Online Viewing Rooms: A New Platform for Art Display

Now declared “pandemic”, the Coronavirus is re-shaping modes of life all over the world. Schools lectures are online and companies are pursuing telecommuting. In efforts to prevent congregation in mass, festivals and similar events are cancelled one after another. Among those cancelled, is the esteemed 2020 Hong Kong Art Basel. However, due to concerns for the financial losses of the participants of the fair, Art Basel has prompted the buyers to utilize their online viewing room. At times such as this denotes the advancement in modern technology as it enables students to learn and employees to give work product online. Internet allows many to complete tasks that traditionally required physical presence of the people. Furthermore, in arts sector, the internet has introduced a new way to hold a commercial fair, also online. Thus, the question lies: Is online viewing room for a special unfortunate occasion or is it here to stay?

 First of all, online viewing room is a fairly new platform for displaying art works. Traditional viewing rooms are small spaces with only a few art pieces highlighted for sale and are typically exclusive to buyers. Meanwhile, online viewing rooms are simply, virtual version of that. David Zwirner, a contemporary American art gallery, first started using them in 2017. On DS’s Online viewing room, Art pieces and descriptions are assorted together on the website of the gallery. When I first visited David Zwirner’s online viewing room, it had pictures of the overall paintings, an option to zoom-in for instrumental detail, and a picture with a standing person next to the pieces for scale. My impression of the viewing was that it was efficiently done, including all the necessary detail I would want to know as a buyer.

 By 2018, online viewing rooms had already begun to be lucrative. Only year after their initiation, DS managed to earn 2mil through online viewing rooms. Also, another mega-gallery, Gagosian, started using the online platform and earned 1.1 million dollars through the sale of Albert Oehlen piece. In the second year, online viewing rooms had already proved themselves to be a great asset. Their selling point is their accessibility in two ways. Firstly, sales and purchases of art have always implicitly preferred certain opacity and this “art online shopping” provides opacity. Secondly, online features give accessibility to a bigger audience who is abroad and doesn’t have time to be physically present to observe. The greatest endowment the internet brought is omnipresence. Given the commercial success of the platform over such a short time period, other art galleries are slowly adopting online viewing rooms which suggests that this type of platform is definitely here to stay and will be adopted by majority of mega-galleries.

 Nevertheless, virtual methods of display cannot replace physical spaces. Online viewing rooms should be limited to work of already recognized artists. For instance, when Gagosian crossed the million dollar mark with the sale of the Albert Oehlen, it was possible because Albert Oehlen painting are already traded in millions-highest priced one at 7 million dollars. When the value is already, buyers are willing to pay millions without seeing the actual artwork. However, that cannot be the case, if it is a work by novel or unknown artist. Even if the work looks good in pictures or videos online, the painting can look different under different lighting, angle and in pictures one cannot possibly observe texture in depth, especially with paintings. There is so much at risk paying for a painting with uncertainty in millions. Frank Bonami, one of the most famous Italian curators, further highlights the limitation of a the new commercial art platform:

“If these online rooms work well, art fairs are f***ed. But I don’t think you will be able to replace the physical experience of looking at the real thing—and the beautiful annoyance of hearing the real voice of a dealer saying, ‘The artist wants this work to go only to a museum’—a pause ‘or a private foundation,’ and usually the person standing there has one. This cannot happen in an online viewing room.”

 

So it seems that galleries will not be deemed obsolete even in the near future.