Start page of web app in black and white on smartphone
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We are rolling-out the beta web-app replacing the old ‘legacy’ website. For us this is a first step in a huge leap we are about to take. The old ArtFacts.Net as you know it is gone, it’s a welcome change for us and focuses on servicing the needs of the art world.
For years we have built, reconsidered, and re-built again a browser application until we have found what really works. What we now have is a strong enough basis to leave behind the stiff web 1.0 approach of the legacy site. This early version of the application is build not to last, it is build to continuously adapt to the needs of the art world. Additionally, this web application is providing a real-time experience that works on a smart phone, tablet and on the desktop computer alike .
By servicing the art world we would like to encourage artists, curators and galleries to exhibit even more. The history of exhibitions has yet to be written although we have achieved quite a lot by indexing nearly a million exhibitions including landmark shows like the Salon des Refusés, Paris 1863, The Armory Show, New York City 1913, Entartete Kunst, Munich 1937, The First Gutai Art Exhibition, Tokyo 1955, Freeze, London 1988 and many many more.
This vast historical archive (probably the biggest in the world) forms the basis for all our quantitative analytics and serves as a reverence point for countless scientific studies and entrepreneurial websites around the world. Our endeavor started 1998 when we set out to change how exhibitions are valued. In our point of view every exhibition makes history – that is what counts!
The Artist Ranking system, first published in 2004, is there to help the artists understand their career path as a dynamic journey. Artists, galleries and curators have to exhibit. With the help of ArtFacts.Net you’ll get a direct feedback on each show you participate; like a jogger receives quantitative feedback from every footstep by the smartphone step-meter.
There are endless artists showing us that it is possible to get a career going once you put an ‘eye’ on the meter. No matter how old, which gender, style, social network you are in – everybody can do it.
And the other site of the coin? The market. Collectors and dealers also benefit. By providing a dynamic public career path you create confidence and trust as the main driver in the art world. Artists without provenience make it more difficult for the collector, curator and gallery to engage.
The new ArtFacts web-app is designed to be responsive and easy to use. Every artist, curator, gallery and museum can ‘claim’ their profile and upload free of charge. Our editors will fact check the information before clearance. Profile Claiming and fact-checking are not really new at ArtFacts and this continues in our new platform context. The web app transforms ArtFacts.Net from an old school historical archive into a modern platform where visitors are called to engage.
In the state-of-the-art layout we have build new functions and inserted new data points. For example, now you can follow artists, artworks, curators and institutions (like galleries, museums, artist studios, etc). More than that we list curators as we think this is an important yet underrepresented group in most of the major websites. Other features are in the pipeline waiting to be released. So, stay tuned.
Last but not least I want to encourage you to send us lots of feedback. We have definitely changed quite a lot to build ArtFacts into a joyful and beneficial tool for everybody in the art world.
Best wishes
Marek Claassen, Founder and Managing Director ArtFacts.Net Group