On 12th November, I attended an online forum held by Shanghai West Bund Voice, gained some new Information. West Bund is one of the most important art fairs in China that will open a short term every autumn, this is their 8th year.
As following are some notes from the conversations.
New Trend on Online Art Collecting of the Post-Covid EraGuest Speaker:
Wang Shujin (Partner of YITIAO）
Alda Xie (Young collector, Founder of hAo mArket）
Julia Long (Artist）
James Li (Founder of CHOCO1ATE）
Sun Bohan (Curator, Founder of BCA Network, Vulcan DAO co-initiator）
Moderator:
Ashley Qin (Yit Art & Auction, Art Advisor）
Q： Online art sales have developed extremely fast. How did Yitiao and BCA gradually deal with this matter?
Wang Shujin: Before the outbreak of the epidemic, in 2019, Yitiao was already building an art auction platform. At that time, our users came in by watching a video. After five or six years of accumulation, our users are all high-esthetic, high-net-worth users. So in 2019, we tried to build an online platform and later found that our users responded very positively to this area.
By March of this year, we have set up a dedicated online art channel to cooperate with 80 galleries and 500 artists. It is estimated that by 2022, the turnover can reach about 1 billion.
Sun Bohan: BCA has actually been paying attention to the direction of blockchain art since the end of 2018. You may have heard about the blockchain, and NFTs have also become very popular recently. Everyone will ask what exactly NFT is. It can be simply understood as an online transaction in the web3 system. The concept of NFT is so popular, I think a large part of it is because of the epidemic. In Europe and the United States, we don’t have more offline social space, so we need to find a sense of belonging online, or a sense of ritual to appreciate art. This also echoes the recent hot spot called “Meta Universe”. They are actually a digital world or a virtual online world. From the beginning, we will do digital-related, including video, or some pure programming artists. Before these artists were offline or in traditional gallery art fairs, they did not have good opportunities and paid more attention. So this is a point we are more concerned about.
Q： The amount of online art purchases is amazing. Have the two collectors tried to browse or even purchase art from the Internet? Is the experience in this process different from offline?
Alda Xie： The Internet is now a necessity in everyone’s lives, so browsing art on it must have become everyone’s habit. For example, galleries will post PDF previews of artworks before exhibitions or expositions, including some art museum institutions that will also put their collections online and open them to the public for viewing and so on. I think it is not even a trend anymore, it is already a status quo.
It has its advantages, but it also has certain limitations. From the perspective of my collector’s identity, its advantage is that it breaks through a lot of information barriers and lowers the threshold for certain collections or art purchases, so that everyone’s psychological burden is not so heavy, so as to understand all kinds of happenings around the world. The latest state of the art,
including if you follow the private accounts of some artists, like Instagram, you can also learn behind-the-scenes stories that you didn’t know much about before. I think these are good places.
James Li: I think one thing is unquestionable. Although with the development of technology, our experience of viewing artworks through the media has become better and better, and even more and more abundant and diverse, it still cannot be solved. Our human eyes An intuitive reflection and multi-dimensional collision of artworks.
The development of technology is very rapid. For the first time, we had to face the online exhibition during the epidemic. When everyone entered at the same time, they collapsed. No one could enter, and everyone was very anxious.
Now only a short period of more than a year has passed. All these underlying technical problems are no longer a problem, even because with the rise of the entire concept of Metaverse, whether it is VR, AR, or Some more advanced technologies, some future things, will slowly come to the collector’s side, to serve us to better choose and purchase works.
Q5: In dealing with this kind of Internet art trade, is there anything that needs to be kept alert, including some Internet reports on artists and social network exposure?
Julia Long: Many artists now post their own stuff online, or some gallery operators may not be particularly professional themselves. For many collectors, it is difficult to tell whether your own collection of artists is worth collecting.
A friend asked how a certain painter was before, and someone who knew better than him told him that there are too many people who paint like this, and they don’t have much recognition. For collectors, it is necessary to find a good reference, or a good platform to learn. As an artist, don’t over-beautify your resume. You still have to treat your creations or your own inner ideas more truthfully.
Alda Xie： Maybe some collectors who are just getting started will pay attention to the image created on the artist’s social media, but this image may be a beautiful image. Some people simply look at some of the content presented on social media, or the number of their fans. Some people may even look at it in detail. For example, a curator on Instagram may have liked him, or a collector may have known him. Does that mean that he has investment value?
Q： What new prospects do you have for the future of this form of Internet art collection?
Wang Shujin: Yitiao is actually positioning oneself in an incremental position for the art circle. Through this platform, the predicament of not being able to get out of the circle is eliminated. For art consumption, from professional art collectors (a group of very small circles) to the majority of art lovers, the mid-range price has become the largest increase. At the same time this year, collectors and consumers are showing a younger trend, and their consumption obviously has their own preferences. Coupled with the drastic changes in the way of communication: new media, video, live broadcast, etc. The art consumption and collection users found through Internet operation methods are more accurate and more matched.
James Li: As a collector, I am very much looking forward to the development of Internet technology, including meta-universe technology. Eventually, when we search for a certain artist or a certain type of artwork, we will get a diversified result.
For artists, the reverse also gives a new outlet and ideas for creation and a better platform for artists whose artistic creation is not a traditional painting technique.
