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October 8, 2014

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Home » Supplement » Art in Shanghai

Fledgling online art gallery has big ambition

By Wang Jie | October 8, 2014, Wednesday | Print Edition

FOR most art lovers, wandering among the galleries scattered around town is a leisurely weekend activity. But in the digital era, this is changing.

Now aficionados can go to a digital gallery, appreciate the art there and even make purchases. Such is a business set up by Timothy Chao and his team at www.artgogo.com.

“We started artgogo this January, and now we have 10,000 original artworks plus 20,000 limited-edition prints online,” Chao said. “Our deals reached several million yuan in the past months, and we even sold one of Van Gogh’s limited-edition prints for 250,000 yuan (US$40,750).”

Before launching artgogo, Chao and his team spent years in the art market, approaching artists and developing their digital strategy.

There is actually nothing new to finding and appreciating art online, as nearly every gallery has its own website to introduce its pieces and add background information about the artists.

But everything is informational; no online sales are offered. To buy, customers must still come into the gallery. That suits some people just fine.

“I often buy art stuff in galleries,” said Jia Yanmei, a 30-something stay-at-home mom. “It is a pleasure for me to walk around the galleries and talk to their staff.”

“Buy it online? Are you kidding? I must see something real in life. The reason is simple: How can I trust my eyes without viewing the art on closer inspection? Art is different from daily items. The colors and textures are subtle, and I don’t believe that they could be fully mirrored online.

“Also I don’t want to be deprived of the opportunity for such a relaxed time. How could it be the same to appreciate art on the Internet compared with the experience in the gallery?”

While it’s true that traditional galleries have the advantage that an online one can’t match, some traditional galleries are willing to try the Internet as a sales channel.

“If you ask me whether anyone could buy the artworks from our gallery on the Internet, my answer is yes,” said Helen Zhu, who works at ShanghART Gallery, one of the top contemporary galleries in the country. “But in reality, we seldom encounter such condition. I can only recall that it happened once that a customer wanted to buy one of our exhibition posters on the Internet. When I asked him to give us a copy of his credit card, he just never responded.”

The security of online payments is a key concern, she says.

“The price for each painting, installation or video at ShanghART is costly, and it is impossible for our client to make the deal online,” she said. “To tell you the truth, ShanghART opened an online shop that sold some of the catalogs of the exhibition held at our gallery as an experiment several years ago. We used Paypal, similar to Alipay in China, but only a few catalogs were sold.”

Zhu believes that for high-quality art, especially works costing several hundred thousand yuan, the buyer will always want to see them face to face to make the decision.

“Transition of traditional galleries is easier said than done,” she concluded. “I really don’t think that traditional galleries will disappear in the future. The Internet can’t replace everything in reality.”

Perhaps that’s the reason Chao targets young, white-collar workers with a bourgeois taste as potential buyers on his artgogo site.

“For them, the prices of artworks at the gallery are unaffordable,” Chao said. “For example, the cost of the oil and canvas for a piece of painting is around 1,000 yuan. The artist might be satisfied once he or she can receive 3,000 yuan. But when the painting is hung at the gallery, the price will be 6,000 yuan. My task is to squeeze the profit of the gallery, which would be beneficial both to the buyer and the artist, and we just charge a certain commission, say 15 percent from the artist.” Chao aims to build up a huge online gallery where buyers can select from many works.

“Everything is transparent, including the price, and we also guarantee the authenticity of the artworks,” he said. “Besides the online exhibition, we are trying to promote some concrete exhibitions offline where the buyers are still able to have a closer look at the works that might interest them.”

Chao says it’s not easy to operate an online gallery.

“It is hard to find the person who is familiar with e-commerce while at the same time equipped with some knowledge of art,” he said. “I am not boosting myself, but I happen to be that kind of rare person who knows both sides.”

As part of his operation, Chao has his own distribution center; every piece he sells online goes through the center, which he says protects the integrity of the works.

“That’s how we supervise the quality of the artworks, and we will paste an authenticity seal on each work before delivering to the buyer,” he said.

Chao has big ambitions for his website.

“We welcome galleries, artists and collectors to open their space on our platform,” he said. “This would also be a place that different artworks could be exchanged, rather than a one-time consumption act. For example, you bought a canvas several years ago but now you find another interesting work. Then you can sell the previous canvas and exchange it for the new.”

He predicts “a huge demand for young people to purchase art pieces to decorate their apartments in the near future.”

One local artist, who asked not to be identified, tells Shanghai Daily that two of his prints haven’t been sold on artgogo despite being listed there for half a year. “I am not that optimistic, but after all it is an experiment and every new thing needs time and patience to ripen,” he said.

And even Chao doesn’t deny that traditional galleries will continue to exist.

“They are more specific in the academic area, with a nurturing of a small group of artists,” he said.

Art in Shanghai


 

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