“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
Pablo Picasso
Respect – Empower – Include – Win
We studied some form of history for most of our educational years. As we moved toward more specialized knowledge our focus began to narrow. It most often wasn’t understood or appreciated until the history began to become more relevant to our specific interest. This leads us to discuss the history of the emergence of the Art Gallery in the world of influence. The war if 1812 is the benchmark for the beginning of the Industrial Revolution which brought to prominence a huge group of international entrepreneurs with American names like Frick, Guggenheim, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Stanford, Crocker and so on and so forth. The 1989 fall of the Berlin wall is the benchmark of the beginning of the Digital/Information Revolution which brought to prominence names like Gates and most recently web 2.0 Social Media mogul Mark Zuckerberg.
The Art Gallery or Art Dealer most often acted as the agent for the Artist and developer / promoter of trends in Art. The Art Gallery prided itself on being able to influence taste and position the Artist as a Brand to be desired and collected. We only have this precedence until the emergence of Social Media where everyone seems to have gained a voice and power as never seen before in history. With the recent news of facebook going public we hear the name of a graffiti Artist David Choe, who traded his art for stock in facebook which is said to be valued at around 200 million dollars. This is clearly a new precedence for the concept of the Artist having their own voice and really not needing to be represented by a Art Gallery. So in light of this new precedence as well as other stories of Artist having success selling their Art, that could never have had the opportunity to be represented by a traditional Art Gallery. How is the Art Gallery to redefine itself as a relevant institution of the 21st Century Digital Social Media Age?
Joseph Osborne & Bill Schoenleber Social Curators
