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As a result of the reaction and conversation that happened as a result of Art Micro Patronage, Oliver and I had been talking a lot about how the struggle of the net artist to get paid for their work is not unique.  The internet and the development of technology in general has generated a whole new class of cultural producer, yet very few people have figured out how they can possibly make money off of the work they produce.  From giant newspapers to the casual instagrammer, no one seems to have a solid plan to make it work.

This idea was a good fit for Nora O Murchú as she was putting together a publication for Run computer, Run, part of the GLITCH Festival at Rua Red in Ireland: exhibitions, a symposium, and a publication that focus on the current economic, political and cultural factors that are shaping the Internet.  The festival will discussed and explored how the practice of the digital artist is transitioning, not only with the growth of digital technologies, but are increasingly being informed by offline factors that are affecting how the Internet as a creative platform is being developed.  So Nora asked me to gather some of my thoughts together along these lines and contribute something for the publication.

a snippet of the timeline

In the process of trying to write about and chronicle these changes, I decided that the best thing to do was to create a timeline in order to look at these pieces of information in context during the past ~15-20 years as the internet progressively became integrated into our daily lives.

In this timeline, I’ve tracked lists of how :

• Net Artists have Tried to Make Money
• Alternative Funding Models in the Arts
• Technology Advancements have Facilitated Giving
• The Media has Experimented with Paywalls

Photo: Luminary Center for the Arts

Right now we’re part of a little show in St.Louis, at The Luminary Center for the Arts, that focuses on the recent boom of art subscriptions and art CSA’s and takes a look at the work that is being produced through this model.  It is curated by Abigail Satinsky from threewalls.  The exhibition is part of The Luminary Center for the Arts’ How to Build a World That Won’t Fall Apart  Exhibition Series, a year-long exploration of the ways that artists and alternative spaces sustain their practice in times of social and economic uncertainty. The series, a product of an institution examining itself in a time of transition, resonates pretty strongly with us right now as they are exploring of the role of alternative spaces within a broader ecosystem and the collective identity that arises through collaboration.

The show features works from Alula Editions (Bay Area, CA) Art Practical Mail Art Subscription (San Francisco, CA), Community Supported Art Chicago, Community Supported Art Philadelphia,Community Supported Art Minneapolis, The Drop/NOLA (New Orleans), The Present Group (Oakland, CA), Regional Relationships (Chicago), and The Thing Quarterly (San Francisco, CA), along with a special reading room in the window space by Silver Galleon Press (Chicago).

Photo: Luminary Center for the Arts

If you aren’t in St. Louis between March 15 – April 12, 2013, you can still catch the show in other locations as it travels around the country:
June 28 – August 3:  Threewalls, Chicago, IL
September 14 – October 26:  Transformer Gallery in Washington, DC
possibly then to New Orleans hosted by The Drop

Abby also worked with projects included in the show along with designer Working Knowledge to create a publication featuring essays and profiles from participating art subscription services.  A physical copy of this publication can be ordered for $3 from Luminary Arts or you can download a pdf version by clicking on the image below.

Photo: Luminary Center for the Arts

Last fall, we went to a conference in Seattle and presented on a panel called Moving Forwards by Looking Sideways: Creative Thinking in Museum Digital Strategy.  This was a great opportunity for us because one of the things we’ve been thinking about a lot is ways that we might partner or work with museums to do projects that would benefit larger communities.   One of our co-panelists, Greg from Hol Art Books, brought up the idea of Museums employing and/or creating space for artists and startups in residence allowing the museum to not have the responsibility for “crazy” stuff they might do, but also gain the rewards of the programming, energy, and community building that these small groups might generate.  The artists or startups on the other hand get a little time and money to activate collections and larger audiences that are normally beyond their reach.  There are some examples already in place for this.  We love this idea and have been talking it up a bit, but something we’ve learned is that museums move slowly and in order for something like this to get implemented, it will likely take years, not months.

Live Museum Soundtrack, Machine Project at the Hammer Museum, 2010-11

Meanwhile, little guys like us and Hol Art Books can move pretty fast.  We hung out a lot with Greg while we were at the conference and spoke a lot about e-books – what they are, how they’re programmed, and why artists aren’t making more of them.  We quickly realized that they really are an untapped medium and started thinking of all the e-books that we should start making.  One great thing about them is that there is already a funding mechanism built in.  People are used to paying for books and e-books and inherently understand that transaction.  Yet they are built on html and the structure is open enough that there is room for a good amount of play, as long as you allow for the fact that the different readers, just like different browsers, each have their own set of rules.

Greg has had an idea floating around for an e-book builder that would allow many more people to start to play with creating, publishing, and selling e-books.  It would make creating an e-book as easy as writing a blog post. But he needed a partner to build it, and as this project fits nicely with our mission of creating systems and tools that facilitate the funding and distribution of artist projects, we offered to be that partner.

Tonight, we launch our very first Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of that project, The People’s E-book.  Help us realize this dream. There are some nice rewards that will encourage further learning, collaboration, and publishing of e-books at all levels.  E-books for everyone!

Nicolas O’Brien, one of the artists in the current Art Micro Patronage show, “Can’t Touch This” curated by Karen Archey, also writes a column entitled Hyperjunk on the Bad at Sports blog.  He was kind enough to include us in his most recent post, ”Hyperjunk: Observations on the Proliferation of Online Galleries,” a thoughtful survey and analysis of current online galleries.

However, there are a couple of points in the article that caught our attention, specifically in regards to our project.  In the spirit of keeping the conversation going, we’ve included some responses below:

If an ideal environment of an artists working online lies within the personal computing web-browsing experience, then why the need for relocating these works into another specific website/framing? What is “more accessible” about an online gallery then an artists personal website? Are the tropes from the traditional gallery system still playing too significant a role in the way in which net-art is being presented?

With Art Micro Patronage the idea of the curated group show is central.  We’re trying to encourage criticality about what is happening online by hiring curators to bring together artists whose work explores similar themes.  The internet is incredibly diverse and far flung which makes the process of synthesis and curation that much more important.  I trust some institutions and curators to do the research and outreach to bring to my attention artists whose work I may not have been exposed to otherwise, but also to highlight what is happening more broadly.  So maybe it’s not the works themselves that are rendered more accessible, but rather the connections between them.

To favor one system over the other, or to underscore the supposed ignorance of major cultural institutions for not having more net based art, can position the artist, work, or community as having ingrained entitlement due to its novelty.

I’m not sure I agree that it deserves entitlement due to its novelty.  In the late 90′s and early 2000′s there were quite a few institutions that were collecting and attempting to show net art.  But most gave it up.  At that point there was an exuberance about the novelty of anything and everything that was happening online.    However now I believe we’re at the point where the technology has caught up and the novelty has died down, and because it is so ingrained in our culture, the work that is happening online in a cultural context deserves critical attention.  It was in part the recognition that artists working online isn’t novel at all that motivated us to do this project.

Further, we hope to continue expanding the idea of what is considered “netart”.  We intentionally found curators working in diverse parts of the artworld in order to cull different works and types of shows.   For example, our next show curated by Dena Beard highlights the work of primarily social practice and conceptual artists who use the web to document their more ephemeral practice or as a site of exchange.  While these may not be “net artists”, the internet is an important part of their practice.

What started as a few vague ideas about the possibilities of micro-donations mixed in with questions about “collecting” digital artwork is now a full-blown, beautifully designed, web application for supporting online artists.

Art Micro Patronage is an experimental online exhibition space enabling you to view and support artwork that is ideally experienced on the internet. Built on the generosity of people like you, AMP is a vehicle for a new generation of art patrons, who are willing to associate their appreciation of great work with

actual dollar amounts, no matter how small.

We’re extremely proud, and also curious if anyone will use it.  So please, check it out. Each month we’ll present a new online exhibition.  And while you’re there, become a micro-patron of the arts by giving a small donation to the artists who pieces you like.

Organized by Threewalls, Hand-in-Glove is a four day conference for independent visual arts facilitators working at the crossroads of creative administration and studio practice. It is a way to start a national conversation on grassroots creative activity happening outside of traditional institutions and spread the word about innovative organizing models that could be useful to artists and organizers.

Featuring keynote speakers AA Bronson and Nato Thompson, a pretty amazing lineup of panelists from around the nation, parties, food experiences, and tours around the city of Chicago, the weekend will not be lacking.

Oliver and I be speaking on the panel entitled Fundraising and Organizing Strategies, a pragmatic discussion on how to raise funds, solicit support, and implement experimental programs. As a group of artists, independent organizers and nonprofits, we’ll re-imagine the possibilities for creating a healthy, mutually- supportive arts system and designing programs that promote collaboration and community spirit.

Details:

Hand in Glove Conference
October 20th – 23rd
Geolofts, 3636 S. Iron St., Chicago, IL 60609

Panels: click here to view explanations and participants

Keynote lecture with AA Bronson and Nato Thompson
Local Arts ecosystems
Unconventional Residency Programs
Archiving artist-run histories
Fundraising and organizing strategies
Closing Remarks and Discussion with Ted Purves, Sarah Workneh, and Bryce Dwyer

We’re taking part in this conversation this weekend.  Hope you’ll join us. Should be fun!

As part of her residency at Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Elysa Lozano (who works under the identity Autonomous Organization) will facilitate a moderated conversation which asks participants across the spectrum of visual art production and dissemination to present their ideal art economies and engage in a dialogue around how resources and value is distributed in the art world.

Participants:

Patricia Maloney, Editor-in-Chief of Art Practical
Christian L. Frock, Founder and Director of Invisible Venue
Courtney Fink, Executive Director of Southern Exposure
Dena Beard, MATRIX Curatorial Assistant at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Kevin P. Clarke, Artist and Founder of Million Fishes Art Collective and MacArthur b arthur
Jayna Swartzman, Program Manager at the Center for Cultural Innovation
Eleanor and Oliver Wise, Founders and Directors of The Present Group
Elizabeth Sims, Artist, Educator, and Activist
Vanessa Critchell, Director (West coast) at Luhring Augustine Gallery

New Art Economy Summit and Potluck Details:

Saturday, July 23, 4-8pm
MacArthur b Arthur Gallery (due to space restraints at Royal Nonesuch)
4030 Martin Luther King Jr. Way Oakland, CA 94609.
The Summit begins at 4:30 followed by a potluck dinner at 7pm. Please bring your favorite dish!

Facebook Event Page
Autonomous Organization Residency at Royal Nonesuch

This fall, Oliver and I will be debuting our new project: Art Micro-Patronage.  It’s an experimental exhibiiton platform that tries to figure out good ways to both display and fund artwork that is ideally viewed online.  As visitors navigate through the monthly exhibitions, they will be encouraged to become micro-patrons of the arts, associating their appreciation of the works with small monetary values. Only patrons will be able to view the exhibitions once the shows are over and they will receive a link and image as recognition for their generosity.

And we’re looking for curators!

Here are the specs:

What are we looking for?
We seek tightly curated shows of works that are ideally experienced on the internet.  Shows can be organized thematically or formally.  Some possibilities include (but are not limited to): artists working with twitter and facebook, digital artwork, video, sound, animated gifs, interactive works, web-based campaigns, physical works that address or involve the web in some way, documentary websites of artists working with intangibles.  We would like these to be group shows of between 7-15 artists and we would like the curator to write 400 – 600 word intro to the exhibition.  Shows will last 1 month.

How does it work?
We will encourage visitors to the shows to donate small amounts ($.50, $1, $5) directly to the artists as they navigate from piece to piece, similar to a “like” button only with pledging and a navigation element: if they press a donate amount, they are moved forward to the next piece in show.  AMP will take a small administrative cut from the proceeds in order to cover the transaction fees and to sustain funds for the next set of 6 (we have secured funding for the first set of 6 shows). Only the patrons will have access to the show after the month is over; the general public will still have access to the written piece by the curator and see the list of artists that were involved with the show. Patrons will also be given recognition and links on a donor’s page for each show (and each piece while the show is up).  Curators will receive a stipend of $200 upon completion of their project.

We have also set aside money for web development with each show, so we can work with you to figure out the best viewing experience to suit the artworks’ particular needs.

Submissions:
Please explain your proposed show and give 2-4 examples of pieces along the lines of what you’d like to highlight.
Submit your contact info and proposal to:  submit [at] artmicropatronage.org

Here’s another!  Project Dispatch was started in the fall of 2009 and is run out of DC by two Corcoron graduates: Chandi Kelley and Rachel England.  They were looking for a way to create a small revenue stream for artists, but it sounds like the project is more about mandating the artists to continually make small works and get their work out to a broader range of people, creating a new group of collector/artist relationships.

It’s a slightly different version of the subscription art model.  Subscribers choose not only the price point they want ($25/50/75 per month) and the number of months they want (3/6/12 months), but they also choose from the group’s current list of 21 artists to get all their works from.  They do, however, have an option to randomly get work from a different artist each time.  Then on the artists’ side, they get a list of people to make work for every month and the artists are responsible for sending out the artwork to subscribers.  The Project retains 10% of the sales, but passes on the rest to the artist.  Artists pay a small membership fee of $18/year to be listed.   It is fun to see how flexible the subscription art model can be.

LxWxH is an art subscription project founded by Seattle artist and curator Sharon Arnold, which came out of the idea that (perhaps in the tradition of local agriculture movements) art should be sustainable, and accessible. Similar to the Art in a Box and Community Supported Art models of subscription art, each issue is one box containing two pieces by two artists, but they have the bonus of a short essay by a local writer.  Artists have the option of creating either editions or individual works for each box.

Subscriptions are $700 plus shipping, or $130/backissue plus shipping.
Seems to be a trend of art subscriptions getting more expensive as people figure out the best way and most sustainable ways to keep the practice going…

With the help of The Collective Foundation, the hostees, the general public, and all the artists who participated, we are proud to announce that the winner of The Present Prize is Alison Pebworth!  Alison will use The Present Prize $1000 Travel Grant to visit the Sabbath Day Lake Shaker Community in Gloucester, Maine to develop a residency with the last four living Shakers and to research Radical Sects and Utopian Societies of America for an upcoming tour with the Beautiful Possibility Project.

We received an extra $100 bonus check from a generous benefactor who wanted the winner to be able to have a hearty meal with a friend on her travels.  He also contributed to the grant early on, liking the idea of artists helping out other artists.  Moments like these make me feel so wonderful about the generosity and collaborative spirit of artists both around the world and in the bay area in particular.

So on Monday night, we gathered with some of the local hostees and participating artists to give Alison her giant check over some tacos and beer.  Congratulations Alison!

L-R: Courtney Fink (Art Publishing Now, Mission Arts Trail Guide), Nathanial Parsons, Alison Pebworth, Scott Oliver, Oliver Wise (TPG), Eleanor Hanson Wise (TPG), Lauren Venell, Helena Keeffe (Alula Editions), Joseph del Pesco (Collective Foundation)

Vote on the winner of the first Present Prize:
a $1K travel grant for a Bay Area artist.

The Present Prize is an intermittent artist grant funded by web hosting fees and awarded by the community of hostees with help from the general public. Each grant period will have a new theme targeting an underfunded area of the creative landscape.

For our first prize, we have teamed up with the Collective Foundation to create a $1K travel grant to a Bay Area artist in order to address a possible reason why Bay Area artists often leave the area after a period of “incubation”. Joseph delPesco, founder of the Collective Foundation speaks eloquently about the reasoning behind this grant theme on the SF Moma blog. (excerpt below)

“Unlike most first-world countries we don’t have a cultural agency at the state or federal level that funds artists’ travel. I have an untested theory that if Bay Area artists had support for mobility that they would be more likely to stay. While the last sentence may sound counter-intuitive, I think one reason artists leave is the relative isolation of the Bay Area in relation to the art centers. More to the point, It appears that most of the artists who have stayed are those who have been able to develop projects and find exhibition opportunities outside of the Bay Area.”

Nominees* for The Present Prize:

Ajit Chauhan, Alison Pebworth, Amanda Eicher, Andrew Venell, Christine Kesler, Lindsey White, Margaret Tedesco, Matt Borruso, and Nathaniel Parsons

We want to YOUR discerning eye!

This stage of the voting is open to all members of the public.  View proposals and give us your preference in randomized arena-style matchups**.  Voting is open until February 28th, 2011. VOTE NOW >>

*Artists were nominated by two groups of hosting clients whose fees contributed to the creation of this grant.  Artists were then contacted to provide short statements about where they wanted to go and why, an image, and a weblink.

** One of the things we were concerned about regarding the voting process was that we wanted to involved the public, but didn’t want it to just be an online popularity contest.  That’s why we decided on the head-to-head matchup style and a proposal-centered presentation.  We hope that this encourages voters to more fully consider the proposals merits rather than simply voting once for their friend and leaving.

As some of you know, we are launching a new project this year called Art Micro-Patronage, an online exhibition space dedicated to both showing wonderfully curated shows of work that is suitable for online viewing and explores the idea of trying to get people to associate the amount that they appreciate a work with an actual dollar amount.    We’re hoping to debut by mid-year.

But we’re not the only ones who’ve had this great idea. We just learned about United States Artists project which will be like a kickstarter for artists.  I’m glad to see this idea is being approached from multiple angles.  From the NY Times:

Part social network, part glossy brochure, part fund-raising mechanism, the site seeks to democratize arts patronage as government support for the arts continues to decline and private sources of financing also shrink.

“What we’ve tried to do is take the good ideas about microphilanthropy and the good ideas about social networking and put them together in a way that people can learn about artists and learn about their projects and how they work,” said Katharine DeShaw, the organization’s executive director.

In testing, the Web site attracted roughly 36,000 unique visitors and raised a total of $210,000, with an average of $120 from each of 1,500 small donors, Ms. DeShaw said.
Read more>>

Art Publishing Now

is a two-day event dedicated to the investigation and showcasing of art publishing practices in the Bay Area. It includes a day of presentations and critical discussions, an after party, an art publishers fair, library and web archive.

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Participate:

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The Library is still seeking submissions!
Deadline October 1st.

The Art Publishing Now Library is a physical and online archive of Art Publishers in the Bay Area. APNL is a self-defined collection; it is open to any project that considers itself an art publisher or a contributor to art publishing in the Bay Area. The library will be installed at Southern Exposure from October to December 2010 and will go on to find a new home in the Bay Area.

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Join the Conversation!

THE SUMMIT is on Saturday, October 9, 2010, 11 am – 6 pm
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Space is limited so be sure to register to attend!

The 2010 Art Publishing Now Summit invites you to join leading creators of print, online, and experimental publications to reflect on the most urgent issues and exciting possibilities in art publishing today. With topics ranging from “Publish AND Perish” to “West Coast Critical?”, the event will include a series of presentations, conversations, and panels intended to yield insight and encourage innovation in Bay Area art publishing.

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Learn about local art publishers!

Sunday, October 10, 2010, 11 am – 6 pm
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Art Publishing Now Fair showcases the breadth and depth of art publishing projects in the Bay Area. The fair hosts Bay Area independent publishing and related projects presenting a diverse range of the best in contemporary art publications ranging from periodicals, websites, editions and more.

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Party with us!

Saturday, October 9, 2010, 6-10pm
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Join Art Publishing Now Summit and Fair participants for a get together at Southern Exposure. Purchase food from some of SF’s favorite street food vendors including El Tonayense Taco Truck. Drinks and libations by donation from Trumer Brauerei, BridgePort Brewery, and Spoetzl Brewery.

New Langton Arts’ Archive for Sale: A Sacrificial Act by Tercerunquinto (a collaborative group), 2008

Thinking about new models of funding and new ways that the art world could work is not new.  But recently, whether because the economic climate has forced us to rethink our methods, or simply because it’s time in some larger cycle, there has been not only a birth of new models of funding art projects, but also a lot of writing and energy about it.

Part of this effort is simply to understand what is happening now and in the past.
The Art Spaces Archive Project is a non-profit initiative to help preserve, present, and protect the archival heritage of living and defunct for- and not-for-profit spaces of the “alternative” or “avant-garde” movement of the 1950s to the present throughout the United States.
The California Cultural Data Project is an online data reporting system that was created to produce a variety of reports designed to help increase management capacity, identify strengths and challenges and inform decision-making for California’s Cultural Institutions.

But the other part is writing about and archiving what is being borne out now.  This is a list of some of the writing I’ve come across in the past month that works towards an understanding of how the funding mechanisms are changing in the art world, envisions how it could be, and starts to catalog the new efforts and models that are emerging today.

How Things Work by Aimee Le Duc, Art Practical
Part 1, Part 2, Part 2 cont.
Le Duc investigates the trajectory of more established art spaces in SF, their success or failure, and follows up with a look at new spaces/organizations are utilizing hybrid models of funding and programming.

A Catalog of Strategies, Proximity Magazine #7, Summer 2010
The Catalog is a special annotated directory of inspirational groups, organizations, projects, and individuals from around the world. With over 350 entries the directory features the best practices and celebrated failures of interventionist art practitioners.

Survival Strategies for the Arts, John Killacky on Blue Avocado, 2009
Though aimed at non-profits, the thinking behind these strategies applies to everyone.  John Killacky, artist and arts funder, not only knows that we need the arts now more than ever, but gives us ten survival strategies for arts organizations and one for audience members — and reminds us that all of us are audience members.

Project Space Survival Strategies:  a research project by the artist Elysa Lozano for Autonomous Organization, produced in collaboration with Invisible Venue.  I found this idea especially striking: “The motivations behind these initiatives are inextricably linked to the manner of funding them. What constitutes an acceptable way to get funding is as much a question of the integrity of the intention as it is a question of survival.”

Art Infrastructure, cmagazine 103, Autumn 2009
A bunch of articles discussing exhibition strategies and platforms that provide alternative models for how art is exhibited and experienced by its viewers.  If we take the idea from Lozano (above,) then these alternative models would inevitably be thinking of new funding models as well.

Thinking about money and how it can work in the art world is on a lot of people’s minds these days.  Elysa Lozano, an artist working as “Autonomous Organization”, has created a compendium of project spaces around the world, all talking about how and why they started and how their funding works.

From her statement:

The motivations behind these initiatives are inextricably linked to the manner of funding them. What constitutes an acceptable way to get funding is as much a question of the integrity of the intention as it is a question of survival… It is also my hope that by publishing the anecdotes and experiences of the people who run these spaces that the creative ideas and strategies will become a resource to anyone currently running an independent project or thinking of starting one up.

Project Space Survival Strategies was produced in collaboration with Invisible Venue.  The project is ongoing, and accepts contributions from anyone running project spaces.  You can find the survey here.