Galleries, artists and collectors today should consider 'digital' in three ways - the art itself, trends in collecting, and the benefits of a future-fit art management software.
Art today includes more and more digital work. Universities are teaching digital as medium for both the creation and experience of art. AI is being used as a creation tool by artists, and they will continue to experiment as the technology develops, for example right now AI is learning to lip read. I wonder how artists might work with that?
Well funded or famous artists and exhibition spaces, especially museums, are embracing immersive technologies like VR, AR and 360-projection, to enhance visitor experience of art. This higher level of ‘theatre’, designed to improve visitor numbers will impact the overall art market appeal.
Collecting trends are changing. While the preferred media is still paintings and sculptures, collections are becoming a mix of traditional and digital. Young collectors are also much more predisposed to share their collections, and they are taking that beyond just popular Instagram accounts, as far as opening physical spaces and residencies, to engage with the public and promote artists. They are also more inclined to actively reshape their collections, through buying, selling and trading.
NFT’s have made it possible to authenticate and prove ownership of digital works. The high prices achieved at their introductory auctions in some of the top auction houses, has validated them in the art market, but we are just at the beginning of realising the possibilities that NFT’s can deliver. We will see them used to manage fractional ownership investing in art collections, new marketplaces, facilitating direct trading among collectors, and so much more.
All these technology-driven developments mean that art businesses and collectors need solutions that can manage the organisation of varied works in a secure backend database, while also offering a beautiful frontend for curating and sharing works and projects and promoting their artists and programmes.
This post is an adapted excerpt from an article titled 'The re-imagining of art collecting in the digital age' by Tamzin Lovell-Miller, published in the Summer 2021 edition of Art & Museum Magazine.
