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A Colossal Interview: Zoë Buckman On Tenderness, Her Evolution as a Woman and Mother, and Embroidering Her Largest Works To Date

By in Art World News

A Colossal Interview: Zoë Buckman On Tenderness, Her Evolution as a Woman and Mother, and Embroidering Her Largest Works To Date

“songs leak from my bedroom walls” (2023). Photo by Charles Benton. All images © Zoë Buckman, courtesy of Lyes & King, shared with permission

What responsibility does an artist have to care for her viewers? Zoë Buckman thinks deeply about this question and discusses it in a recent conversation with Colossal.

One thing that’s important to me has to do with beauty and softness. Those are definitely tools that I embrace and harness. I know that I’m exploring something that is very difficult and triggering. It’s always been important to me that I make work that draws people in and creates an environment for conversations about violence, rape, abortion, miscarriage, and all of these things. In the work itself, I am trying to care for viewers.

Much of Buckman’s output during the past few years has championed the fight: that of resilient survivors, of rebelling against the patriarchy, and of her own sparring with the art world as she sought to use mediums historically associated with “women’s work” to put critical issues front and center. Her new series, though, titled Tended and on view at Lyes & King, takes a softer approach, which Buckman discusses in this conversation about her early indoctrination in feminism and what it’s like to raise a child around such difficult, and undoubtedly necessary, work.

Read the interview.

 

two images of embroidered portraits, on the left, a woman looks directly at the viewer with a black eye while a younger girl sees blood in her underwear. on the right, a child sits in between her mom's legs as she does her hair

Left: “holy ash” (2023). Right: “thoughts run out my hands like a gecko” (2023). Photos by Charles Benton

a close up of a woman's face with loose threads and floral applique

Detail of “songs leak from my bedroom walls” (2023)

a close up of a child's face with loose threads and embroidered details

Detail of “thoughts run out my hands like a gecko” (2023)

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article A Colossal Interview: Zoë Buckman On Tenderness, Her Evolution as a Woman and Mother, and Embroidering Her Largest Works To Date appeared first on Colossal.

For Barkley Hendricks, Finally a Seat at the Head of the Table

By in Art World News

For Barkley Hendricks, Finally a Seat at the Head of the Table
image

An underground virtuoso, always being discovered in bits and pieces, the portraitist solidifies his place in the canon with a solo show at the Frick — its first ever for a Black artist.

One day, in the late 1970s, while walking the streets of Pigalle in Paris, the American painter Barkley L. Hendricks noticed several well-dressed Black men and women. As Hendricks later explained, he was particularly struck by the fashion sense of two African men. He spent time photographing them in different postures and situations, as was his habit with models he painted, laying the foundation for work that would end up on his canvas. The resultant painting — “APB’s (Afro-Parisian-Brothers)” — is eternally modern even in our time, relentlessly cool, and luxuriously vibrant, qualities that radiate through his ongoing exhibition of portraits at the Frick, where he is the first artist of color to have a solo show in the museum’s 88 years of existence. It is a posthumous glory: Hendricks died in 2017, at age 72.

Visitors at the Frick studying Barkley L. Hendricks’s “APB’s (Afro-Parisian-Brothers),” 1978, based on a photograph that the artist took in Paris.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times

In 1966 — the year he turned 21 — Hendricks spent time in Europe funded by the Cresson scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, touring the continent’s cities, looking at and falling in love with the works of European masters like Van Dyck and Rembrandt. Back in the United States, he consistently visited the Frick, reportedly his favorite museum, studying the collection, which also included classic paintings by Bronzino and Moroni. Both at home and abroad he noticed the continuous absence of Black people in the portraits (the Frick, until now, has never displayed the portrait of a Black figure in its collection). The few he saw dealt with dehumanizing representations, mostly of enslavement or servitude. He decided to fill what he saw as a gaping hole, and leaning on his influences from European portraiture began to make elegant, poised paintings of Black people.

There are deliberate, delightful decisions surrounding the organization of the exhibition, “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick.” The main elevator opens up to reveal “Lawdy Mama,” a luminous painting of a Black woman cleverly layered on gold leaf with an Afro sitting on her head like a halo, complementing the arched canvas (ideas that might have occurred to Hendricks after seeing Gentile da Fabriano’s “Madonna and Child with Saints Lawrence and Julian”).

From left, Hendricks’s “Lawdy Mama,” 1969, with an arched top that evokes a medieval altarpiece; “Madame His,” an 18th-century marble bust by Jean-Antoine Houdon; and “General John Burgoyne,” mid-18th century, by Joshua Reynolds.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times
“Madonna and Child, with Saints Lawrence and Julian” (1423-25), gold ground Italian work by Gentile da Fabriano.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times

Aimee Ng, who curated the show, together with Antwaun Sargent as consultant curator, wisely arranged the 14 pieces of Hendricks’s paintings between some of the European paintings from the Frick’s collection, sometimes matching paintings with similar colors intuitively across the rooms of the fourth floor of the Frick Madison, where the show is set, giving visitors a taste of what Hendricks might have been looking at when he frequented the museum. This collaboration with Sargent, who is a director at Gagosian — a multinational commercial gallery — might raise the question of whether there is a deliberate reconsideration of Hendricks’s place in the art market (one of his pieces in the show is for sale by the Jack Shainman Gallery, which represents him). In an interview, Ng, who is a specialist in Italian Renaissance painting, said she had asked Sargent what contemporary artists he thought might illuminate the Frick’s collection, which ends at 1900. She said he suggested Hendricks and given Sargent’s expertise in the subject, and the fact that he had maintained a relationship with the artist, he became her collaborator.

Hendricks’s rich treatment of color shines through the show, evident in his choices of backgrounds, displaying an intimate relationship with the materiality of clothing with great attention to how they fold or reflect light, and in minute detail like how he paints the fade of denims. (He is quoted on a wall text as having boasted, “No one paints jeans like me, with the consciousness of the fact that jeans are a material that is worn rather than painted.”)

Perhaps the most famous set in his experiments with different shades of the same color are his white-on-white paintings, in which he spectacularly layers shades of white in figurative paintings such as in the striking “October’s Gone … Goodnight” — depicting the same majestic figure of a woman in a white dress, standing, facing three different directions, or in “Lagos Ladies (Gbemi, Bisi, Niki, Christy),” painted after he visited Nigeria for the World Black Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977 and which before now has never been on view.

Hendricks’s “Lagos Ladies (Gbemi, Bisi, Niki, Christy),” 1978, which has never been on view.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times

Yet, Hendricks’s mastery of the genre is reinforced by his understanding of the function of all great portraiture: to elucidate what the artist considers the grand persona of the subject, while simultaneously memorializing the version the artist wishes to commit to history.

Hints to these are present in some of the photographs in “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick,” a monograph accompanying the exhibition. Drawn from Hendricks’s archive, the pictures demonstrate the original character of some of the figures and how Hendricks introduced little elements to change or accentuate their personalities: glasses for models that originally wore none, a change in hairstyle or a hat, an entire replacement of attires, addition or removal of jewelry, a toothpick to create an unforgettable, funky vibe. This intentionality with the personality of the figures he painted is perhaps most potent in “Woody.” Set on yellow canvas, a dancer in a yellow unitard romper stands on one foot with the other raised and arms spread out. There is no light falling on his face, and his eyes, darkened entirely, project a strange, irrepressible sense of balance and power.

“Woody,” 1973, Hendricks’s depiction of a dancer. “There is no light falling on his face,” our critic says, “and his eyes, darkened entirely, project a strange, irrepressible sense of balance and power.”Clark Hodgin for The New York Times

The show exudes a deep relationship to art history, yet Hendricks, a notable pioneer of Black figurative painting in the United States, has not received enough recognition for his role as an inspiration and as a forerunner to many of today’s artists, including Kehinde Wiley, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, who have furthered the genre. Richard J. Powell, a professor of art & art History at Duke University and considered an authority in African American art history, writes in his catalog essay “Barkley L. Hendricks, Anew,” that “Every intermittent sighting of Barkley L. Hendricks’s work over the past few decades has been a revelation.” In this way, Hendricks seems to have maintained the position of an underground virtuoso who is always being discovered in bits and pieces. The show at the Frick seems to be, finally, a break into the atmosphere, introducing him to a new audience and solidifying his position in the canon and lineage of Black American portraiture.

In 1966, the same year Hendricks first traveled to Europe and began looking at European masters, the great Black American boxing champion Muhammad Ali was resisting being drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam, the Black Panther Party was being formed, and the Black American civil rights activist and writer Malcolm X had just been assassinated barely a year earlier. It was a period of great racial and political upheaval, and most Black movements had to find strength in each other only, frowning heavily upon any kind of white or Western influences.

From left, “Misc. Tyrone (Tyrone Smith),” 1976; “October’s Gone – Goodnight,” 1973; and “Blood (Donald Formey),” 1975.Clark Hodgin for The New York Times

So, was it, in some way, an act of bravery that Hendricks stuck with the influences that mattered to him and helped expand his artistic vocabulary? Or was it a way of turning European modes of painting on its head by imbuing the form with an essence that was unmistakably Black? Regardless, what the indelible portraits at the Frick really portray is that art is a confluence of many rivers, and the greatest artists drink from them all.

Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick

Through Jan. 7, 2024 at the Frick Madison, 945 Madison Avenue, Manhattan, (212) 288-0700; frick.org.

Oakland artist bringing color to art and activism

By in Native

Oakland artist bringing color to art and activism

It seems appropriate that in her colorful, native Oakland, where street murals and graffiti are exacted in a rainbow of hues, Favianna Rodriguez’s own West Oakland studio would bathe her in yet even more color.

The daylight streaming through the industrial warehouse windows lit up the artist and her artworks — images crafted from pieces of colored paper — disparate elements fused together to form images of flowers, people, animals and natural landscapes.  

“In a lot of my work you will see butterflies,” Rodriguez said, “you will see trees, you’ll see an appreciation for the natural world.” 

Dipping into the world of the artist’s childhood, it’s easy to see where Rodriguez’s palette formed; she was raised in a Latin American household, the daughter of immigrants, surrounded in a gritty world imbued with colors that would find their way into her works. 

“It just made me realize, that though my neighborhood was a hard place to grow up in,” she said, “art was always something positive and I could bring a lot of color and joy into the world through the creation of things.”

While one could trace a logical path from the environment into Rodriguez’s art, it’s a little trickier tracking her journey toward becoming a professional artist. As a kid there were few Latinos portrayed in cartoons or on television to serve as artistic inspiration. She didn’t hear much about her own culture in school. Her parents didn’t nudge her toward an art career. She had to make her own way. 

“For me becoming an artist was a way to find my voice and express myself,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez’s works are intensely public feats — large public works created for the City of San Francisco or the Presidio National Park. She’s partnered to create art with Ben and Jerry’s, Old Navy and even Playboy Magazine. 

But more importantly, Rodriguez has partnered her art with her sense of activism — her interests ranging from social justice to racial reckoning to climate in crisis. On the latter issue, she delivered an impassioned speech on the subject at the United Nations Climate Summit. Last month she visited the Amazon with a climate delegation to meet with water protectors on the Tapajós River. 

“So when I see wildfires and floods and extreme weather,” Rodriguez said, “to me it inspires me to create art that really awakens people to know that we have a responsibility.” 

It’s why her art is filled with an abundance of references to nature — the kind surrounding us, the kind often overlooked, the kind being destroyed. 

“I make art about the redwoods, I make art about rivers,” she said, “I make art about different kinds of species that are no longer here because they’ve gone extinct.” 

Last year as the Presidio National Park opened its new long-awaited Tunnel Tops Park, Rodriguez was asked to create art to usher in the new site. She used paper to create a ground mural called “Ancestral Futurism” depicting leaves, trees as well as grizzly bears which were once common in the state but wiped out by hunting and development. 

“When I collaborated with the Presidio National Park,” she said, “my goal was to make the park more inviting and welcoming to communities of color.” 

Her activism has become as essential to her as her art — the two, in fact, forged into a singular gesture of expression. Her work is as much informed by the murals she witnessed as a child, as it is from the social injustices she witnessed as a kid in Oakland’s streets. In that sense, her words are as sharp a tool as her scissors. 

“I believe that as artists we can also change the world,” Rodriguez said, “because we have the potential to open up people’s hearts and imaginations.” 

Tom Till to retire after 40-year landscape photography career –

By in Photography

Tom Till to retire after 40-year landscape photography career –

The gallery on Main Street will close at the end of November

Tom Till

Tom Till first visited the Southwest during a college break in the 1970s. He and a few friends were hiking in the Grand Canyon when something magical happened: sunlight caught the rim of the canyon, just as a storm was rolling in. The opposing light—the sun and the storm—made the rim glow, something that Till had never seen before. 

“I thought, this is really unbelievable,” Till said. His college was in the Midwest, where he grew up; as his friends drove back to school through Moab, Till thought, what if I could live where the light is this beautiful all the time? 

Back then, Till played in a rock and roll band every weekend. He spent his savings from playing music—he played in high school, too—on moving to Moab. In 1977, he bought a camera: a large format 4×5 film camera capable of capturing wide landscapes.

That was also the year he founded Tom Till Photography, though the Tom Till Gallery on Main Street wouldn’t open until 1998. Now, after a nearly 50-year photography career, Till is retiring. The gallery will permanently close at the end of November. 

[Tom Till]

His career spans multitudes. He’s published books, worked for magazines and newspapers, sold thousands of prints, traveled across the world, helped support environmental causes (like in 1985, when his images helped to halt the consideration of a nuclear waste dump near Canyonlands National Park). His retirement, he said, will finally give him time to be at home: he’s spent so much of his life traveling that he’s looking forward to going on simple hikes around Moab. Maybe even without his camera. 

“I made all kinds of mistakes at the beginning,” Till said. “I wanted to make a living out of it: I tried a lot of times to make work that seemed to please people, so I noticed the pieces that people liked and I kind of copied myself over and over, thousands of times.” 

But he was always trying to do something new, he said. He found inspiration everywhere—at the height of his career, he said, he was constantly thinking about, slightly obsessively, new shots. Sometimes a frame he envisioned in his head would take years to actually capture in the field, he said. 

[Tom Till]

Till took inspiration from his landscape photography heroes, too, some of whom would also become his friends. Till was very close with John Fielder, an American landscape photographer, conservationist, nature writer, and book publisher; his recent death, Till said, has had a very strong effect on him. Nearly half of the books Till has published (30) were published by Fielder. 

In 1980, Till’s career really took off. An image he captured of the Chocolate Drops in Canyonlands National Park appeared in the Utah Travel Council calendar: his images would appear in the calendar every subsequent year until 2015. He started traveling across the U.S. capturing images, then across the globe—by 2007, he had visited Australia 14 times. 

The other big milestone in his career occurred in 2003, when Till was asked to capture aerial photographs of the Moab uranium tailings area to show to Congress: his photos, which showed how close the uranium tailings were to the Colorado River, helped gain funding for what would become the U.S. Department of Energy’s Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project (UMTRA). 

“I always felt that you have to love your subject to capture it right,” Till said. “I love this subject that I’m shooting. And when you love your subject, you want to save it and preserve it.” 

Opening the gallery, he said, was his way of making his work more personal: rather than publishing images only for publications, he could display the photos he enjoyed. 

“I am just saying, ‘I love this thing, so I’m going to try to show it to you in the best way that I can, in the best light, at the best time of year, so that you love it too,’” Till said.

Photographers react to the butchering of Britain’s best-loved tree at Sycamore Gap

By in Photography

Photographers react to the butchering of Britain’s best-loved tree at Sycamore Gap

Photographers have been taking to social media to mourn the loss of the iconic Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian’s Wall.

The 300-year-old tree was felled overnight in an act of vandalism. Known as Sycamore Gap, the tree’s home was right next to Hadrian’s Wall – a defensive structure built by the Roman’s in Northumberland some 2000 years ago. Easily accessed, and visible from the main road, this is one of the most visited spots on the Wall. The tree even featured in the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves that starred Kevin Costner in 1991.

The amazing silhouette of the tree meant Sycamore Gap was a favorite spot for astrophotographers. This image of the Comet Neowise was taken in 2020. (Image credit: John Finney / Getty Images)

All day photographers have been taking to Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere to mourn the loss of the tree, to express their anger, to share their images of the location – or to rue that they never got to visit this photogenic location

“As a photographer the loss of the Sycamore Gap tree, under such sad needless circumstances is awful….. but actually it’s even sadder for the loss of so many people’s memories of spending time hiking to the tree, walking up that final hill & spotting it!,” comments portrait photographer Sarah Atkinson on Facebook. “The picnics with children under the tree & playing in the surrounds, the pride of what a beautiful Northumbrian focal point it was… like the Tyne Bridge, it was an instantly identifiable landmark that meant our North East, that meant Home.”

Distant view of Sycamore Gap, from near the Roman fort of Vindolanda (Image credit: Future)

Digital Camera magazine on assignment at Sycamore Gap in 2009. Technique Editor Ed Godden shot the scene with a super-wide lens (Image credit: Future)

Author and photographer Gary Richardson commented “Heard the news this morning that some £$%%^^^& had cut the iconic tree down at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall, not sure how someone could even do such a thing, but they have It wasn’t a location I photographed much, but have great memories from the times that I did.”

We now know that a teenager has been arrested for the criminal damage inflicted by his chainsaw. But, whatever happens in terms of justice, the location will never be the same – and I am at least glad that I had an opportunity to photograph this legendary tree before it so needlessly destroyed. 

In ‘The Lost Mystics,’ Kumkum Fernando’s Enigmatic Wanderers Chase Illusions Through Time and Space

By in Art World News

In ‘The Lost Mystics,’ Kumkum Fernando’s Enigmatic Wanderers Chase Illusions Through Time and Space

“Formally Known as Izah,” 950 blocks composed of upcycled wood, hand- and spray-painted wood, scratched coated brass detailing, and recycled nails, 31.5 x 56.2 x 21.5 inches. All images © Kumkum Fernando, courtesy of Jonathan LeVine Projects, shared with permission

In vibrant color, Kumkum Fernando’s hulking, hybrid figures (previously) wander through an enigmatic and quickly evolving world. “The melancholy characters of The Lost Mystics are searching for meaning, crisscrossing time and space, unmoored and chasing illusions,” says a statement from Jonathan Levine Projects, which presents the artist’s solo exhibition during ArtPrize.

Fernando repurposes found wood, nails, and metal details into modular beings, some of which have removable crowns. The artist draws on a wide range of global traditions, from Ethiopian and Sri Lankan masks to American board games to Buddhist and Hindu folktales. Simultaneously robotic and mystical, each character interacts with its surroundings in a unique way. The duo in “Soul Mates,” for example, are said to have traveled 23 million light years to find one another, and in “Which Way Is Home,” the creature turns its three heads in a perpetual search for direction.

The Lost Mystics is on view at the ArtPrize Clubhouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan, through October 1. Explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

 

A robotic sculpture featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

“Which Way is Home,” 1,900 blocks made from upcycled wood, hand- and spray-painted wood, scratched coated brass detailing, and recycled nails, 24 x 56 x 22 inches. Installation includes 3 removable heads that articulate 360 degrees and a base made from an antique coffee table found in the Mekong region of Vietnam

Two robotic sculptures featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

“Soul Mates,” upcycled wood, hand- and spray-painted wood, scratched coated brass detailing, and recycled nails, 24 x 28.3 x 12.6 inches each, containing 300 blocks

A robotic sculpture featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recucled nails and brass.

“Voodoo Veera”, 230 blocks made from upcycled wood, hand- and spray-painted wood, scratched coated brass detailing, and recycled nails, 19 x 19 x 10 inches

A robotic sculpture featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

Details of “Voodoo Veera”

A robotic sculpture featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

“Baby Devis Board Game,” 650 blocks made of upcycled wood, hand- and spray-painted wood, scratched coated brass detailing and solid brass halo, and recycled nails, 25.6 x 44.2 × 14.5 inches. Installation includes 180 hand-turned pawns

A robotic sculpture featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

Detail of “Baby Devis Board Game”

A robotic sculpture featuring hundreds of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

“Formally Known as Izah”

A robotic sculpture featuring dozens of wooden blocks and recycled nails and brass.

“Yellow Fellow,” 45 blocks made from upcycled wood with added pigments, scratched solid brass ears, and brass detailing, 22 x 30.5 x 13.2 inches

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article In ‘The Lost Mystics,’ Kumkum Fernando’s Enigmatic Wanderers Chase Illusions Through Time and Space appeared first on Colossal.

21st Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition announces calls for entry

By in Photography

21st Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition announces calls for entry
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BOONE — Following last year’s 20th anniversary celebration for the Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition, the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts is calling for entries to this year’s upcoming 21st Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition exhibition.

Inspired by the Banff Centre’s Mountain Photo Competition, the AMPC is updating its submission process to a single-image and series submission format. The single-image submission application will be the most familiar to previous AMPC artists. Instead of submitting images to themed categories, artists can submit 1-5 standalone photos aligned with the theme of “Roots, Ground, Water, Seeds” for $10. Building on last year’s exhibition featuring photographic series, AMPC is offering a series submission option where artists can share 6-12 images from a singular body of work for $15. Selected artists from this category will show six images from their submitted series, highlighting the AMPC’s vision to support the expansion of Appalachian narratives. The deadline for submissions is Nov. 18.

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These Technologies That Can Help Collectors, Galleries And Artists Supercharge The Traditional Art Market

By in Art World News

These Technologies That Can Help Collectors, Galleries And Artists Supercharge The Traditional Art Market

“Art tech” refers to solutions that assist art market stakeholders—whether they’re collectors, creators, or gallerists—in elevating their businesses. The inception of art tech predates the dot-com boom, with SaaS solutions targeting this market. Yet, nearly three decades on, the art market predominantly operates on PDFs, word processors, email lists, and spreadsheets.

According to the 2023 Art Basel and UBS market report, global art sales increased by 3% year-on-year in the previous year. The report indicated that 2022 sales approached almost $68 billion, with the US capturing 45% of the global market share. However, the Artnet Mid-Year Review from July 2023 expects a downturn in these figures for 2023, noting a significant deceleration in line with the global economy. Artnet’s findings revealed a 25% decline in secondary sales at major auction houses compared to 2022. Despite this, gallerists like David Zwirner remain hopeful.

A saying common during crypto bear markets goes, “the bear is for builders.” This sentiment resonates with the art market as well. With advancements in blockchain technology and AI, developers across various sectors are fervently creating solutions for an industry long overdue for modern tooling. By “supercharging” the art world with tools crafted by teams of tech and art experts, the market might witness enhancement.

Artificial Intelligence and User-Friendly Tooling by simplify.art

simplify.art, a platform powered by Yurica—an AI engineered to “understand and process text about art”—was introduced to me by its co-founder, Victoria Dejaco. Yurica, a meta-algorithm, drives various facets of the simplify.art platform. Its algorithms handle tasks like processing and extracting information from online documents and those uploaded by artists. It also offers LLMs for text processing, provides custom recommendations for collectors and artists, and implements an AI-based pricing model. Furthermore, the diligent AI task force at simplify.art, spearheaded by researcher Sonja Steiner, meticulously refines Yurica to ensure its algorithms exhibit reduced biases concerning gender, social, and racial representation.

Dejaco founded simplify.art drawing from her experiences as a gallerist, art historian, and a studio and collection manager. Recognizing the inadequacies of current solutions, she envisioned a new platform tailored to address the specific issues she encountered firsthand. Together with co-founder Glenn Vanbavinckhove, a former Director of Data Science at both KPMG and Deloitte, they scrutinized other art tech offerings. Their vision expanded, aiming for a tech stack that seamlessly integrates the best solutions. Dejaco stressed the importance of a software “that remains simple to handle, integrating essential features into a cohesive ecosystem.”

The duo, alongside an all-female team of technologists and marketers, is committed to refining the platform, focusing on user-centric automation. Vanbavinckhove emphasized the importance of tailored and relevant solutions, championing the use of automation, machine learning, and AI throughout simplify.art.

Blockchain-based Artwork Authentication by Verisart

In 2015, the Verisart team began experimenting with the blockchain for physical art. Their Certificates of Authenticity, built atop the Bitcoin
BTC
blockchain, were launched in 2019. The product has four different certificate statuses, incremental in levels of verification. The highest one, Certificate of Authenticity+ provides detailed item information and includes holographic certificates and QR stickers for physical items.

As the company evolved, and in response to the explosion of the NFT
NFT
market in 2021, Verisart has subsequently expanded their product offerings. Today, they provide NFT minting tools, a Shopify integration for streamlined storefront creation, and more.

A Generative Art Engine by Art Blocks

Generative art stands out as the most dominant genre in the NFT world. Art Blocks, established in 2019, has led the industry in this space since 2021. This platform and company are devoted to launching and selling algorithmic art. Two of the most lucrative generative art NFT releases, Ringers by Dmitri Cherniak (January 2021) and Fidenza by Tyler Hobbs (June 2021), were introduced via Art Blocks. As per the NFT marketplace OpenSea, Ringers and Fidenza have generated trading volumes of 31,301 ETH
ETH
and 62,872 ETH, respectively.

To diversify their offerings, Art Blocks rolled out a generative art engine in 2022. This engine empowers creators and brands to debut their own NFT generative collections using Art Blocks’ smart contracts and rendering capabilities. The Art Blocks Engine offers two products: the primary Engine, which also manages on-chain storage of assets, and Engine Flex, which grants clients the flexibility to manage asset storage through decentralized solutions, such as IPFS.

Invisible Web3 Experiences by Mojito

Mojito, a consumer engagement platform, has garnered attention in the traditional art world, partly due to the crypto expertise of its founders, Matthew Iles and Amanda Cassatt, both Consensys alumni and marketing experts. Mojito extends a suite of white-label web3 services, including crypto wallets, mints, drops, marketplaces, and token-gated reward systems.

Mojito is versatile, catering to a diverse range of brands and companies of all sizes. While they can assist prominent names seeking a strong metaverse presence, their expertise doesn’t stop there. Renowned auction houses such as Sotheby’s (that was in turn a backer in Mojito’s $20 million USD raise) and esteemed galleries like Pace—both Mojito clients—already benefit from their services. Moreover, small creative agencies looking to lead in web3 consulting can harness Mojito’s comprehensive tools to amplify their offerings. This is in line with how global brands, like Adidas, are charting their course in the metaverse, underscoring a broader industry shift.

Iles highlighted in an email conversation that “Traditional art galleries are largely offline, lacking in e-commerce proficiency and customer data.” Beyond creating new markets for digital art, Iles believes NFTs offer traditional galleries enhanced online engagement capabilities and richer customer data.

It’s worth noting that the tools and platforms mentioned above aren’t solely designed for big institutions or high-profile galleries; they cater to a broad spectrum of users. To suggest that the art market’s primary participants are only major galleries and auction houses is an oversimplification. Numerous talented artists opt for independence, while others struggle to secure representation. Moreover, many smaller galleries can’t afford the cost of showcasing at art fairs or prominent online platforms.

Affordable service rates, a wide range of technologies and customizable packages help small businesses grow sustainably. The tools highlighted above offer diverse avenues for all art world participants to carve out their online identities—whether they’re selling NFTs, sculptures, paintings, or even poems.

Platforms crafted by multidisciplinary teams, bridging the divide between technologists and art enthusiasts, will be pivotal for the art world’s future. They hold the key to broader inclusivity, fostering a more vibrant and healthy market.

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