Preparación de un soporte para la muestra

The Morris Hargreaves McIntyre Art Eco-System model depicted artists as passive, suggesting they did not possess the power to decide where their art could be exhibited or accepted. Artists were crucially reliant on capturing attention from critics, dealers,

collectors, and galleries to establish themselves. These intermediaries held the most power in the art market.

Following the emergence of the internet and social media, the power structure in the Art Eco-System gradually began to shift, insofar as the relationships between artists,

galleries, and the art market became more complex and nuanced.

In exploring the relationship between social media and cultural institutions, such as galleries and museums, Hinton and Hjorth (2013) observed that

cultural institutions… are responding to the challenges of evidence-based policy and social media by embracing the concepts of Web 2.0 in order to engage with their visitors… The role of the museum or gallery has been inverted, and context has increasingly been eradicated from museum and gallery spaces so that people are free to engage with the artworks without cultural interference (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013, p77-83).

Indeed, the emergence of social media brought changes to the balance of power between artists and traditional cultural institutions. It also changed the business models of traditional organisations. According to Hinton and Hjorth (2013), ‘Art institutions, such as museums and public galleries, have embraced social media, seeing it as a way to reach out to the community and involve them in order to both improve access and improve

understanding’ (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013, p84). They went on to emphasise ‘YouTube, MySpace, and the Internet in general [are] no substitute for a gallery. But [they] can offer a

good resource for people wanting to research an artist … The gallery space is transformative, powerful and singular’ (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013, p85).

This is particularly apparent in the role of middle men or intermediaries.

According to Prinz et al. (2014), ‘the “middle man” is the bridge between artists and the art market… Artists who intend to sell their work attempt to do so by signing art galleries as the middle man. Galleries are the intermediaries between artists and both art investors and art collectors’ (Prinz et al., 2014, p155). Prinz and colleagues further observed that in the traditional art eco-system

galleries choose and promote particular artists who represent the ‘supplier side’… The corresponding bargaining power of the individual artists only rises with a growing reputation and success in the art market, but initially it is very low. In contrast, the bargaining power of the ‘buyer side’ (e.g., private collectors) has recently tended to grow (Prinz et al., 2014, p158).

This description of the traditional art market also contained the seeds for inspiring artists to empower themselves. The emergence of social media had a catalysing effect, not only on the role of the artist but also in de-centralising power from galleries and

fundamentally changing the role of intermediaries. Indeed, crowdfunding has become the new intermediary. Moritz and Block (2016) shared this perspective, stating,

the involvement of a crowdfunding platform as an intermediary in crowdfunding transactions offers advantages for both capital seekers and providers. In addition to providing a standardized process, platforms act as an information, communication and execution portal. Accordingly, platforms can reduce information asymmetries and thus the risks involved for the participating parties (Moritz and Block, 2016, p40).

Crowdfunding is thus a pathway to rearranging the power structure in the art market. It not only assists artists in becoming closer to their buyers in the art market, crowdfunding plays a substantial role in the subsidy side and money side of art (Parker and Van Alstyne, 2005). For instance, artists can now achieve the same profits while charging customers less

Expanding upon this observation, Horejs (2010) claimed,

An interested buyer no longer needs to go through a traditional middle man, but can buy directly from the source. It is an exciting time to be an artist with the prospect of being able to connect directly to collectors and, frankly, it’s a bit of a terrifying time to own a gallery and face the prospect of ever-increasing expenses juxtaposed against the threat of your traditional buyers circumventing you to buy directly from the artists12_.

That being said, artists now need to take care of ancillary matters that had previously been absorbed by galleries. Instead of being a pure artist, they have become a kind of

cultural entrepreneur. According to Morris (2013),

… emerging artists undertake cultural production primarily for exposure’s sake and for the purposes of networking. Their artwork functions to increase their visibility. Importantly, the idea that artists are also entrepreneurs is not an attempt to

undermine any sort of authenticity typically associated with the artistic process, but rather to acknowledge that the artistic process often involves entrepreneurial

responsibilities and acumen. While art and commerce are frequently presented in opposition to one another, artists have long had to navigate the line between the two (Morris, 2013, p283).

On the one hand, artists seem to have good opportunities to retain their profits, free of the middle man (galleries). On the other hand, as Morris (2013) astutely observed, more challenges are created for artists because they have to deal with the things that middle men used to do for them. Morris (2013) further observed:

It is hard to deny that social media have become primary tools for artists (amateurs and professionals alike) to gain exposure and connect with users. Social networks, like Facebook or MySpace and other technologies associated with Web 2.0, seem to mash up so many previous forms of publicity – concert posters, videos, interviews, demos, radios, etc. (Morris, 2013, p277).

To provide readers with a case-in-point, Morris referred to artists in the music industry. In more detail, musicians began to use alternative ways of distributing music and of connecting with their fans, such as iTunes or online fan clubs. Over time, this has shortened the distance between artists and their followers, and has also encouraged artists to re-evaluate their relationships with their agents.

By way of a summary, De Veiga (2015) characterised the development of the new art market as follows,

the new media artist [is] the reconciler between technology and creativity, thus embodying a network of connections that puts him at the heart of a relational (eco)system, which also feeds the industry, technological multinationals, media and telecommunications giants, right at the fulcrum of progress and innovation,

emphasizing the crucial role that art is gaining in research and development in scientific areas, but also in its capacity for social intervention and change of paradigms (Da Veiga, 2015, p4).