Seeing is Believing.

They always say that seeing is believing, but how exactly are we to see art in today’s modern world? Are we to touch, feel, smell, or hear art too? Perhaps we are to make it ourselves? Do we participate or watch from a distance? These questions are important ones as we begin to consider the ways in which art is created, acquired and appreciated.

This month the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, released a statement about a release of an online collection of works that will compliment and existing collection. The 28 works that will be featured will form part of the ‘New Acquisitions in Context’ collection, and will aim to engage a broader audience through increased access to the gallery’s diverse collections. This presents a clear advantage to those who aren’t residents of the Sydney area, who will now be able to interact with the MCA’s collection from the comfort of their own homes. It seems that the MCA has followed a long list of galleries such as New York’sMuseum of Modern Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and London’s Saatchi Gallery.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the Director of the MCA is pleased with the new online instalment, stating that the new-found accessibility of these works is vital as it ‘reflects the Museum’s ongoing commitment to providing high quality educative and accessible resources and the institution’s determination to disseminate the wealth of ideas encapsulated by artists in their work’. Indeed, there is a growing demand for such accessibility, and it is clear that the MCA is displaying a progressive approach to exhibiting art. The MCA has a well-established reputation for promoting new forms of digital art, and giving both net.art (a medium that focuses on programming and digital design) and locative art (art created through the use of gadgets, geo-positioning systems and mapping techniques) a place within the gallery space (Cubitt, 2007:1151-1152).

As galleries have begun to exhibit art in new ways, individuals have also decided to branch out online. The extremely popular online craft market Etsy has paved the way for digital trade, and has also encouraged many professionals to promote their works on the Internet. Websites such as Artspan allow professional artists and artisans to share original works whilst communicating with a broader art community around the world. Through Artspan, artists can engage potential buyers, curators and even followers, transforming the ways in which art is experienced! Whilst searching around for websites such as this, I was particularly curious about the website ImageBrief which presents an entirely new way for art buyers to search for works by compiling a brief of what they require, posting a price and waiting for artists to submit variations on the brief until they find one that they like! I’ve included an image from ImageBrief photographer Shaun Quinlan, whose works can be found on his online portfolio.

Image by Shaun Quinlan can be found here.

It would seem that with new forms of art comes a new online economy. The ways in which we traditionally view art are constantly changing, but what value does the museum space hold in today’s modern world?

References

Cubitt, Sean (2007), ‘Media Art Futures’, Futures, Vol. 39, pp. 1149-1158.