One way to explore different business models for marketing art and photography is to skim through art blogs and online press releases. Some online releases are issued by brick-and-mortar galleries seeking to reach out to people who search for art online. Many online press releases come from start-up businesses or individuals experimenting with new concepts for selling their work. Some new ventures are announced online by targeted bloggers and journalists who reach high-end collectors. Here are four examples:
Electricity Showroom
Rea is inviting other designers, artists, and writers to get in on the action by collaborating with one another to create and sell inspirational wares on the site.
He chose the name “electricity showroom” to describe the creative sparks that can occur when designers, artists, and writers work together. He views the site as a way for creative pros to “make stuff quicker.”
“In advertising, you tend to work on a lot of creative projects at once,” Rea says, “Now that I’m creating my own ventures from the ground up, the timelines are much longer than I typically have patience for. I needed something that would allow me to produce ideas quickly. Collaborating with other artists to make and sell prints direct to consumers seemed like the perfect creative outlet for everyone.”
Chad Rea is a member of ecopop, a Portland, Oregon-based social-innovations collective that lives at the intersection of ecology and pop culture. Ecopop creates brands, art, and activism (aka brand activism) with ventures ranging from men’s accessories made from recycled clothes to charity-based iPhone apps.
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Artspace Warehouse
Founded over 30 years ago in Basel, Switzerland, Artspace Warehouse now has galleries in Zurich; Cologne, Germany; and Los Angeles, California. Artspace Warehouse specializes in affordable contemporary original art, representing pop, urban, graffiti, and photo styles. The gallery presents an eclectic and every-expanding selection of works from international and local artists at prices for every budget.
The pieces are displayed by category: Value Hunter (from $200 to $400), Savvy Spender (up to $1,000), and Aficianado ($1,000 to $2,000). A collector’s section offers exclusive paintings of museum-quality artists starting at $2,000. The gallery also offers art consultation and commissioned murals.
An Artspace Warehouse press release invited to public to special event at which at which interior designer Deb Gregory spoke about how she is using accessible art and design in her residential and commercial projects. She emphasized that good art and design should be accessible to all, and that interesting environments enrich our lives.
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Digital Artist Joel Martin Cohen
Digital artist Joel Martin Cohen used a press release to announce the launch of his own online gallery, through which visitors may purchase prints of his digital compositions.
Cohen, who has experience both a graphic designer and professional photographer, has been working in the digital art space for more than five years. While some of his visual ideas start with a photograph, he develops the art using the digital tools to create treatments that express how he feels about the subject. Many of his subjects include landscapes, cityscapes, and the natural world.
“I was infatuated with the powerful potential of the new digital processes to create looks that never existed before, as well as new takes on traditional painting techniques,” says Cohen. The pieces in his online gallery range in size from 8 x 10 inches to 20 x 30 inches. Prices range from $20 to $500.
“Given the state of the current economy, some clients find that a smaller piece is more suited for them right now,” Cohen said. “Other clients who are looking for wall art for a new home or office may be interested in some of my larger pieces.”
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Joel Martin Cohen: Digital Art and Photography
Exhibition A
Exhibition A is a new members-only website that sells editions of printed reproductions of works by top contemporary artists. The site’s founders include fashion designer/art lover Cynthia Rowley and Bill Powers who owners the Half Gallery in New York.
They define their mission as follows: “We’re committed to working with exceptional artists–artists whose work is exhibited at well-respected galleries and sought after by serious collectors–to create editions of their work at prices you can afford.”
Each week Exhibition A will debut one or more editions by a contemporary artist. The artwork will either be sold as a limited edition (with a finite, predetermined number of copies) or as a limited-time open edition (in which no additional prints will be made after the four-week edition sale period has ended). The total number of prints made during a limited-time open edition sale will be revealed in the Archive section of Exhibition A website. This total number may include up to 25 prints that Exhibition A made for its own inventory.
According to a post about Exhibition A by Hannah Elliott on Forbes.com, the prices will range from $200 to $500 for a work on canvas to $100 to $300 on paper. One of the goals of the site is to broaden participation in the world of art without hurting the each artist’s primary collectors.
Some of the artists featured on the site include Francesca Dimattio, Dietmar Busse, Dike Blair, David LaChappelle, Olympia Scarry, Dasha Shiskin, Agathe Snow, and Duncan Hannah. On the Exhibition A, you can read bios of the featured artists as well as interviews with collectors of contemporary art.
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