TALKING THROUGH YOUR ARTS – SELL IT LIKE IT IS

TALKING THROUGH YOUR ARTS – SELL IT LIKE IT IS
Image: Ensemble (Variation 2) by William Kentridge, 2011

‘True blue’ is the blue depth of space. Matisse observed that a square metre of blue is more blue than a square centimetre of the same blue.

What is culturally necessary is to broaden ways of seeing. Electronic technology is to be reckoned with. The electronic medium is physical; it is material. It is valuable to explore its possibilities through the lens of innovative practice.

What relation of the image on the page to the ‘real’ size of the image? Is the image size shown at 100 percent, or is it a link via a compressed thumbnail representation? Does it pre-load with an alternative version of the image, a section of the larger image or a miniature of the full image? These factors describe the online art sellers’ designer conception of image and are not simply meaningless physical features of an image online. Whether intentionally or not, such features indicate specific rhetorical and ideological strategies employed to realise a sale.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ recent findings place the arts and recreation services sector as being the second highest in online web presence with a little under half having a social media presence – which rates more than any other sector.

Though the web can be characterised as predominantly commercial, it is also a place where web images can begin to incorporate multiple practices into a generally more accessible on-screen presentation, up for sale. Sacrificing the one thing that is central to the way that art is traditionally bought by experiencing it up-close and personal.

With increasing enterprises selling art online, buying has never been more palatable and predatory.

In more art fairing Carriageworks will make use of colour from artists represented by 80 leading galleries, from 11 countries, which include Germany, China, Japan, South Africa and England. The inaugural Sydney Contemporary 13 is a bi-annual art-expo, designed to showcase emerging and established artists and their saleable works.

It was in June this year that Sydney Contemporary organisers made a controversial decision not to sack VIP Guest Manager, Ian Dawson, for not paying six artists for works sold on consignment. It is in the spring of September we will get to see if the organisation’s key objective in supporting artists and maximising sales will be upheld. (AS)

Sydney Contemporary 13, Sep 19-22, Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh, $15-60, sydneycontemporary.com.au

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