2. Fine art will always have such value, I think. But maybe not…if we continue to belittle the mystery that has kept it that way down through the ages.
What then? How do we define the next trend in art sales…and the value put on contemporary art?
Lori Frary
Frary Gallery
1419 A 5th St.
Sarasota, FL 34236
frary@FraryGallery.com
941-362-0021
6 Responses to “How will the Internet affect art galleries in the future?”
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I believe in long-lived concept. Let’s hope it will stay…
I have never fallen in love with a work of art on the internet, I still have to take it all in. I think art sold on-line is just another glimpse into a world I will never live long enough to see. thank god! and long live a real art gallery!!!!!!!
It is convenient to see Art pieces on the internet, but you cannot feel what the artist is trying to portray, unless you have a ‘one-on-one’ experience with the art. Art galleries are vital in our society, to give you the opportunity to interact with the art. Seeing the Mona Lisa online, or standing in front of this masterpiece are completely two different experiences.
I agree that the art gallery as a free standing place is a need of society. After all in our moblie society we keep in touch with friends and family that are so spred out seeking reunions of physical presence. Confining art to a screen is cold and without touch. The aspect of openings bringing like minded people out together will remain, I believe, as long as humans value each other. One change that should hopefully come out of this miracle of the communication age is a decrease in the competitve feeling that has for too long been forefront in the artist’s hearts to each other. A new democracy.
Decoration of the home enviroment is personal too. Walls need surround us to sooth us with a sence of belonging to the bigger world that a work of art and it’s aquititon provides.
Thanks for an honest and truthful post, the like of which is surprisingly rare and all the more valuable for it. Regards, John.
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