Following the pandemic, many industries have seen big changes in how business is done and the visual art industry is no different.

As of Thursday, October 12th, a new online platform for artists and collectors across BC, Canada and the rest of the world launched to buy and sell art at their leisure and it was created by Victoria-based entrepreneur, Dr. Lara Tomaszewska.

She went to school at UBC and achieved her PhD in Art History before working on the Capital Regional District’s (CRD) Arts Advisory Council. 

Now, Dr. Tomaszewska has launched ArtRow, her online platform for artists and art enthusiasts to be able to find what they are looking for in an easy and accessible way.

According to Dr. Tomaszewska, the website is meant to “democratize” art transactions by giving buyers access to works that have been vetted, while remaining accessible. 

“The art industry experienced a major transformation during the pandemic, highlighting the need for new art market models,” says Lara Tomaszewska, Founder of ArtRow. “As travel to art fairs halted and galleries shuttered, gallery and auction house online sales skyrocketed.”

“This revealed an opportunity for a new digital platform where independent buyers and sellers could participate in art transactions through an easy-to-use marketplace model, and thus, ArtRow was born,” she continued. 

ArtRow has works from both historical and contemporary works from private sellers and artists alike.

Being Canadian herself, Dr. Tomaszewska has made sure to put an emphasis on artists from her home country including renowned Canadian artist, Jeremy Herndl, who specializes in landscape painting.

“ArtRow’s launch marks a significant milestone in the art market, ushering in a new era for both established and emerging artists,” said Herndl.

“From the detailed descriptions of each piece of art to the team’s commitment to transparency, the platform not only promises to be a vibrant hub for art enthusiasts but also an avenue for independent professionals to present their work globally.”

The works of art in the earliest days of ArtRow being launched so far vary from $300 to around $165,000, giving plenty of options for people regardless of their price range. 

In addition to allowing for people to use their purchasing power in a mindful, safe manner, ArtRow allows for people looking to take the leap into the world of buying or selling art to learn the basics and go as far down the rabbit hole as they wish.

“I see an exciting future,” Tomaszewska says, “Where anyone can experience art and participate in the art economy. A future in which we can hold the art world in our hands.”

Nigerian artists and the country’s burgeoning arts scene are in the spotlight in London this week. Five Nigerian-based galleries are participating in the 11th edition of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House (until 15 October), while a series of auctions in aid of the Museum of West African Art (Mowaa), due to launch in Benin City in 2027, and the Nigeria pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, are due to take place at Christie’s London this weekend.

The upswing in demand for artists from the West African country is reflected in ArtTactic’s African art market report (2022), which noted that sales values at auction of Nigerian artists increased by 25.6% from $9.7m in 2021 to $12.1m in 2022.

At Frieze Masters, the Lagos-based kó gallery—the only African gallery showing at the fair—is presenting a solo stand of the late Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu’s work. In 2019, his painting Christine (1971) sold for £1.1m at Bonhams London, strengthening the market for the man considered to be Nigeria’s master of Modernism.

At the fair, Enwonwu’s paintings and sculptures have been consigned by his family as well as local and international collectors. Indeed, due to the weakening of the Nigerian currency, the naira, Nigerian collectors looking to sell are increasingly keen for works to go abroad to cities like London, where proceeds can be boosted by stronger currency, Kavita Chellaram, the gallery’s founder, tells The Art Newspaper.

The market for Nigerian art, while bubbling, might well be tested this week. Lagos-based Wunika Mukan gallery is participating in 1-54 for the first time, showing a solo presentation dedicated to the Nigerian artist Victor Ubah whose works are inspired by Cubism (priced at £9,500).

Knowledgeable collectors

“The market for Nigerian artists exploded a little while ago and things are calming down. Prices are still strong, and demand is high for some contemporary artists. There are many collectors in Lagos who are very knowledgeable, mainly in the 45-60 age range. In London, there is [generally] a strong African art presence,” Wunika Mukan says.

Another 1-54 first-timer, Lagos-based Affinity Gallery, is showing works by two Nigerian artists: the painter Damilola Onosowobo and the ceramicist Anne Adams (priced between £6,500 and £8,500). “We are looking to expand our collector base and knowledge of what Nigerian art is,” says the gallery manager Moni Aisida.

Sandra Mbanefo Obiago, the founder of SMO Contemporary Art gallery from Lagos, notes that the country is experiencing a “cultural renaissance” despite the background of “political and economic challenges”. In February, Nigerian voters went to the polls to elect a new president, which could have heralded a moment of transformation for Nigeria’s artists and museums, but in fact resulted in “a huge devaluation of currency,” Obiago says.

Her gallery is showing three artists “across three generations” including Victor Sonoiki who is unveiling a new body of works entitled When Love Is Right (2023, priced between £4,600 and £4,800). “This is our sixth year; 1-54 works for us as a platform; we’re trying to bring some balance to the African art narrative.”

Dolly Kola-Balogun, the founder of the Abuja-based Retro Africa gallery and a consultant for the Kwara State government, says 1-54 London helps bring Nigerian collectors to the fore. “It has a fair share of European, American and Asian collectors but I love that African collectors don’t play second fiddle in this space. Nigerian collectors most especially seem to be major power brokers and have increasingly positioned themselves in this role.”

Three to see: 1-54

Wendimagegn Belete, Between Matter and Memory series (2023), £10,000- £25,000, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery

The Ethiopian artist Wendimagegn Belete mixes things up in a series of silkscreen paintings touching on themes such as colonialism, exploring especially how “Western perspectives have often portrayed other cultures and regions in a simplistic and skewed manner”, says a gallery statement. The works combine archive images from early 20th-century Africa and technical drawings of camera equipment.

J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije, Accra Optimists Club (1930s), £14,000 (edition 2 of 3), Efie Gallery

J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije was one of the few commercial photographers working in Accra in the 1920s. “This image shows a Black gentleman’s club at the height of colonialism,” says Kwame Mintah, the director of Efie Gallery. The Bruce-Vanderpuije family has since amassed the world’s largest collection of Ghanaian photographs (the artist’s estate is held by the Deo Gratias studio in Accra).

Lakwena Maciver, Gary (2022), £24,500, Vigo Gallery

Lakwena Maciver’s Jump paintings consist of abstract portraits of celebrated basketball players. “Maciver takes physical and biographic references as a starting point,” says a gallery statement. “I like the notion of the basketball court as a platform or stage where the players become almost like superheroes…these paintings are about being aspirational, dreaming and the connection between people,” says the artist.

A painting by Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus, has been deaccessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago and is expected to fetch as much as $18 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York.

The 1948 painting Solitaire, also known as La Patience, has been in the Chicago museum’s collection for nearly six decades but was deaccessioned so the museum can acquire new works, a spokesperson for the Art Institute confirmed to Artnet News. The news was first reported by The Art Newspaper.

“Balthus’s Solitaire was part of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Joseph Winterbotham Collection, which was established in 1921. It is a collection jointly overseen by Modern and Contemporary Art and Painting and Sculpture of Europe comprising up to 35 modern European paintings,” a museum spokesperson said over email.

“The collection was established with a mandate for continuous evaluation and improvement, and it is regularly reassessed. To acquire new work for this collection, the museum must deaccession from it.”

In further comments to The Art Newspaper, the Art Institute said it acquired the work from Balthus’s dealer Pierre Matisse, the son of Henri Matisse, in 1964 but that its deaccession was spurred by the fact the museum had numerous works by the artist in its collection.

Sotheby’s said it will publish a full catalog essay with further information in coming weeks before the Modern Evening Auction in November.

Sharon Kim, Sotheby’s deputy chairman of modern art in New York, said that institutional deaccessions like the Balthus painting “mark significant moments for the market” because works that have been in collections “reemerge for the first time in years if not decades.”

“Bringing these works to auction is an opportunity for collectors to acquire truly museum-quality works and speaks to the overall importance and value of provenance,” Kim said, adding that the fact such works had once been in a museum collection “reinforces the quality and importance of the work.”

Kim said that the sale of Solitaire “will be a much-anticipated moment for collectors” because of its five-decade history with the Art Institute of Chicago.

Balthus painted the work in Fribourg, Switzerland, during World War II. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Sotheby’s called it a “remarkable example” of his work.

The painting portrays Balthus’s model Jeanette Aldry engrossed in a game of Solitaire, representing the artist’s first depiction of a card game, which would become a recurring motif in his oeuvre.

“Aldry is depicted alone beside an extinguished candle, a vanitas symbol representing the passage of time,” the spokesperson said. “These symbolic elements, coupled with Balthus’s skillful use of dramatic chiaroscuro, nods to the artist’s love of the Old Master painters.”

More Trending Stories:  

An Early Edition of an ‘Unhinged’ Christopher Columbus Letter Outlining What He Discovered in America Could Fetch $1.5 Million at Auction 

An Elderly Couple Sold a ‘Worthless’ African Mask for $157. Now They Are Suing the Buyer Who Auctioned It for $4.4 Million 

An English Woman Paid $100 for a Sculpture at a Trunk Sale That Turned Out to Be an Elisabeth Frink Work Worth $72,000 

Three Artists, Immersed In Far-Flung Residencies, Offer Unique Takes on Human Truths at New York’s International Center of Photography 

What I Buy and Why: British Artist Glenn Brown on His Historical Collection and the ‘Ugly Duckling’ He Bought by Accident 

A Norwegian Man Stumbled Upon a Trove of Gold Dating to the Early Middle Ages, Including a Rare Pendant Depicting the Norse God Odin 

A Top Antiquities Sleuth Has Called Out the Manhattan D.A. For Continually Passing His Work Off As Its Own 

Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.

For at least 12,000 years, Indigenous societies have called the Amazon basin home, but for archaeologists, finding evidence of these ancient communities is often inhibited by the region’s dense forest. Thanks to remote-sensing LiDAR, or light detection and ranging technology, researchers Vinicius Peripato and Luiz Aragão of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research led surveys that identified 24 previously undocumented earthworks. Recently publishing their findings in Science, they share:

These ancient Indigenous societies had profound knowledge of earthmoving, riverine dynamics, soil enrichment, and plant and animal ecology, which allowed them to create domesticated landscapes that were more productive for humans. With earthmoving techniques, Indigenous peoples created a wide variety of earthworks (i.e., ring ditches, geoglyphs, ponds, and wells), mostly between 1,500 and 500 years before present, with social, ceremonial, and defensive functions.

Stunning aerial photographs taken in the raking light of the late afternoon reveal monumental geometric shapes in the land, often seen in clusters or concentric arrangements. Using distribution models and comparing the abundance of large-scale archaeological sites across the area, the scientists suggest that between 10,000 and 24,000 sites remain undiscovered across Amazonia’s 2.59 million square miles.

Peripato, Aragão, and their team also uncovered evidence of domesticated tree species, proposing that some of the the societies actively practiced forestry. “These archaeological legacies can play a role in present-day debates around Indigenous territorial rights,” the researchers say. “They serve as tangible proof of an ancestor’s occupation, way of life, and their relationship with the forest.”

Explore more of the team’s research in-depth on Science.

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 More Than 10,000 Indigenous Earthworks Hidden in the Amazon Reveal Human Connections to the Forest Over Millennia appeared first on Colossal.

Untrue Unreal exemplifies the questions British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor (previously) has grappled with throughout his career, particularly those surrounding space and perception. On view now at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, the exhibition encompasses new and previously shown works that offer insight into the mainstays and evolution of the artist’s decades-long practice, along with his profound interest in materiality.

Opening the show is “Void Pavilion IV,” a sleek, white cubic structure nestled inside the Renaissance courtyard. Viewers are invited to walk through the stark, geometric form, which functions like a void, plunging them into a quiet, meditative space before venturing into the galleries. Inside are several of Kapoor’s earlier works, including the well-known “Svayambhu.” Sliding between two spaces and leaving gloopy clumps in its wake, the massive brick of red wax explores how architecture shapes materials and the relationship between matter and emptiness. Other works include the primary colored sculptures of “To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red” and “Angel,” which probe the tension between the earthly and non, along with “Newborn,” a mirrored sphere evocative of the artist’s iconic “Cloud Gate” in downtown Chicago.

Dualities of all kinds—geometric and biomorphic, transience and permanence, concave and convex—characterize Kapoor’s work and emerge in the exhibition title. Considering how boundaries between two distinct objects or concepts dissolve, Kapoor explains about Untrue Unreal:

At this time of ultra-nationalism taking the world over, political fiction poses as the real and is blind to history. The real/unreal–true/untrue game is a trope of our times… I dare say that we have lost touch with human reality and that of our fellow comrades, a hundred million of whom wander the world as refugees. All this in blind ultra-nationalists’ indoctrination. Untrue–Unreal today. The artist’s role, according to me, is to look to the unknown or half-known. I have nothing to say. My truth is to trust in what I don’t know or half know, in this the Untrue/Unreal is a guide.

Untrue Unreal is on view through February 4, 2024. Find more of Kapoor’s work on Instagram.

“Void Pavilion VII” (2023)

“Svayambhu” (2007), wax and oil-based paint

Detail of “Svayambhu” (2007), wax and oil-based paint

“Newborn” (2019), stainless steel, 300 x 300 x 300 centimeters

“Angel” (1990), slate and pigment

“To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red” (1981), mixed media and pigment

“Endless Column” (1992), mixed media

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 Anish Kapoor’s ‘Untrue/Unreal’ Dissolves Dichotomies Through Sculptural Interventions at Palazzo Strozzi appeared first on Colossal.

The Rebrand of Harris Brand Platform Comes as it Gains its 150^th Client, Now Operating in Over a Dozen Countries

NEW YORK, Oct. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) Marketing Cloud today announced that The Harris Poll and Maru are working together to create a suite of integrated, AI-based research products that will go to market under the newly formed “Harris Quest.” The new unified brand will deliver a full suite of martech research offerings, inclusive of AI-enabled self-service polling and other “instant information” SaaS solutions.

At launch, Harris Quest’s product portfolio will include:

• QuestBrand: Always-on, real-time brand tracking
• QuestDIY: Self-service quantitative surveys
• QuestPRO: Professional-grade survey and insights tools
• QuestCX: Customer experience management solutions
• Quest IC: Insight community management
• QuestAI: Digital qualitative and quantitative insights tool

Harris Quest will eventually be fully interoperable with other Stagwell Marketing Cloud software and data tools for modern marketing teams.

“Stagwell Marketing Cloud is taking millions of data points from the world’s most reliable polling organization and infusing it with a fully scalable software platform,” said Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO. “This combination will truly unleash ‘research-as-a-service’ for the modern marketer.”

The Harris Poll is a leader in global public opinion with overnight polling and always-on brand tracking software, the latter of which looks at more than 2,000 brands on a continuous basis and collects over half a million interviews yearly. Now with Maru’s software platform integrated, Harris Quest can more precisely monitor society and the marketplace as it happens worldwide. With over 60 years’ experience as a trusted arbiter of society and culture, Harris’ deep research systems and consulting expertise give this new software advantages over both traditional market researchers as well as tech startups in the research sector.

“These tools dramatically give marketers of any size enterprise-grade research at a fraction of the cost,” said Harris Quest co-CEO Will Johnson. “This means faster insights and decision-making and more ways to keep pace with the marketplace, backed by Harris Poll reliability.”

About The Harris Poll “Hard Data. Human Truths.”

The Harris Poll is a global public opinion, analytics, and market research consultancy that strives to reveal society’s authentic values to inspire leaders to create a better tomorrow. With a global research reach of more than ninety countries, Harris offers advisory services across sectors to world leaders, CEOs, and business decision-makers with state-of-the-art analytics, real-time software services, and practitioners in marketing, reputation, customer experience, trends, futures, and thought leadership/research-for-public release, The Harris Poll translates shifting social sentiment into a competitive marketplace advantage. Harris is a Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) company. www.theharrispoll.com.

About Stagwell Marketing Cloud  

Stagwell Marketing Cloud (SMC) is a suite of data-driven SaaS solutions built for the modern in-house marketer. Born out of Stagwell’s (NASDAQ: STGW) network of award-winning marketing agencies, SMC’s technology empowers marketers to drive business impact by giving them intuitive tools equipped with proprietary, actionable data. SMC’s portfolio of solutions powers strategic customer research, communications, and media activation for brands worldwide by leveraging technology such as generative artificial intelligence, shared augmented reality, and more. Get your head in the cloud at www.stagwellmarketingcloud.com.  

About Stagwell

Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing. Led by entrepreneurs, our 13,000+ specialists in 34+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients.  www.stagwellglobal.com. 

CONTACT: 
Sarah Arvizo
pr@stagwellglobal.com

SOURCE Stagwell Inc.