(intro) The visual arts constitute one of the most powerful means of communication. From the 60s the figurative art kept representing some shapes and sizes of branded products —Pepsi and Coke bottles, Kellog's cardboars boxes, Perugina chocolates wrapper [all you know who performed] — because of the attention several artists put into the manufacturing universe. Art and design in the 80s were seeking to resemble the real world of consumption. To be immediately part of that as both subject and object! In 90s some international galleries elected to show people the artwork's price of acquisition on the descriptive label: $1.6 million was worth Mark Rothko's "N.16" at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Art piece as any down-to-earth item displayed at supermarket?
It has been written: "the arts are very good for business... and business is very good for arts". This statemet would surely encompass the arts as a whole coming from a brochure by the largest concentration of cultural facilities in the world {www.sbc.org.uk. The proxy wedding between the artists and the marketing of goods is always feasible in an attempt to originally personalize the packaging or the promotion or the advertising of products. A thin thread runs between the modes to advertise products and the cultural vehicles or artistic expressions as media involving people into. [Movado watches are self-styled "the art of time" through the headline on publicity, C@ www.movado.com].
This article reviews the multitalented artistic community populating the Internet. The selected websites are familiar with artists, so visit them to know what you might do for supporting their activity as member, sponsor, subscriber, consumer!
While I'm writing this column millions of people are leaning forward and staring at one art piece somewhere in galleries, museums, exhibits. To be able to admire the portrait of Monna Lisa or the statues of Sekmet, many of us have been at least once patient waiting in single row to get, after dispending of hours, either enthusiastic or disappointed. Always we have gotten people of several cultures and nations as queue companions. Perhaps the most international places on this planet are the ones built for the art. The entering a collection of art is a due act of acknowledgement —and gratitude— to masterpieces recommended as the best of all, those that let us feeling guilty if we don't enjoy them. Luckily they are placed onto modern temples of the architecture where sometimes we have to choose and "jump on" or return another time... I often come back to a gallery out of the European artistic route, the Art Gallery of Ontario, whose website offers online both tickets and membership besides the obvious virtual tour, C@ www.AGO.on.ca
According to Mediametrix one of the top-trafficked websites during the shopping winter season is Blue Mountains Arts {www.bluemountainsarts.com. 12,315,000 unique visitors (as of Dec.98) are a lot enough to arouse interest, therefore I point it out, no comment! But what's interesting is the art on the Net works, even though I'd have some suspicions on the word's correct usage. Browsing the Internet directories, I've noticed a certain regard to. Some engines —and today all consumer portals {www.tiscaliart.it — consider it on search categories, from Yahoo!'s "Arts and Humanities" to WebCrawler's "Arts and Books". Actual artists apart anyone is copying art, anyone else is buying and reselling it, anyone is collecting or displaying it, anyone is criticizing or granting it, we all are consuming it. The art community is wide, counting on its own cyberspace and networks acting as Net promoters... What if a website used as home platform for artists is awarded by the IT industry exponents gathered in an European summit? C@ www.bkaro.net
The art as communication medium doesn't get a particular form over the Net, even though the digital art or net art would become more than a phrase. Truth to tell the experience of telematics is going to conquer space as new artistic medium, C@ www.walkerart.org. In the economy of art events the Internet is important by its being a natural and neutral medium of media, worth for every artistic subject, experiment, expression. Just ask the tycoons about the role of art for sponsoring, doing public relations and enhancing a company image, then you can understand the art is easily creeping into areas of the Web not only dedicated to. By side of large business or public administration or non-profit the showing of art is still a way to self-achievement. If the art sucks then, this takes part in the things of world... C@ www.triennale.it
The Internet allows the endless catalog of the personal Web pages to be a safe-zone where everyone of us —the artist too— may explain and tell himself, or be explored. The identity of the artist is sharply told as "explanation" of his artistic creativity in accordance with a culture that did prefer to overwhelm the aesthetics of artwork by the maker's motivation. The story, background, personal life experiences became often means to surrogate the artwork, as if only an excess of information could help in gauging the modern author {www.artemoderna.com. Supporting artistic events through the mass information techniques has created "artists" with skills indifferent to their real ability of making an exciting and innovative artwork. We know indeed the art striking us will be generated as by-product of risk and mistery, resulting from that "state-of-grace" —sometimes pathological (bad for him)— which makes the Artist so awesome and unique (bad for us).
(outro) The pop art is contemporary of me, I should say that that rules my imagination. An art to consume, to read, to eat, to reproduce, to deflate. Over my bed hangs a print copy of Rothko's "Untitled 1951-55". Under my skin flows the same red blood of the artist, maybe... I'm an artist somehow, sometimes!? I feel actually strange when create popular widgets as the following:
