# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What do we know about the future of art? Members: Brooklyn Angelina Stanley Ariela Angela

# data[].attributes.headline
Covid: Can the arts lead the green recovery from the pandemic?

# data[].attributes.subject
Covid: Can the arts lead the green recovery from the pandemic?

# data[].attributes.body
This article has explained how festivals, galleries, and artists are working towards a greener future and how the pandemic had an impact on this change.

Reference:
Fitzgerald, J. (2021). Covid: Can the arts lead the green recovery from the pandemic? BBC. Available at <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57779761> [Accessed January 12, 2022].

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Covid: Can the arts lead the green recovery from the pandemic?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The pandemic has devastated the arts, but green shoots of recovery may be forming - in every sense.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The digital space has not only enabled claims to online avatars or alter-egos, it has also ushered in new forms of digital ownership. The explosion of the online marketplace is changing the ways in which art is created, perceived, and owned. If post-internet art propelled artworks into immateriality, Cryptoart, which uses blockchain technology, is creating a new generation of art collectors. Sales of Cryptoart have leaped from over $416,000 in June 2020 to $616 million in the past year, based on data from cryptoart.io.

# data[].attributes.body
A guide on how the pandemic changed art and what art will be like in the future

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When the editors of of foreseeing the imagination. In consultation with art world professionals-artists, dealers, curators, museum administrators-we identified dynamics and ideas on the horizon, some with trajectories tracing into the past, others more sudden in origination. What follows is a survey of that horizon as presented in the Summer 2020 issue of ARTnews first endeavored on the project Next Big Things to prove significant around the art world, the future had a different cast to it than would soon be the case when the coronavirus crisis struck. But the future is always in flux-and thus always suited for the exercise of conjecture and ARTnews.

The Market Will Expand Online...

In March, when Jodi Pollack, co-worldwide head of Sotheby's 20th Century Design, moved her mid-season sale online, she and others in her department were concerned. They had some factors in their favor: the design market had been strong and growing, and online they had a captive audience to woo with choice property and reasonable estimates. But then, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the world had been turned upside down.

What ended up happening was better than they expected: the sale amounted to $4 million, the highest-ever total for an online sale of 20th-century design, with a "Moorish" twisted-wire chandelier executed by Tiffany Studios in the late 19th century selling for $300,000-20 times its high estimate. Sotheby's retained its usual geographic breadth of bidding (with 31 countries represented), and 29 bidders counted as first-time buyers in the design category, including some doing their first business ever with the firm.

By early April, overall dedicated online sales at Sotheby's had brought in some $36 million-more than double the take in same period in 2019. And as the lockdown continued, Clare McAndrew, an economist behind the annual Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report told the New York Times, "This is the stimulus the art market needed to move online."

Over the past decade at Christie's, figures for live bidding have gone down while those for online bidding have gone up. "People learn about the objects and experience them fundamentally differently than ten years ago," said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie's Americas. Figures from last year had already shown growth in Christie's online space: Total sales of art online were up 11 percent over 2018, and of all global clients, 64 percent bought or bid online. Of new buyers, 60 percent did their business in online sales, and online sales continue to recruit the largest number of new buyers, at around 41 percent.

While online sales still make up a small portion of the overall art market-in 2019, they represented just 9 percent of a total $64 billion in global sales, according to the Art Basel/UBS Report -Porter said he is seeing "an acceleration of the businesses we've been building. More will be online. More will be private. There will be an active auction market for people who prefer to transact that way."

At Sotheby's, Nicole Schloss, co-head of contemporary art day auctions in New York, said, "Simultaneously with galleries online viewing rooms growing, ... we've been able to drive traffic to Sothebys.com for bidding in both online-only sales and live sales." And art fairs, too, have migrated online. Marc Spiegler, director of Art Basel, said even when the world returns to its in-person ways, he foresees an accelerated shift toward digital promotion. "Galleries that have been forced to think about how they can promote their programs digitally-whether that's online studio visits with artists, or online viewing rooms-will continue to take advantage of such features," he said.

Signaling how galleries have started to think in terms of content, Sam Orlofsky, a longtime director at Gagosian who has spearheaded the mega-gallery's online viewing rooms, said, "this is not a tech story-this is a media story." During Art Basel Hong Kong in 2019, Gagosian set a new benchmark for an online sale when a painting by Albert Oehlen sold from its viewing room for $6 million. As a lead-up to that sale, Orlofsky and Gagosian CEO Andrew Fabricant appeared in a video on the gallery's website discussing both the painting and its market-and such promotional tools will continue to be important in the future. "This is a question of having the ability to reach as many people-and particularly as many new people-as possible," Orlofsky said. "If you don't have a platform to reach people, they aren't just going to stumble upon you."

Online content is important for the auction houses too. Both Christie's and Sotheby's have been moving away from printed catalogues, and more dynamic storytelling adds value, said Matthew Rubinger, head of marketing at Christie's. In 2019, visitors to Christie's various content channels grew by 32 percent, and people who visit Christie's website and view the content-stories, videos, and so forth-are some 30 percent more likely to bid in a sale than those who visit the site and don't linger to look.

"Current events will have transformative impact on events in the art market," said Pollack, Sotheby's co-head of design, back in April. "Technology will play a huge part in how we execute going forward."

"It was strange-I was alone in an apartment-but I found out that 450 people were logged on and there was all this feedback afterward," David Grubbs said of a recent performance he contributed to a program called "The Quarantine Concerts." "People were tuning in from Europe and Suriname."

The prospect of performance art in the virtual realm may seem at odds with a movement that prizes presence and connection in real time, but it is becoming more and more acceptable-and even appealing-to practitioners and audiences all over. Opera companies and theatrical endeavors have found success with broadcasts in venues like cinemas for years, and now the genres are expanding as the screens shrink in size.

Grubbs knows his way around thinking through the finer points of audience engagement as a poet (who often collaborates with Susan Howe) and the author of books including Now that the audience is assembled and The Voice in the Headphones. And he has good company in others who imagine a lasting future for online performance. Tim Griffin, executive director and chief curator of the Kitchen-a decades-old performance haven in New York-said online is a world waiting for more engagement of any and all kinds. "We try to experiment as much as possible, and I feel like it opens up possibilities that are new," he said of programming that will continue in the mold of "Kitchen Broadcasts" that debuted this past spring. "As curators, we have talked about a desire for a kind of intimacy, and even if you're not having a palpable experience of people in a room, you can have a personal connection that could be like somebody whispering in your ear. It can be really resonant, enriching, and soulful in a way."

Art & Science: Physicist Brian Greene in conversation with Janna Levin, the director of sciences at Pioneer Works, about Greene's new book Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe.Photo: Caitlin Ochs.

Art and Science Will Come Together

As scientists have worked on issues as overwhelming and abstract as climate change, artists have been active for their part helping convey complicated matters by other means. The environmentally minded TBA21-Academy has commissioned research-intensive artworks related to the warming of the world's oceans and problems that will inevitably result. More and more institutions are following similar lines to devise scientific endeavors in increasingly ambitious ways.

Pioneer Works in Brooklyn has run an extensive science program bringing collaborators like physicists and astronomers into its artistic fold, with decorated scientists participating in programs that are far more than just novel lectures. And the next edition of the Getty Foundation's Pacific Standard Time exhibition series, slated for 2024, will take up the theme "Art x Science x LA" to explore artistic connections between Los Angeles and its scientific communities, including the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. One of the participating institutions is the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, which has a long history of exhibitions based on its medical and scientific holdings and a long-standing partnership with JPL, plus an artist-in-residence program with the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech). "We see this as an opportunity to show how the Huntington lives and breathes on a daily basis at the intersection of art and science," said Christina Nielsen, director of the Huntington's art museum.

Collectivity and Collaboration Will Be the Way Forward

"Collectivity is always in the air because we as people belong to a whole, and one of the interesting things about the art world is, it allows you to pose questions about the nature of that belonging over and over again-that's what artists do," said David Lewis, whose namesake gallery in New York participated in mega-dealer David Zwirner's shared online "Platform" viewing-room program this past spring when the economic fallout from the coronavirus brought galleries together to help support fellow operations of varying size. Though it was born of necessity, the experience of "connecting and introducing and reaching out" to different networks offered a "commendable and exciting" model for collaboration in the future, Lewis said. And it followed a shift he noticed in his artists' thinking at the time-a migration of interests from the micro to the macro scale. "It's like in 1968 when people first saw pictures of the Earth from space," he said. "There's this sudden awareness that we're one globe, one planet-almost like we've become a single pulsing organism."

Collective endeavors have taken on increasing currency in recent years, with platforms such as the multicity Condo gallery-share program helping to spur business among small and mid-tier operations and museums working together. But the future has more in store-and likely of a nature we haven't seen before.

As executive director of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), Stacy Tenenbaum Stark is part of a coalition of leaders of grant-giving organizations who combined forces this spring to form the Artist Relief Fund, with ongoing plans to allocate emergency support during the coronavirus crisis after an initial launch in April with $10 million raised. Its scale may be new, but the spirit behind the effort taps a long-running legacy that began in 1963-more than a half-century ago-when Jasper Johns and John Cage came together and founded the FCA to raise money to help stage a performance by their fellow artist friend Merce Cunningham. "A through-line of artists being generous and wanting to help their own has always been there," said Stark. Asked if she thinks that line will continue and even intensify in the future, she said, "I hope it will-and I think it will."

The kind of collectivity that artists cherish can vary in character. "If you're collaborating or working with someone you don't like or who doesn't like you, that can be much more interesting than everyone agreeing," said Robert Wilson, who as a theater director and founder of the Watermill Center-a collectively inclined "laboratory for the arts and humanities"-has worked with expansive casts since the 1960s.

Then there is the case of an upstart project initiated in part by artist Camille Henrot when the need for protective equipment for health-care workers presented itself this past spring. As a member of a private listserv through which artists engage with fabricators, technicians, and others, Henrot raised the prospect of donating materials that many had in their studios and-with the aid of others in the network who came to be known as the Mask Crusaders-helped produce and distribute needed supplies in dozens of cities within days. "I've always been interested in the dynamic between the individual and the collective," Henrot said, "and there's something magical about how it happened."

As to how best to keep the spirit alive, Henrot suggested adhering to a simple directive: "Swim in the water and help people who do not have the force to swim or the possibility to stay afloat." Aquatic imagery applies, she added, because "in water, you constantly need to move."

Galleries Will Battle with Auction Houses

In January, just over a month after financier and storied art aficionado Donald Marron died, there came news that the major auction houses-Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips-were submitting bids for his collection, which he'd built over the course of six decades and was valued at nearly half a billion dollars. Rumors floated, suggesting that works from his holdings-including top-quality pieces by the likes of Picasso and Gerhard Richter-would appear on the block as early as May.

But in February came even more surprising news: Marron's trove of some 300 artworks would go not to an auction house but to a collective collaboration between three mega-galleries-Pace, Gagosian, and Acquavella-who would split them up and sell them on their own. Exhibitions of the material planned for May at Pace and Gagosian were postponed during the coronavirus crisis, but the deal itself is still very much on-and art advisers are convinced that the arrangement could set a precedent and become a weapon in dealers' arsenals to battle the ever more powerful auction houses. "This is the first of many such deals," said one adviser who works with high-value transactions. "We will definitely see other estates and divorces executing similar arrangements. It's a big blow for the auction houses."

A prized estate, the adviser added, can get a higher dollar offer from a consortium of well-connected galleries than from an auction house. As another adviser put it, "under a billion dollars, galleries are a formidable foe for an auction house-when they collaborate."

Playing Catch-Up: Alex Katz in front of his painting January 3, 1993, at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2015.Luis Tejido/EPA/Shutterstock

Alex Katz's Market Will Catch Up With His Importance

Alex Katz, who this summer turns 93, is poised for liftoff. The Guggenheim Museum is planning a major retrospective, young artists have been looking at his work, and the market is starting to appreciate the artist's depth.

At auction, the excitement started in February 2019 when, for the first time, one of his paintings passed the $1 million mark. (The 1987 portrait Ada and Louise went for $1.2 million at Christie's London.) Then, last October, Phillips London reset the record when the 1972 painting Blue Umbrella I soared past its $1.4 million presale estimate to make $4.1 million.

A n argument could be made that Katz is as historically important as peers like David Hockney (whose auction record is $91 million) and Gerhard Richter (whose auction record is $46.3 million)-and yet his market has lagged behind theirs. But dealer Thaddaeus Ropac, who has represented Katz for 25 years with his galleries in London, Paris, and Switzerland, has seen a steady rise in interest for the American artist in Europe, starting with institutions and, more recently, private collectors. Ropac's first show of Katz's paintings in Paris in the early '90s "was a total surprise to many Europeans, including museum curators," he said. The Centre Pompidou, which held works by American peers like Jasper Johns but not one by Katz, bought one. And the fever spread, as Ropac said; at last count he'd sold almost 50 pieces to European institutions, with the Albertina Museum in Vienna acquiring work by the artist in depth.

American institutions have always had strong Katz holdings-the Met alone has works from various periods of his career. But while European museums mounted survey shows, American institutions lagged behind. "For years we were talking to many American institutions, trying to see how they could honor him with a major retrospective," Ropac said. Then, in January, the Guggenheim announced a Katz retrospective planned for 2022. "The announcement of that show has affected the level of interest in Katz-it has changed the market."

Other factors have contributed to the resurgence of interest-not least the fact that, at 92, Katz is still painting. And 10 years ago, he made a decision that added a certain currency to his profile when, for his New York representation, he left the well-established Pace Gallery for the younger, hipper Gavin Brown's Enterprise. (And this even though mega-gallerist Gagosian had expressed interest in taking him on.) Brown has mounted numerous exhibitions of new paintings and sees Katz as capturing the present moment. "To be painting lived and experienced moments at 92 with a fearlessness and a confidence-I don't know any artist a quarter or a third his age who can do that," Brown said. "It seems as though with every painting he jumps off the cliff with complete confidence he can fly."

Brown added, in mind of a legacy still propagating, "young artists and the primary market have great respect and a great response to that. He's painting in the last period of his life and he is doing it at full speed."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's Next? 18 Trends That Will Move the Art World Forward

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the editors of of foreseeing the imagination. In consultation with art world professionals-artists, dealers, curators, museum administrators-we identified dynamics and ideas on the horizon, some with trajectories tracing into the past, others more sudden in origination.

# data[].attributes.headline
“Digital Art and the Future of Traditional Arts”, By: Triyono Bramantyo

# data[].attributes.subject
“Digital Art and the Future of Traditional Arts”, By: Triyono Bramantyo

# data[].attributes.body
About the Written Report:

This report discusses the impact that technology has had on our lives. With that being said, Bramantyo talks about the changes that have occurred throughout history on art, mentioning also important influencers. This report also talks about the "generic multidimensional space" where digital art now inhabits, and why it is a revolution to mankind (the new form of art).

Keywords:
- Digital Art
- Virtual Reality
- Traditional Arts

Key ideas:

1. The involvement of mankind with technology and the "digital world".

2. A creative invention is done by artists of a new virtual reality that improves our lives, allowing for every individual to be part of a Digital artistic experience.

3. Art in media is diverse and is in constant change.

4. Where does traditional art stand today? Is it disappearing?

5. ICT (Information Communication Technology) refers to information and help we receive from technology. Thus, ICT is intentionally done to help society perform daily tasks (such as art) in an easier and faster way. In a way, it reduces our anxiety and pressure to do things.

6. Virtual reality is the term used to describe that "reality/space" that is created with "artificial vision in the form of light, sound and touch, unlimited only the dimensions of space and time" (Bramantyo).

7. Human intelligence vs Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence refers to machines that mimic human behaviour and actions.

8. Will the future machines and computers have the capability of adapting that "human intelligence"? Will that affect the way art is created?

Reference

Bramantyo Triyono. (2021). Digital Art and the Future of Traditional Arts. № 1. С. 96–110. [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350688411_Digital_Art_and_the_Future_of_Traditional_Arts. [Accessed January 11, 2022]

# data[].attributes.headline
“What will art look like in 20 years?” By: Devon Van Houten Maldonado

# data[].attributes.subject
“What will art look like in 20 years?” By: Devon Van Houten Maldonado

# data[].attributes.body
Reference:
Maldonado, D. (2019). What will art look like in 20 years? BBC. Available at <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190418-what-will-art-look-like-in-20-years> [Accessed January 12, 2022].

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The identity politics seen in art around the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements will grow as environmentalism, border politics and migration come even more sharply into focus. Art will become increasingly diverse and might not 'look like art' as we expect. In the future, once we've become weary of our lives being visible online for all to see and our privacy has been all but lost, anonymity may be more desirable than fame. Instead of thousands, or millions, of likes and followers, we will be starved for authenticity and connection. Art could, in turn, become more collective and experiential, rather than individual.
A more inclusive art world?
"I imagine art in 20 years will be much more fluid than it is today," curator Jeffreen M Hayes tells BBC Culture, "in the sense of boundaries being collapsed between media, between the kinds of art that is labelled art, in the traditional sense. I also see it being much more representative of our growing and shifting demographics, so more artists of colour, more female-identified works, and everything in between."

Hayes's exhibition AfriCOBRA: Nation Time was recently selected as an official collateral event of the 2019 Venice Biennale which opens in May, bringing the work of a previously little-known and uncelebrated group of black artists working on Chicago's south side in the 1960s to an international audience.

"I'm hopeful that in 20 years, as art shifts and artists help to lead the way, that institutions begin to be, not just intentional, but more thoughtful about the different ways that art can be presented, and that would require a more inclusive, not just curatorial staff, but also leadership," she says.

Senegalese artist and curator Modou Dieng tells BBC Culture "the future of art is black." Today, African, African-American, Afro-European, and Afro-Latin art is trending globally, marked by an opening to African diaspora artists working with discourses beyond the black body and colonialism. Black abstraction, curating and performance are all centre stage. Growing up in a newly independent Senegal looking for an identity as a people, "we saw migration as the solution, not the problem," says Dieng, whose works are included in the US Department of State's permanent collection.

The change anticipated by Hayes and Dieng does not translate to the new emergence of black, Latino, LGBT, outsider, feminist and 'other' art, as these movements have long histories of their own. But it merely means that they will be further embraced by the markets and the institutions, which will themselves become more diverse and informed by histories outside the dominant, Eurocentric, Western canon.
Activism
Activism-art campaigns are indicative of shifting trends toward accountability, also revealing of entrenched power dynamics and dirty money in the art world. Decolonize This Place, an amorphous group of artists and activists describing themselves as an "action-oriented movement centring around Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentrification," are currently undertaking protests inside New York's Whitney Museum of Art against vice chairman Warren B Kanders, who owns a company that manufactures tear-gas used against oppressed people around the world.

The artist-activists of the Decolonize This Place movement aren't the first in history to be disruptive, usually to the dismay of institutions. During World War One a group of artists calling themselves the Dada started to stage disruptive, experimental interventions as a protest against the senseless violence of the war. The Dada was considered the most radical avant-garde movement in the early 20th Century, followed by the Fluxus artists in the 1960s, who similarly sought to employ shock and senselessness in order to change artistic and social perceptions. The legacy of these performative movements continues in works by artists like Paul McCarthy and Robert Mapplethorpe. "Shock functions as part of the movements' attempt to change society," writes Dorothée Brill in Shock and the Senseless in Dada and Fluxus. "This endeavour will be shown to as being linked to the artists' rejection of the idea that artistic production must make sense and be meaningful."

"I hope that art will continue to be a space for formal innovation, radical experimentation and lawlessness," curator Chris Sharp tells BBC Culture, "in order to continue to evade the instrumentalisation of capitalism, politics and ideology, carving out a space for neither right nor wrong thinking, but rather thought which can be neither qualified nor quantified." When we spoke, Sharp was in Milan for the art fair with his Mexico City gallery, Lulu, before traveling to Venice, where he is co-curating the New Zealand Pavilion for the May Biennale with Dr Zara Stanhope and artist Dane Mitchell.

Those who believe in 'art for art's sake' might say that art as an unquantifiable force must remain outside social or ideological norms, or risk becoming something else. Some experts like Sharp argue that it's a slippery slope when art starts leaning toward activism because that's just not the point. (Though the curator also argues that it's impossible for art to be apolitical). It's a viewpoint committed to art as a force on its own, a process of radical experimentation that results in an artwork, one of many along a line of inquiry, not a means to illustrate an end or impregnate an object with meaning. No conclusions should be drawn about art, present or future because it is the force against universalism, which must be interrupted by artists, as if to tell the world "wake up!"
Painting is (not) dead
In two decades' time, it will have been 200 years since Paul Delaroche exclaimed "painting is dead", and there are reasonable arguments against how relevant the medium is as a tool of the avant-garde. Delaroche's original idea has been repeated and recycled endlessly as new mediums have worked their way into and out of the spotlight, but painting isn't likely to be going anywhere.

Painting sales are still the major driver of auction houses, art fairs and galleries, dominating all record-breaking art sales. Modern paintings made during the first half of the 20th Century continue to hold steady as the most desirable and most expensive artworks on the market. Nine of the 10 most expensive paintings ever sold were made between 1892 and 1955, the only exception being a newly discovered Leonardo da Vinci from between 1490 and 1519, which fetched an extraordinary $450.3m (£341m) at auction, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold. Every painting on the list was made by a white man, however, which doesn't paint a very hopeful picture for equality.

In 20 years, the market might not be very different than it is today - dominated by modern painting - but perhaps works from the second half of the 20th Century, including more women and minority artists, will begin to accrue value: in 2017 a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (1984), set a new record for the most expensive contemporary artwork sold at auction for $110.4m (£85.4m). Last year the market for contemporary African and African diaspora also set records, with Kerry James Marshall fetching an astounding $21.1m for his painting Past Times (1997), a new record for living African-American artist.
Multi-futurism
Maite Borjabad, curator of architecture and design at The Art Institute of Chicago, says that we should be "ready for things to happen that you cannot even anticipate." In other words, we can't expect to predict one future, but instead should prepare for many futures.

A museum is not just a place for things to exist, but it's a platform for other voices to be heard. So according to Borjabad, the curator is a mediator. Through commissions, for example, the museum isn't just a place to display art, but also an "incubator of ideas" for producing new work. "I think that the future is multiple and plural, it's not a future," she tells BBC Culture.

"Cultural institutions and collections are highly political and have perpetuated and consolidated a very dogmatic understanding of history," she continues. "That's why collections like the Art Institute are the perfect material to help us rewrite histories, plural, rather than just a history."

In the year 2040, art might not look like art (unless it's a painting), but it will look like everything else, reflecting zeitgeists as multitudinous and diverse as the artists themselves. There will be artist-activists leading political upheaval; there will be formal experimenters exploring new mediums and spaces (even in outer space), and there will be strong markets in Latin America, Asia and Africa. So in the world of culture at least, the West may find itself playing catch up.
Lead image: Lines (57° 59′ N, 7° 16'W) by Timo Aho & Pekka Niittyvirta in Taigh Chearsabhagh Art Centre, Scotland (Credit: Pekka Niittyvirta & Timo Aho)
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Devon Van Houten Maldonado asks artists and curators to imagine the changes and trends that will influence the art world in the next two decades.

# data[].attributes.headline
“What will art look like in 20 years?” By: Devon Van Houten Maldonado

# data[].attributes.subject
“What will art look like in 20 years?” By: Devon Van Houten Maldonado

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The identity politics seen in art around the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements will grow as environmentalism, border politics and migration come even more sharply into focus. Art will become increasingly diverse and might not 'look like art' as we expect. In the future, once we've become weary of our lives being visible online for all to see and our privacy has been all but lost, anonymity may be more desirable than fame. Instead of thousands, or millions, of likes and followers, we will be starved for authenticity and connection. Art could, in turn, become more collective and experiential, rather than individual.
A more inclusive art world?
"I imagine art in 20 years will be much more fluid than it is today," curator Jeffreen M Hayes tells BBC Culture, "in the sense of boundaries being collapsed between media, between the kinds of art that is labelled art, in the traditional sense. I also see it being much more representative of our growing and shifting demographics, so more artists of colour, more female-identified works, and everything in between."

Hayes's exhibition AfriCOBRA: Nation Time was recently selected as an official collateral event of the 2019 Venice Biennale which opens in May, bringing the work of a previously little-known and uncelebrated group of black artists working on Chicago's south side in the 1960s to an international audience.

"I'm hopeful that in 20 years, as art shifts and artists help to lead the way, that institutions begin to be, not just intentional, but more thoughtful about the different ways that art can be presented, and that would require a more inclusive, not just curatorial staff, but also leadership," she says.

Senegalese artist and curator Modou Dieng tells BBC Culture "the future of art is black." Today, African, African-American, Afro-European, and Afro-Latin art is trending globally, marked by an opening to African diaspora artists working with discourses beyond the black body and colonialism. Black abstraction, curating and performance are all centre stage. Growing up in a newly independent Senegal looking for an identity as a people, "we saw migration as the solution, not the problem," says Dieng, whose works are included in the US Department of State's permanent collection.

The change anticipated by Hayes and Dieng does not translate to the new emergence of black, Latino, LGBT, outsider, feminist and 'other' art, as these movements have long histories of their own. But it merely means that they will be further embraced by the markets and the institutions, which will themselves become more diverse and informed by histories outside the dominant, Eurocentric, Western canon.
Activism
Activism-art campaigns are indicative of shifting trends toward accountability, also revealing of entrenched power dynamics and dirty money in the art world. Decolonize This Place, an amorphous group of artists and activists describing themselves as an "action-oriented movement centring around Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentrification," are currently undertaking protests inside New York's Whitney Museum of Art against vice chairman Warren B Kanders, who owns a company that manufactures tear-gas used against oppressed people around the world.

The artist-activists of the Decolonize This Place movement aren't the first in history to be disruptive, usually to the dismay of institutions. During World War One a group of artists calling themselves the Dada started to stage disruptive, experimental interventions as a protest against the senseless violence of the war. The Dada was considered the most radical avant-garde movement in the early 20th Century, followed by the Fluxus artists in the 1960s, who similarly sought to employ shock and senselessness in order to change artistic and social perceptions. The legacy of these performative movements continues in works by artists like Paul McCarthy and Robert Mapplethorpe. "Shock functions as part of the movements' attempt to change society," writes Dorothée Brill in Shock and the Senseless in Dada and Fluxus. "This endeavour will be shown to as being linked to the artists' rejection of the idea that artistic production must make sense and be meaningful."

"I hope that art will continue to be a space for formal innovation, radical experimentation and lawlessness," curator Chris Sharp tells BBC Culture, "in order to continue to evade the instrumentalisation of capitalism, politics and ideology, carving out a space for neither right nor wrong thinking, but rather thought which can be neither qualified nor quantified." When we spoke, Sharp was in Milan for the art fair with his Mexico City gallery, Lulu, before traveling to Venice, where he is co-curating the New Zealand Pavilion for the May Biennale with Dr Zara Stanhope and artist Dane Mitchell.

Those who believe in 'art for art's sake' might say that art as an unquantifiable force must remain outside social or ideological norms, or risk becoming something else. Some experts like Sharp argue that it's a slippery slope when art starts leaning toward activism because that's just not the point. (Though the curator also argues that it's impossible for art to be apolitical). It's a viewpoint committed to art as a force on its own, a process of radical experimentation that results in an artwork, one of many along a line of inquiry, not a means to illustrate an end or impregnate an object with meaning. No conclusions should be drawn about art, present or future because it is the force against universalism, which must be interrupted by artists, as if to tell the world "wake up!"
Painting is (not) dead
In two decades' time, it will have been 200 years since Paul Delaroche exclaimed "painting is dead", and there are reasonable arguments against how relevant the medium is as a tool of the avant-garde. Delaroche's original idea has been repeated and recycled endlessly as new mediums have worked their way into and out of the spotlight, but painting isn't likely to be going anywhere.

Painting sales are still the major driver of auction houses, art fairs and galleries, dominating all record-breaking art sales. Modern paintings made during the first half of the 20th Century continue to hold steady as the most desirable and most expensive artworks on the market. Nine of the 10 most expensive paintings ever sold were made between 1892 and 1955, the only exception being a newly discovered Leonardo da Vinci from between 1490 and 1519, which fetched an extraordinary $450.3m (£341m) at auction, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold. Every painting on the list was made by a white man, however, which doesn't paint a very hopeful picture for equality.

In 20 years, the market might not be very different than it is today - dominated by modern painting - but perhaps works from the second half of the 20th Century, including more women and minority artists, will begin to accrue value: in 2017 a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (1984), set a new record for the most expensive contemporary artwork sold at auction for $110.4m (£85.4m). Last year the market for contemporary African and African diaspora also set records, with Kerry James Marshall fetching an astounding $21.1m for his painting Past Times (1997), a new record for living African-American artist.
Multi-futurism
Maite Borjabad, curator of architecture and design at The Art Institute of Chicago, says that we should be "ready for things to happen that you cannot even anticipate." In other words, we can't expect to predict one future, but instead should prepare for many futures.

A museum is not just a place for things to exist, but it's a platform for other voices to be heard. So according to Borjabad, the curator is a mediator. Through commissions, for example, the museum isn't just a place to display art, but also an "incubator of ideas" for producing new work. "I think that the future is multiple and plural, it's not a future," she tells BBC Culture.

"Cultural institutions and collections are highly political and have perpetuated and consolidated a very dogmatic understanding of history," she continues. "That's why collections like the Art Institute are the perfect material to help us rewrite histories, plural, rather than just a history."

In the year 2040, art might not look like art (unless it's a painting), but it will look like everything else, reflecting zeitgeists as multitudinous and diverse as the artists themselves. There will be artist-activists leading political upheaval; there will be formal experimenters exploring new mediums and spaces (even in outer space), and there will be strong markets in Latin America, Asia and Africa. So in the world of culture at least, the West may find itself playing catch up.
Lead image: Lines (57° 59′ N, 7° 16'W) by Timo Aho & Pekka Niittyvirta in Taigh Chearsabhagh Art Centre, Scotland (Credit: Pekka Niittyvirta & Timo Aho)
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Devon Van Houten Maldonado asks artists and curators to imagine the changes and trends that will influence the art world in the next two decades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mapping the NFT revolution: market trends, trade networks, and visual features

# data[].attributes.headline
“New Way of Investing in Digital Art”, By: Eva Rtology

# data[].attributes.subject
“New Way of Investing in Digital Art”, By: Eva Rtology

# data[].attributes.body
About the article:

To sum it up, the article introduces its readers to a new form of art that has surged in these couple of months.

1. Artificial Intelligence Art, whose popularity has increased because it is different to the traditional art we all know of.

2. AI is done digitally, which is creating a "technological revolution",(Rtology) especially for many artists, investors, and art collectors.

3. The creation of new art pieces is known as NFTs

Reference:

Rtology, Eva. “New Way of Investing in Digital Art.” Medium, Data-Driven Fiction, 28 Dec. 2021, https://medium.com/data-driven-fiction/new-way-of-investing-in-digital-art-43e1fc482366. [Accessed January 11, 2021]

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
What is an NFT – and should you be investing? | Art | Culture

# data[].attributes.headline
“What is an NFT – and should you be adding one to your art collection?” By: Mark Westall

# data[].attributes.subject
“What is an NFT – and should you be adding one to your art collection?” By: Mark Westall

# data[].attributes.body
About the Article:

Key Ideas:
- NFTs, along with Bitcoin and Etherum, will influence greatly the financial landscape.
- Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist that has proven the economical benefits of creating and selling NFTs, has won millions with the creation of his collection of NFTs.
- What Are NFTs?
- Why now?
- How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted this?

Summary:

1. The article discusses in-depth this new "digital currency" known as NFTs.

2. While also, the reason why they are in high demand at the moment.

3. Their fame arise recently because certain images (like very well-known memes) have been put up for auction for millions of dollars. Thus, many people are aware of these files, however, what makes them so "attractive" is the idea of being able to own "a unique version of something already enjoyed by the masses" (Westall).

4. Then, the article also talks about the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on art, and this new "form of art" we know as "digital art" or "artificially intelligent art".

5. Finally, it gives its readers advice for getting into this new buisiness.

Reference:

Westall, Mark. “What Is an NFT – and Should You Be Investing?: Art: Culture.” Luxury London, 1 Apr. 2021, https://luxurylondon.co.uk/culture/art/what-is-an-nft-and-should-you-invest-in-one-beeple-digital-art-blockchain-damien-hirst. [Accessed January 12, 2022]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On 11 March 2021, 24 hours after this article was commissioned, Mike Winkelmann - better known by his online moniker Beeple - sold his digital artwork First 5,000 Days via an online Christie's auction for $69.3 million. The third highest amount ever paid for an artwork by a living artist.

It's worth noting that this sale came after months of increasingly valuable digital art auctions. In October, Winkelmann sold his first series of NFTs, with a pair going for $66,666.66 each. In December, he sold a series of works for $3.5 million total. And, last month, one of the NFTs that originally sold for $66,666.66 was resold for $6.6 million.

A few factors explain why Beeple's work has become so valuable. For one, he's developed a large fan base, with around 2.5 million followers across social channels. He's also famously prolific: as part of a project called Everydays, Winkelmann creates and publishes a new digital artwork every day. The project is now in its thirteenth year, meaning there are over 5,000 pieces in the series.

There is also the fact that there are some very wealthy players who believe in the value of NFTs. A few days after the Christie's auction it was revealed that Metakovan, the pseudonymous founder and financier of Metapurse, the largest NFT (unique digital assets) fund in the world, was the successful bidder. Speaking on the purchase, he explained, "When you think of high-valued NFTs, this one is going to be pretty hard to beat. And here's why - it represents 13 years of everyday work. Techniques are replicable and skill is surpassable, but the only thing you can't hack digitally is time. This is the crown jewel, the most valuable piece of art for this generation. It is worth $1 billion."

First 5,000 Days by Beeple

But Beeple is not the only artist exploring the digital field. Damien Hirst, too, recently sold a time-based open edition series of prints for $22.4 million and revealed he was going to launch a secret NFT art project called Currency that has been in the works for five years.

"Ever since I made the diamond skull I've been thinking about wealth and value," he explained. "I have been working on an artwork for the last five years. It's been blowing my mind. It explores and challenges the concept of value through money and art. For the past three years the project has been expanding into the blockchain and NFTs.

"It involves 10,000 original works of art on paper, which I call "The Currency". I made them all five years ago, and they are in a vault but about to come to life through their launch on the blockchain. They also exist as NFTs and a related cryptocurrency. The whole project is an artwork, and anyone who buys "The Currency" will participate in this work, it's not just about owning it. It is the most exciting project I have ever worked on by far."

With some serious names and money behind it, the market for NFTs is booming, with new records seemingly being set on a semi-regular basis. But what actually are NFTs, why is this happening now and is this an art world bubble or an investment to be taken seriously?

H9-8 Control by Damien Hirst

H9-1 Justice by Damien Hirst

What is an NFT?

NFTs allow you to buy and sell ownership of unique digital items and keep track of who owns them using the blockchain. NFT stands for 'non-fungible token', and it can technically contain anything digital, including drawings, animated GIFs, songs, or items in video games. An NFT can either be one-of-a-kind, like a real-life painting, or one copy of many, like print editions, but the blockchain keeps track of who has ownership of each unique file. In essence an NFT proves that the digital artwork you bought is unique or from a short run: it proves scarcity.

NFTs have been making headlines lately, with some selling for millions of dollars, and high-profile memes like Nyan Cat and the "deal with it" sunglasses being put up for auction. NFT sales have been particularly headline-grabbing because, in most cases, the images, songs or memes they contain can be already be seen by anyone on the internet for free. An NFT, then is not about the pleasure of enjoying something that no-one else has access to but about owning a unique version of something already enjoyed by the masses.

So why now?

As with most market booms of this nature, there are a few forces at work here. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced collectors to look at physical art online at virtual versions of , such as Art Basel, and on the websites of top galleries. The reality is, however, that in this setting most art doesn't look great. It doesn't excite.

Of course it doesn't, it wasn't created for this medium, it was created to be seen in a gallery space, contemplated, understood over time. What this phenomenon has done, however, with the help of publicists from galleries, art fairs and auction houses, is legitimise the purchase of expensive, high-level art online.

It is almost inevitable, then, that after looking at oil paintings in 3D reconstructions of real world spaces, buyers going to platforms selling NFT editions and seeing art that has been created specifically for that medium are impressed. The art is in your face, fun, bright, noisy, quick. It's new world, not old world.

Nyan Cat

There is also the fact that the NFT market has opened up a new world of art to many who shunned it in its more traditional guise. There are a lot of people with crypto wealth, or who have made a lot of money from cryptocurrency, that simply feel more comfortable in the digital space. There were only 33 active bidders in the Beeple auction and, according to the auction house, 20 of these had never bid at Christie's before.

The last, and possibly most important factor, is trust. I was first contacted in November about NFTs becoming a thing and, since then, there has been a concerted effort by people in the industry to have them accepted by well-known galleries and auction houses as a mechanism to instill trust in potential buyers.

Of course, that has now happened. We've had the big galleries, auction houses and experts telling us it's okay to buy art online, we've seen that art created for the medium is better than art that hasn't been created for it and people have started buying it. The final part of the jigsaw is the NFT technology itself; it guarantees exclusivity, scarcity and value. Plus, if someone is willing to pay $69+ million, it must be okay mustn't it?

Are NFTs worth investing in?

I'll start with another quote, this time from Keld Van Schreven, an art collector and co-founder of KR1 Europe, the continent's leading digital assets investment company. "NFTs are a very interesting option for art collectors as you are buying and investing in a new revolution as well as the art itself. NFTs are going to upend the art system as much as Bitcoin and Ethereum are going to change the financial landscape.

"Once you have bought an NFT, reselling the work you have bought couldn't be easier. There are several markets that you can buy and sell NFTs on and they have good liquidity. NFTs completely disintermediate the gallery system. NFTs are a game changer for artists as well as collectors as they give artists new liquidity as well as a tamper proof storage medium with automatic royalties on future sales."

As Van Schreven points out, one of the problems with the existing art world is the difficulty of selling your art. Selling quickly or flipping is frowned upon and artists don't get a cut of the resale price in most cases. Finally gatekeepers at the big galleries restrict access to prime artists and sell to their top collectors and friends first. The NFT art market does away with these traditional controls just as cryptocurrency does with established currency.

Like all investments, however, you need to research the market. Not all platforms selling NFTs are as safe or reliable as others. Commission rates are high, in some cases 5%, while there have been cases of people selling other people's art as their own and the theft of 'wallets' containing NFTs and cryptocurrency. Just as if you were buying a Rembrandt, if you're going to get into the NFT market, you need good tech and security.

Potential investors, however, shouldn't be deterred. There are 4-5 well known and well managed NFT art trading platforms, such as Nifty Gateway, Super Rare and Foundation, and if you stick to those most of these issues should be covered. The market is also very transparent. You can see previous trading data for individual works, artists and, even more helpfully, collectors. If you still aren't sure, you can even do as one interested collector recommended and invest in Ethereum: the 'currency' on which all these NFT's are minted.
Read more: The expert's guide to starting an art collection

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is an NFT - and should you be adding one to your art collection? - Luxury London

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The blockchain-backed digital art market is booming: here's what you need to know about the brave new world of NFTs

# data[].attributes.body
This article explains how the arts have adapted to the pandemic, tells the story of several artist's pandemic experiences, and how this affects the future of the arts and these artists.

Reference:
Caust, J. (2021). Sustainability of Artists in Precarious Times; How Arts Producers and Individual Artists Have Adapted during a Pandemic> Available at <ttps://mdpi-res.com/sustainability/sustainability-13-13561/article_deploy/sustainability-13-13561.pdf> [Accessed January 11, 2022].

# data[].attributes.headline
'Beginning of a new era': how culture went virtual in the face of crisis

# data[].attributes.subject
'Beginning of a new era': how culture went virtual in the face of crisis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
t's a terrible time for going out. Since the emergence of Covid-19 and resulting self-quarantine, thousands of museums, cultural institutions, festivals and global happenings have temporarily shuttered operations, leaving behind empty streets and a restless public. In a sector that thrives on in-person connection, the loss of an audience is disastrous, yet resilient performers, institutions, galleries, even entire art fairs, are moving to the digital arena, using streaming services and virtual reality, manifesting live concerts on the gaming app Twitch, organizing Instagram dance parties and launching online-only spaces.

During his popular 2015 Ted Talk, the immersive artist, entrepreneur and director Chris Milk suggested that virtual reality could someday become the "ultimate empathy machine" but despite an initial burst of interest in 2015 during the launch of the Oculus Rift headset, immersive media have primarily remained niche. Now, with social distancing, the technology is experiencing something of a renaissance.

The last few weeks have seen live-streaming performances of the Metropolitan Opera and the Cleveland Inner City Ballet to an intimate St Patrick's Day show from the Boston punk band Dropkick Murphys, with additional groups creating worlds specifically for VR. It is now even possible to take a virtual walk through the New York Botanical Garden's spring bloom-scape. The pandemic, incredibly, is ushering in a golden age of virtual media, making good on the initial promise of digital, while offering new life and unprecedented access to some of the world's cultural touchstones, some previously financially or physically inaccessible. While the world has never felt more physically isolated, digital media have offered a bridge, as well as an exciting range of experiences.

When the Google Arts & Culture initiative first launched in 2011, it had modest ambitions. Today, thousands of users each month virtually explore treasures from the Uffizi Galleries to the Guggenheim, leading to a boom in arts-leaning VR projects. This has included the Metropolitan Museum of Art's award-winning video series, the Met 360 Project, that invites viewers to explore the Temple of Dendur, among other attractions, using spherical 360° technology created by the celebrated producer Nina Diamond. Recently, the digital team reported a 4,106% growth in streaming viewership, with YouTube video views up 150%, and both socials and the website experiencing significant increases in engagement. The New York Public Library and the 92nd Street Y previously enjoyed modest success with their digital efforts but, since Covid-19, have gained new audiences with dynamic initiatives, shifting discussions with celebrated culture figures to YouTube and introducing free online tutoring for students. In Vienna, an ambitious campaign has put almost all of the city's cultural treasures online, from the Belvedere to the State Opera, which currently offers selections from its archive of video performances as well as a VR/360-degree experience, recently gaining 130,000 new registrations on the opera's streaming platform and apps.

The David Zwirner Gallery online viewing room. Photograph: David Zwirner

The past month's most discussed virtual project has been Art Basel's Online Viewing Rooms, which proved so popular when it launched that the site crashed. Already scheduled before the outbreak, its debut was fast-tracked in response to the Hong Kong fair's cancellation, explained Marc Spiegler, global director of Art Basel: "It became clear this was something we needed to accelerate and expand." The virtual fair, which features 234 galleries and a combined 2,100 works, with perks like ZoomRoom, which enables galleries and artists to walk through viewing areas with potential collectors, appeared to be the most logical response to the unprecedented disruption.

David Zwirner Gallery, the first to launch online rooms in 2017, has also seen an uptick in digital interest both on its viewing room platform, David Zwirner Online, and podcast Dialogues. "Online exhibitions can do things that brick-and-mortar exhibitions can't," explained Lucas Zwirner, head of content. "They can embed videos, longer excerpts of art-historically relevant material, and artist-created content." Like any medium, he noted, the online space becomes as meaningful and as fruitful as we are thoughtful in the ways we approach it. "That has been the goal - to come up with something that is effective for reaching collectors and the art world at large, but also appeals to artists because it is contextual, art historic and elegant." Taking a similar strategy is Pace Gallery, whose roster includes leading tech-influenced artists like Trevor Paglen and teamLab. The gallery began exploring online viewing room platforms last year as part of a major redesign to their website. "Our hope for these online exhibitions is to use the voices of our dealers and curatorial team to create multi-media environments that really invoke an artist and the context in which they were making their work," said Marc Glimcher, CEO of Pace Gallery. "This is just the beginning of a new era of experiencing art through digital realms."

"Covid-19 has made the push much more urgent," said Daniel Birnbaum of AcuteArt, which brings together international artists, new media and technology to produce works in VR, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR), explaining that many technologies in prototype have been bumped up to help deal with widespread user demand. Birnbaum, the former director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, explained that a move toward digital was inevitable, with or without Covid, but has been surprised at the stunning speed of adaptation. Currently his team has been working with Brian Donnelly, AKA Kaws, on a new type of AR that enables you to place yourself inside immersive environments through the use of an app that has already been downloaded by millions.

"It's an extraordinary thing, that in the middle of a total global crisis, when every museum and every public art institution in the world closes down, and no one can travel, we launched a blockbuster," he mused, explaining that in his past life it was far more difficult to reach audiences of this size and diversity. "In AR and AV, much of the work is driven by democratizing possibilities," he explained, "but it is now possible to reach beyond traditional structures and reach different audiences."

Allow content provided by a third party?

This article includes content hosted on beta.reach.love. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'.

"I've found that so many who didn't have any interest in virtual reality are now keen on understanding its capabilities," said the CEO and founder of Emblematic Group and "Godmother of virtual reality" Nonny de la Peña. De la Peña, who has worked with global journalistic institutions, including the Guardian, to bring digital stories to life, demonstrated over Google Hangouts a new project she created for SXSW that permits users to place themselves inside worlds of their creation using Reach, a software program, and a button-based system of De la Peña's design. "The first initial wave of interest is organizations that are either seeking to create virtual gatherings, because important milestones are suddenly being taken away, and our ability to celebrate together, to organizations that are being asked to do this who desperately need our help to help them get to that point," she explained. "I still think people are just starting to scan the landscape."

"Before Covid-19, the digital space was almost always treated as an afterthought for expanding an audience beyond the reach of physical spaces," said the digital strategist JiaJia Fei, the consulting director of digital at the Jewish Museum in New York. She explained that cultural programming was usually designed, first and foremost, for an in-person audience or on-site experience, and later translated online through a video recording or series of images on the web for documentation purposes. "Now that physical spaces are no longer the priority, the cultural sector is rushing to adapt events, exhibitions and experiences for an entirely digital-first audience." She pointed out that achieving this requires an eye toward egalitarianism: almost everyone has a mobile phone and computer at home, but very few have traditional VR headsets, which points to a rise in 360 video, Google cardboard, and conferencing tools that can easily be streamed at home. "For digital innovators, this is our moment to push the limit of our creative and technical vision, and a chance to openly experiment," said Fei. "For everyone else, it's a crash course in digital marketing triage."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Beginning of a new era': how culture went virtual in the face of crisis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
t's a terrible time for going out. Since the emergence of Covid-19 and resulting self-quarantine, thousands of museums, cultural institutions, festivals and global happenings have temporarily shuttered operations, leaving behind empty streets and a restless public.

# data[].attributes.headline
“What is the future of digital art?” By: Eva Rtology

# data[].attributes.subject
“What is the future of digital art?” By: Eva Rtology