A new website set up by British Mega-Art-Patron and artist King-Maker Charles Saatchi, allows artists from all around the world to post images of their work on the Saatchi Gallery website.
Thousands of artists have already posted works on the site and it is reputedly receiving over a million hits per day! Fancy being the next Hirst, Emin or Waring? Well then, get to it and start uploading your artwork now at; www.saatchigallery.com/yourgallery
Your Gallery was launched in April 2006 and in a very short time has attracted a huge amount of interest. Which is hardly surprising given that Charles Saatchi has launched the stellar careers of numerous young British visual artists.
The site does not charge commission on any sales generated. And as such it is proving extremely popular with younger artists, collectors and curators. Apparently many of the world’s leading art dealers are buying up works from emerging and unknown artists that they would ordinarily miss due to a tendency to focus on more established artists.
Your Gallery has an open access policy. There are no curators or restrictions on posting work to the site. This does mean that the overall quality of the work can vary from amateurish, right through to professional. However, an online gallery presence and the popularity of the site could assist young, emerging and established artists to access new audiences. Artists in the early stages of their career (who are finding it hard to secure exhibition space) may well benefit the most.
Charles Saatchi ran The Saatchi Gallery in London for over twenty years. The gallery developed a maverick reputation for presenting work by largely unknown young artists. In October 2005 The Saatchi Gallery finally closed its doors at South Bank following a decision to relocate. The closure was complicated by some ensuing difficulties with the owners of the South Bank property. An intensive search followed for a suitable space; and so now The Saatchi Gallery will be moving to Chelsea, and will reopen early in 2007. The Duke of York’s HQ, Sloane Square, will offer an ideal environment to view contemporary art. The new gallery space has large and well-proportioned rooms with high ceilings and the gallery will occupy the entire 50,000 sq ft of the building. There will also be a bookshop, educational facilities, a café and bar. The opening show will be The Triumph of Painting.
A thorough exploration of the nooks and crannies of the Your Gallery site reveals many interesting resources for artists, dealers, curators, collectors and the general public alike. Your Gallery has an online art magazine and web log, art reviews, a comprehensive What’s On section, current information about art prizes and links; to name but a few of its features. The presence of these resources means that 1000’s of visitors spend an average of fifteen minutes at the site, per visit.
Your Gallery also encourages site visitors to discuss the featured artworks as well as pointing them towards new artists. Some contributors to the web log have already begun to curate their own “best of” shows from the available online collection. These personalised “shows” are available by clicking on the right hand side of the listed artists page.
At its best Your Gallery – www.saatchigallery.com/yourgallery – provides a global platform that enables artists to exhibit their work to a vast international art community. The site has already attracted significant global interest, with over five hundred artists from across the world taking advantage of this new and free service. Artists are able to post their own images, biographies and contact details for viewing by dealers, exhibition curators and collectors. The site will shortly have the capacity to accept video media. Your Gallery gives emerging artists the opportunity to promote themselves to a world-wide-audience under the banner of a media savvy and established art world name, The Saatchi Gallery. Certainly it is a space to watch and as with all things Saatchi, brings with it an irresistible blend of the vital, the controversial and the obvious.
Your Gallery enables collectors to browse potential acquisitions without having to deal with the infamous “middle-person”. And should a purchase agreement be reached, both the collector and the artist benefit financially as no commission is paid on the sale. Dealers also benefit, as they are able to discover and contact new artists from all over the world. It is an intriguing case of “Internet Goodness” in that the infamous tool of instant communication and information (that the internet represents) can act as the provider of a grassroots-style movement. Linking as it can – the producer and the buyer, rather than the stockbroker, the thief, the wife, her dealer and numerous agents on commission! In the nicest possible way, there is something almost medieval about it.
The long-term success and vitality of the site may well make a direct and lasting impact upon business practices in the art world. The artist Stella Vine recently commented, “I wish this had been available to me when I first started. The Internet has helped the art world to break its veneer… and initiatives like this make it a little less precious and exclusive”.
Within a month of being launched, more than 4000 artists from every continent had placed their work on the site and it is anticipated that over the next few months the number of artists using the facility will expand even further.
When The Saatchi Gallery first opened twenty years ago it was only those people who had a dedicated interest in contemporary art who sought out the work. owever, as the contemporary art audience has steadily grown, the Saatchi Gallery had come to attract over 600,000 visitors, and over a 1,000 school-student visitors per year. Tate Britain, Tate Modern and a host of other public and private galleries have also shared in the British contemporary art boom.
The Saatchi Gallery itself played a major role in creating an audience for exhibitions of contemporary art. And clearly this audience has expanded dramatically over the last ten years as general awareness of and interest in contemporary art has flourished.
As a gallery that has a long history of championing contemporary art, the new website offers some exciting opportunities and initiatives for artists and art lovers. So that once again, the name of Saatchi is linked with a significant springboard for young emerging artists. However, this time it’s happening in the virtual world rather than in the material one.
For more information go to: www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery
