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VIP, the world’s first and only online art fair, seeks to level the playing field.
Jane Cohan co-founded the fair with her husband James Cohan. The pair run the James Cohan Gallery in New York, and they launched the online fair last year. This year’s installment is called VIP 2.0.
“I think the potential that the art business has to adapt to the Internet world is just starting to take place,” Cohan said.
VIP, which takes place February 3-8, is free. All visitors have to do is register with their email address, and then log on from wherever they like. (This led one writer to muse that the Cohan's may posess the most valuable email list in the art world.)
This isn’t to say the art at VIP is any less highbrow than what would hang on the walls at a premier festival: the Cohans targeted the world’s best galleries. Over 130 galleries are participating, including the Gagosian and The White Cube. Locally, the Fraenkel Gallery, which boasts work from photographers like Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon, and the Haines Gallery, the first West Coast gallery to exhibit Ai Weiwei, are participating.
What the absent price tag means is that the fair is opened up not only to big buyers, but to armchair collectors as well.
Cohan adds that the ease of the online format works especially well for an increasingly stratified art world: “We’ve been careful to make sure we have a good international spread…collectors are further and further flung, they’re really global now, and this is a way for dealers to have that global reach.”
The actual experience is pared down: galleries are able to curate a virtual wall (called a "booth") where they “hang” images of available work. Sculptures sit atop virtual pedestals. An image of a person in the gallery helps visitors to gauge the size of the artworks.
“We have a really well-crafted zoom feature that let’s you zoom in and see, say, the faint underlay of pencil on a water color,” said Cohan.
What VIP isn’t is an ecommerce site. Interested buyers must use a chat function to get in touch with gallery representatives; they can’t simply dump a Picasso in their online cart.
In lieu of cocktails and parties, VIP offers other kinds of extras: there are curated tours, expert talks, and even a performance from artist Terence Koh.
Last year, 40,000 people attended the fair. This year, 50,000 visitors are anticipated.
Cohan and her team believe enough in the venture that they’ve launched three online sister fairs.
“I don’t think online art fairs will replace traditional art fairs,” she said. “But I think more and more things are going to happen online.”
Helene Gelber-Lehman
Will anyone join me and other "unknown" artists in having our own ON-LINE ART FAIR? Perhaps we would call it THE STARVING-UNKNOWN ARTISTS ART FAIR.
As every artist knows, the most difficult part of being an artist is not necessarily creating the art, but selling and advertising it.
Most artists live in their "RIGHT BRAIN" and have little talent or skill, nor desire to become involved in the "business end" of ART.
Those who do, become "ADVERTISING ARTISTS" and aren't necessarily the best "FINE ARTISTS" around, but are just the best at Self-Promotion.
Promoting one's art often feels so uncomfortable to those who live in an emotionally and spiritually creative "open" zone, that "self-promotion" is avoided at all costs, including the cost of living a lifetime as a "starving artist".
If art collectors were truly interested in great bargains, they would encourage and support a worldwide, on-line art fair of unknown, starving artists who may harbor wonderful surprises and great values, amongst their stash of heretofore unknown works.