Back to Basics: Making Sense of Internet Insanity

Art Business News, Dec, 2000 by Robert Plummer

"Our mission is to facilitating the off line with the online community," said Al Marco, president and c.e.o.

A player in the business-to-consumer side in the online world is Artnet.com, featuring a stable of thousands of artists to choose from. Customers can click on any artist's name and see a sample of his or her work for sale. Buying is as simple as a mouse click and entering credit card information.

But ArtNet.com is also a business-to-business site as the company matches 1,100 galleries, 25,000 works of art and more than 10,000 artists with buyers worldwide.

GalleryRow.com offers work of hundreds of artists along with live auctions, exclusive art and featured works that change periodically.

"We provide artists with connections and speed with our backbone being marketing and advertising," said Wayne Melton, spokesman for GalleryRow.com. "For an artist to create what we provide them on the Internet we estimate it would cost $25,000."

What is a Virtual Gallery?

They're called "virtual galleries" and they are popping up all over the Internet as fast as you can say "www.buy-my-art.com." Some are beautiful Web sites with clear graphics and e-newsletters, others are simple Internet stops with little description and unclear images. The galleries also range in size from the massive Galleryrow.com that can show the works of thousands of artists all the way down to www.jasonejones. com, an online gallery for one artist--Jason E. Jones.

"The Internet is a wonderful tool because it allows me to reach people I would never have come in contact with," said Jones, an artist who lives in Chicago."I know that in the long run, the amount of people I could reach is enormous."

For those in the art world who aren't familiar with an online gallery, imagine visiting a traditional gallery and staring at a painting on the wall. Now shrink the painting down to a two-by two-inch square and imagine it appearing on your computer screen. While you walk from room to room in a gallery, on the computer each click of the mouse takes you to a new artist or a new painting. Sure you don't get to see the original up close. You can't view it hanging on a wall or run your fingers against the frame, but you can see all the works by Jones in a matter of minutes.

To get a larger scope of how prevalent art is on the Internet go to eBay.com and visit the Fine Art page. There, the type of art you want is broken down to dozens of subjects, styles and collections. On eBay.com, a search under "acrylic works" yields more than 50 paintings; in the prints section, customers can choose from more than 100 pieces. Ebay.com also provides links to auction houses, where bids can be made.

Still, the online art world is far from problem free. "There will always be a problem in selling original works over the Internet for a myriad of reasons," said Jerry Toefel, a private art broker. "But some of the weaknesses that come with buying work on the Internet could be turned around into positives."

Toefel compared buying art over the Internet to buying clothes online. If the company offers good service, a flexible return policy and competitive prices, people will use the Internet to buy.