What is an artist's website?
I was just noticing something about artist's websites. It seems to me that so many artists will have a website full of their work and perhaps other interesting material until they have gallery representation. After the artist has a gallery for a while the website suddenly turns into nothing but an index page with links to the galleries website. Maybe this is incredibly obviously but I'm not sure why a website has to be nothing more than a PR tool for an artist. Take for instance my graduate school peer Justin Beal his website (at this moment) has nothing on it except for its own web address. Takeshi Murata has the same deal on his website only at least he has links to his galleries on there.
So, let's just be clear. Artist's websites are little more than sites of promotional material distribution. They are interactive business cards that unfold and contain media.
Now I know there are plenty of artist's that work with galleries that have interesting websites and they actually maintain their sites after starting their careers in the gallery world. So, I suppose what I'm interest in here is proposing that it is an announcement of "art world" "success" when an artist passes the reigns of marketing themselves to a commercial gallery that takes over that role. If you google an artist and their own personal site comes up and you click on it and it just gives you a blank page or links to galleries then you should know that that artist is commercially accomplished. They no longer have to do their own public relations work or at least they have joined a team of public relations administrators known as gallery interns.
Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm getting at here other than questioning the role of an artist's website especially now when the commercial art world has started to contract. I mean, I obviously have a website and I use it as a marketing tool. I guess I'm just thinking the marketing aspect should be the background element and the site should be an interesting place to view an artist's work even after they have a gallery. Or at least maintain it as a time capsule of pre-commercial career artwork. Whatever, I'm just eager to demonstrate my hypocrisy.
So, let's just be clear. Artist's websites are little more than sites of promotional material distribution. They are interactive business cards that unfold and contain media.
Now I know there are plenty of artist's that work with galleries that have interesting websites and they actually maintain their sites after starting their careers in the gallery world. So, I suppose what I'm interest in here is proposing that it is an announcement of "art world" "success" when an artist passes the reigns of marketing themselves to a commercial gallery that takes over that role. If you google an artist and their own personal site comes up and you click on it and it just gives you a blank page or links to galleries then you should know that that artist is commercially accomplished. They no longer have to do their own public relations work or at least they have joined a team of public relations administrators known as gallery interns.
Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm getting at here other than questioning the role of an artist's website especially now when the commercial art world has started to contract. I mean, I obviously have a website and I use it as a marketing tool. I guess I'm just thinking the marketing aspect should be the background element and the site should be an interesting place to view an artist's work even after they have a gallery. Or at least maintain it as a time capsule of pre-commercial career artwork. Whatever, I'm just eager to demonstrate my hypocrisy.
Labels: Artist's website, commercial gallery, google, Justin Beal, marketing, PR, promotional, Takeshi Murata
posted by mores at
5:36 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home