platforms-services
This section presents web sites that are directed mostly to artists and arts professionals and offer various kinds of services. Among them you can find companies and organizations who deal in artists’ promotion, sites where artists can find funding or others where they can promote and sell their works, directories of professional for contacts and databases with sale details of art works created by thousands of artists.
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Wooloo
Wooloo is a web site for artists who want to offer open invitations for contests, exhibitions or various other events to other artists. It was created in 2002 by a group of Danish artists and in the ten years of its operation it has amassed information about more than 22,000 projects that have been hosted there. It also organizes off line actions which aim to help artists participate in social issues like, for example, the intervention in the 2009 United Nations’ climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Interested artists can create a profile in the site and upload works representative of their style, biographical information, exhibitions in which they have participated and contact information. After that, they can search for open invitations for various events or actions which the site promotes –the search can be performed using various criteria such as the subject or the kind of the event and for every such event general and contact information is available while the searcher is also able to see which other artists from the site have expressed an interest to participate in the same event.
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Artfacts.net
ArtFacts is a web site for people who work as modern art professionals –art consultants, curators, collectors etc.- and they are interested in statistics, prices of works of art, artists’ biographies, auctions’ catalogues and so on. This web site has developed a special algorithm which classifies artists according to the value of their works in the market and the success of their exhibitions and also offers a graphic visualization of their career’s development.
The services offered are on a subscription basis with subscriptions starting at 200 euro per year for non-professionals and reaching 800 euro for professionals who can upload high resolution images; this is mostly a service for galleries that want to promote particular artists. A mark for ArtFacts’ specialization is that the clickthrough rate in the advertisements it hosts goes up to 15%, a percentage almost a hundred times the Internet’s average.
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New York Foundation of Arts
New York Foundation of Arts was founded in 1971 by the state of New York as an independent organization offering supporting services to artists of the broader NY area; the programs offered by it, focus on three areas: cash grants and fiscal sponsorship, online resources, and professional development training. Since 1984, through its sponsorship program the Foundation has been supporting 100 artists per year offering each a $7,000 award to those chosen after a competition process; also, through its educational seminars, it aids more than 5,000 artists per year while there are also special programs for foreign artists.
Since 2002, when the web site began operating it the NYFA has been regarded as one of the best information centers on the Internet with more than one million visitors per month. Its information hub is the NYFA Source, a database offering information about more than 9,000 grant programs, awards, organizations and publications for artists. Other interesting services include classified ads for all sorts of collaborations, descriptions for all educational programs offered with detailed resumes of the teaching staff, a section with hundreds of articles related to artists’ professional development etc.
URL: http://www.nyfa.org/
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Fractured Atlas
Fractured Atlas is a nonprofit art services organization based in New York and operating on a national level; it was founded in 1998 and initially functioned as a theater production company changing into its present form in 2001. It supports artists from all genres –visual arts performing arts, literature, design, media etc. - as well as art organizations by offering services such as sponsoring programs which are funded by the members’ fees or the revenue from the events it organizes. It has more than 24,000 members and in the more than ten years it has been operating it has offered its services to more than 250,000 artists and organizations.
In the web site, visitors can see detailed information about the services offered such as sponsorships, health insurance, Internet services, rental of spaces for rehearsals etc. with the Internet services being among the most interesting since it offers a platform allowing third parties to sale tickets through their own web sites, process credit card payments, manage their email, create newsletters etc. Also offered is a blog with many thought-provoking articles, a newsletter, and an agenda for various events as well as a section with articles about artists’ rights.
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Dripbook
DripBook is aimed to people with artistic tendencies who would like to create a portfolio of their work; it addresses the whole spectrum of creative jobs, from painters and photographers to fashion designers and make-up artists. One of the site’s unique characteristics is that it accepts users on an invitation basis only, regardless of said users’ willingness to pay the subscription fee asked –by having this rule DripBook’s owners claim that they can achieve a high standard for the portfolios spotlighted in the web site.
DripBook’s web site offers a friendly environment where users can create their portfolio without any particular technical knowledge and, depending on the subscription package they have chosen, they can even create a separate web site of their own; the packages offered are three and their prices start from $90 and reach $350 while visitors can search for portfolios using criteria such as genre, tags set by the web site of location (with most locations being in the US or Europe). Every picture in an artist’s portfolio is accompanied by a brief description.
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ArtTactic
ArtTactic is a company based in London and providing analyses for the art market; it is using a methodology similar to that used for analyzing financial markets and aims to evaluate the artworks market and record the trends through quantitative and qualitative market research. For qualitative research it uses some of the most important factors of the international art market to produce assessments about market developments; it also offers free weekly podcasts with views from renowned people of the art circuit.
ArtTactic’s basic services are based on analyzing specific markets that have been defined with geographical criteria (China, Latin America, USA, Europe etc.) or specific artists, also picked on a geographical basis. There are also services targeting collectors and offering detailed profiles of artists and artworks including risk analysis for an investment’s return, feasibility reports on ideas and business plans related to art and so on. The company offers subscription based packages with different levels of access to the web site, as well as a free package offering access to ten pre-determined reports; the most expensive package offering unlimited access to all services costs €750 per year.
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ArtQuest
What does the art scene in China look like? What is the best way to write a press release? How can a person protect their intellectual rights? How does experience affect remuneration? ArtQuest, an initiative of University of the Arts London which started operating in 2001 attempts to answer to questions such the above; the web site’s content is curated exclusively by artists who aim to assist their colleagues by offering them the tools and the answer they need to advance their careers.
ArtQuest includes a catalogue with companies and institutions of artistic interest in the London area, a database with legal matters that are related to art, guides and advice regarding career development and a section with classified ads for collaboration with various institutions. Parallel to the main web site there is one more offering artists the opportunity to exchange their apartments or their ateliers for set periods of time thus creating a unique social network; although ArtQuest focuses on the British market, its content can be invaluable to artists everywhere.
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Art bistro
Artbistro is a unique mixture of an information portal and a social networking web site belonging to the network of monster.com one of the biggest international sites about employment. It is one of the most comprehensive arts related web sites available containing an impressive wealth of information and services; on its core one can find social networking with members creating personal networks and gaining points depending on their participation in the community (i.e. their comments, their presentation of various tools, their response to thematic discourse etc.
Still, and because of its connection to the monster group, artbistro allows users to search for job openings in the arts field; the service though, is only available for the US market. Other sections of the web site are related to offering advice through specialized articles categorized by subject such as marketing, intellectual property, collaboration with galleries, customer relations, creation of portfolio etc. while also available is a section about education containing lists of schools, informative material for educators and hundreds of articles written by members of the community.
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Visiting Arts
Visiting Arts is a charity organization founded in 1977 in London with the aim to present artists from the international scene to the British public. Initially, it worked under the supervision of the British Council but in 2001 it became an autonomous organization focusing on three fields: the dissemination of knowledge, the facilitation of relationships and contacts between professionals of the art world and international artists and the education and aid of professional development of artists.
In the organization’s web site, visitors can see information about the various available projects; these projects include collaboration programs for artists, and also about the events organized (seminars, educational programs etc.) Available is also an archive with projects organized in the past, very detailed information about participating artists, a special section with informative material such as documents needed by foreign artists interested to work in the UK etc and a newsletter offering information about new programs and about sponsorship applications.
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res artis
res artis is an organization for artists seeking to collaborate with cultural organizations; it features collaboration announcements from four hundred organizations and art centers in fifty countries and it was founded in 1993 as a volunteer work and information network aiming to represent art centers that offer such collaboration programs. According to its founder, the idea for the creation of such an institution came during a visit to Delphi, Greece while participating to a conference of European cultural organizations: during that visit the discussions among participants made the need for such an organization apparent.
The web site’s main function is the search for collaboration; this is been realized through a variety of filters such as country, art form, duration of collaboration, type of organization, language spoken, expenses covered by each organization etc. For every program included in the site, visitors can see a detailed description and contact information while also offered is the possibility of seeing other events such as member meetings held in various countries. Finally, the site contains a limited access members’ section which interested parties can access through an annual subscription fee.
URL: http://resartis.org/
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