en | Art critics and historians have a difficult time dealing with beauty. We are trained from early on that the analysis of a work of art relies on proof, those things that we can point to as evidence. The problem with beauty is that it’s almost impossible to describe. To describe the beauty of an object is like trying to explain why something’s funny — when it’s put into words, the moment is lost.
Article by Robert Wellington
en | Commercialism has suffocated traditional art. Is digital art next?
Just like Bitcoins are scarce, so too can original digital artwork now be scarce, even if duplicates remain common in the same way that prints or photographs of physical artwork are common. Proponents argue that this would democratize and decentralize art, helping artists get paid, helping resolve issues of authorship and ownership that the internet had rendered murky.
Article by Oliver Roeder
en | In this essay the author argues that both logic and language have their limitations when used as tools for the creation of meaning and that art helps us overcome these inadequacies in the way it transcends absolutes that underpin our «rational» view of the world. He believes further that the violation of the strictures of logic by art is also emblematic of art’s heightened awareness of certain unique features of reality which are not normally readily visible to a mind tied to thinking in terms only of binary truth values.
Article by Venkat Ramanan
en | According to TEFAF’s 2017 art market report, the internet is the second most fruitful platform for meeting new clients. Half of the dealers surveyed say they meet 20–40 percent of their new buyers on the web. And more than two-thirds anticipate that the internet will become increasingly important as a way to meet clients in the future.
A survey of New York galleries reveals similar trends.
Article by Taylor Dafoe
en | The authors present a novel investment framework for art by reconsidering the art market from the point of view of artists rather than art investors. They propose a model in which artists retain fractional equity in their work at the point of first sale. The fractional shares reflect the artist’s role as an early stage investor in his or her own art.
Once those equity shares exist, it is possible to create a secondary market in those shares, independent of the sale of the actual work of art. Such a system has not existed before, and would enable a diversifiable and more democratic investment in art.
Article by Amy Whitaker and Roman Kräuss