SED*8 Magazine

WORDS// Amrit Matharoo /

Amrit Matharoo looks at how the internet age is changing the way we look at art.

I visited the annual MA art show at Central Saint Martin’s with very high expectations. This is the institute associated with some of the biggest names in art and design. Fashion designers Hussein Chalayan and Alexander McQueen, the product designer James Dyson and the artist Peter Blake all began their careers here. The exhibition was based in the actual workspace used by the artists, in the middle of central London with breathtaking views of the capital from the window.
London is renowned for its truly eclectic mix of traditional galleries and the show inspired me to investigate the British art scene. I began to wonder how art is affected by the recession and the Internet and decided to explore whether traditional or online galleries are better for artists exhibiting at the beginning of their careers.

‘One Fine Day’, Oil on Canvas, Ann Bartrum

Helen Sumpter the deputy visual arts editor at Time Out, says, “It’s important for an emerging artist that their art is seen by curators, potential buyers and art commissioners. Exhibiting in a gallery is the established way of achieving this.” Ann Bartrum, a recent St Martins graduate who came to study in London from Baghdad, agrees, “Exhibiting is very important. It is vital to have a project to be working for as opposed to working in isolation, although you also have to be self-directed and motivated”.
Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate Modern and one of the most respected curators in the art industry, has pointed out that the huge numbers attracted to big exhibitions shows how popular art is with the British public. In 2008 the Klimt exhibition at the Tate Liverpool attracted 200,000 visitors and Francis Bacon attracted 230,000 visitors at the Tate Britain. This shows that there is still a huge interest in visiting galleries.
The economic climate has also had an adverse effect on the art market, making it harder for new artists to break through. Sumpter feels that “the market may not be good for art because more exciting things happen during recession. More spaces are available to do this in with shops becoming empty.” In Leytonstone, a former Woolworths store was transformed into an art gallery this summer for the Leytonstone Arts Trail, one of east London’s largest collective exhibitions. The gallery had a lot of support from local residents, artists and the council. It is a great example of the sorts of opportunities that become available during economic downturns.
In addition to these pop-up spaces, there has been a huge increase in the popularity of online galleries, such as The Saatchi Gallery (www.saatchigallery.co.uk/yougallery) and Murmur Art (www.murmurart.com). The Saatchi Gallery is unique in that it offers artists the opportunity to display work for free and sell it for no commission. You can pick up a chalk piece by artist Paul Rooney for £50. Saatchi are also running a competition for users of the website where they can grade the artwork, which promotes artists and their work. According to Sumpter, online galleries are “a cheaper way to try and sell work” than by exhibiting in a real gallery.
Will Conibear, a former journalist and the co-founder of murmurart.com, tells me that an online gallery “can have a really positive impact on the careers of young artists and introduces a new and wider audience into contemporary art.” Conibear had many reasons for choosing to create an online gallery. With the spread of fast broadband connections the website could reach a wide audience and he wanted to create a business that introduced art to a potentially limitless number of people. Through it he promotes and supports exceptional up and coming artists.
Bartrum would definitely consider displaying her work online in the future. And Serota points out “Tate Online is the most successful arts website in the country with 18 million visits per year”.
There is a lot of global interest, in particular from the US, says Conibear “This shows us that it certainly helps to get some oversees exposure. Antony Dominici, another recent St Martins graduate agrees “It’s a great way, especially for collectors. I like to look at work and it’s a good way to see art especially if you can’t go to shows and everything’s there online”.
An online gallery opens a gateway for many buyers at the click of a mouse with internet shopping standard practice for most people nowadays.
So does this mean traditional galleries are under threat? Conibear admits that “art is there to be seen in the flesh and the Internet will only play a certain role in the market, it will never be the main way.”

Maureen Paley runs a real rather than an online gallery, but her success story is far from a traditional one. She began her art career from her living room in the heart of London’s east end and has become one of the UK’s most innovative and impressive curators. She has promoted and showed art in the UK and the US and launched some of the UK’s biggest names in art such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Rebecca Warren, and Gillian Wearing.
According to Bartrum, “Exhibiting is very important. Committed gallery support is what most emerging artists would like as the very fact of the support provides a guaranteed outlet and a marker that there is interest in you.” However, it is still difficult to be recognised as a talented artist because “there are far more artists than galleries to represent them”.
Stephen Ford, who specialises in contemporary painting and drawing and gets his inspiration from David Hockney. “I don’t think anything is guaranteed, but (exhibiting in a gallery) would certainly seem to be the best way to go about it. Surely the purpose of making art is to exhibit it anyway?”
In defence of online galleries Conibear points out that the two types “do a very different job, an incomparable job. Good galleries will always be the prime support for artists. For most artists finding a good gallery to represent them and their work is the Holy Grail. And rightly so. Where online can be better for supporting artists at the start of their careers; providing a cheap but quality platform for them to get their work noticed and to start selling to collectors.”
Art is something that can unify people. Art has no language barriers so many people can relate to it. Art deserves to be seen by the masses. But some people find it difficult to visit galleries so for them online may be the only option. Most artists hope to sell their work so selling via online galleries has its benefits, but there remains no doubt to get the real feeling of art, it has to be experienced in the flesh.