In an increasingly digital world, virtual environments are becoming integral to our daily lives. From work to leisure, a simple click can now lead to the discovery of vibrant online art platforms and galleries, catering to both seasoned art enthusiasts and newcomers alike. Driven by the constraints of rising operational costs and accelerated by the global pandemic, virtual art galleries are transforming the art world, making art more accessible and offering artists unprecedented control over their work.
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The Rise of Virtual Art Spaces
The increasing accessibility and rising popularity of virtual art spaces means it’s a “whole new ballgame” for artists, some insiders say. Virtual art spaces are revolutionising the ways art is exhibited and housed, making art not only more accessible to audiences but also giving more power to the artist to control and benefit from their artwork.
Courtesy: Petri Ala – Maunus
From the Louvre to the hip grassroots galleries of New York and Mexico City, curators, artists, and audiences use virtual galleries and exhibits to carve new spaces of “opportunity” and “possibility.” Rock & Art sat down for a (virtual) conversation with five trailblazers from four organisations shaping this movement.
Digital Art Galleries Born from New York’s Traditional Brick-and-mortar Venues
Patti Sevensma, president of the International Society of Experimental Artists (ISEA), explains that virtual art spaces started changing the art scene about 15 years ago, shortly after the economic crisis of the late 2000s. At the time, Sevensma was working in the art scene at galleries and witnessed many galleries close.
“The other thing was Covid and lockdowns, more galleries closed because they could not afford to be there,” she notes.
Sevensma believes there are not as many physical galleries as there used to be.
“To make money, to keep on painting, you are going to have to figure out a virtual way to sell it, get it out there.”
Sevensma believes it is a trend that is here to stay, and it is also much more cost-effective for artists to exhibit virtually than having to pay commissions for traditional brick-and-mortar venues. Before 2011, ISEA had one exhibit per year, and it was in person only. Over time, it became evident that expanding into online exhibits would open the door for more artists and their work.
ISEA has over 500 members all over the world. Their annual INNOVATIONS exhibit is open to the public. This exhibit takes place in person in a different city each year. For ISEA, community engagement has only increased with their online exhibitions.
For Sevensma and Kimberly Grace Gill, working alongside a team of about 40 volunteers, organising ISEA’s art exhibitions is a full-time labour of love, involving continuous communication and coordination between a community of artists and art lovers.
ISEA’s website is linked to an image site called SmugMug, which holds high-quality images and artists’ statements from all their art exhibitions going back to 2011. The collections are open to all art aficionados exploring the digital art world from home.
One exhibit alone this year saw 200 different original works of art, whose images were uploaded into ISEA’s virtual image gallery. Each year ISEA hosts three art exhibitions, two of which are completely virtual, featuring everything from paintings and sculptures to photographs, digital works, and film, along with 2D and 3D mixed media images and much more.
“We have our first piece this year that has been accepted (for INNOVATIONS) that was presented as AI being part of it,” Sevensma told Rock & Art.
INNOVATIONS 2024 will take place at Central Park Place in Grand Haven, Michigan, from September 7 through October 31, 2024, with images of the works posted to the site on September 18.
ISEA uses a platform called Cafe to post callouts to artists inviting them to enter their work.
Calls are closed for INNOVATIONS, but their annual exhibit Utterly Profound accepts art submissions. This exhibit will take place from October 15 to 31, with the images posted to their site on November 15.
ISEA gives out about 20 awards, worth a total of $14,000 in prize funds each year. For ISEA’s two virtual shows, it is important the artist provides quality photos of their work or a copy of their original digital file, which would qualify digital pieces as original art, explains Sevensma. Installations require a video.
“They would have to walk around the room showing all the parts of that installation to make it a piece of art that could be viewed by anybody, anytime and anywhere. I guess I think more in terms of that when I think of virtual,” says Sevensma.
“Virtual can be filmed easily and it can be a YouTube channel. You can see all kinds of virtual art on YouTube.”
“Motion is a big part of showing things virtually and it does help people get more and more involved and feel like they are part of what is going on.”
Creating online art spaces, whether it is digital exhibitions or videoed virtual art tours, is part of that movement because they have the power to engage artists. It pushes artists to “go that extra mile,” to enter into shows and feel good about who they are as artists and their work,” explains Gill.
Virtual Tours Opening the Doors of the Louvre for Free
R & A also spoke with Hugo Dagois, the deputy director of HD Media, the company behind the Louvre’s virtual tours.
“Making the museum more accessible to people who may not otherwise have the opportunity to see the Louvre’s artworks and artefacts was one of the goals,” explains Dagois.
Creating virtual tours has given people with mobility challenges and those living in distant parts of the world a chance to see the exhibits featured in the Louvre.
“In Paris, it is common for middle school students to visit the Louvre as a class. And now middle school classes from faraway places like Thailand can visit and have that experience,” says Dagois.
“With the virtual tours, they can visit the Louvre wherever they are,” Dagois points out.
He adds that the tour is free, and most of the Louvre’s main exhibits and “blockbuster-type” shows can be found on the virtual tour.
Dagois explains that whether an art exhibit is included in the virtual tour is decided by the people involved in the art’s commission.
The Louvre has become “more accessible, and more accessible online,” says Dagois. During three months in 2020, during the pandemic, 4 million people took a virtual tour of the Louvre.
The virtual tours have also helped to reduce the crowds at the Louvre. Before the pandemic, the Louvre saw about 45,000 visitors per day. In 2022, as crowds began returning when lockdown measures were removed, the Louvre began enforcing a daily limit of 30,000 visitors per day.
Dagois explains that HD Media is also using virtual technologies to create a “virtual twin” of museums like the Louvre, to record and document artworks, architectural spaces, and artefacts in case of fire or other natural disasters.
“Most of them are enthusiastic about the technology,” but Dagois adds that he has heard from audiences that the virtual tour will “never replace the real visit inside.”
Dagois explains that virtual tours allow people to experience the atmosphere of the museum virtually, but current technology is not able to convey the multisensory experience of being physically present in a space.
Regarding where the current technology is heading next, Dagois says he doesn’t know, but Artificial Intelligence (AI) will certainly play some part in the future.
At the moment, virtual tours are en vogue, and for many galleries and museums, virtual gallery tours are a marketing tool. “You want people to come, so you tease them with the virtual tour,” explains Dagois.
Online Art Curation Democratising the Art World
Rock & Art also spoke with Tommi Merelin, chief officer of the Virtual Art Gallery. According to Merelin, virtual galleries help “democratise” the art world. The Virtual Art Gallery’s main office is in Helsinki, but the virtual galleries on their platform feature art created by over 15,000 artists from over 100 countries worldwide.
“Democratising the whole art world, that is our goal,” says Merelin.
Part of that change means giving artists more control over not only how their art is presented but where it is housed. “They also can keep them if it is a physical painting that they have or sculpture, or they can keep it in their space, they don’t have to hand it over to a gallery.”
Virtual galleries offer many advantages and benefits compared to traditional exhibition spaces. “The handling of art is quite expensive because you must pack the (art), you must transport it, you must hang it on the walls. If you have expensive paintings, you have to be careful.”
Merelin says artists frequently lose about 50% of their sales in the process. But Merelin explains their virtual galleries are not trying to replace the “real experience” of seeing art in person. Instead, it is the “next thing” to a traditional visit, a way to get “more eyes” to see an artist’s work.
Merelin also states the platform has advantages over other online environments because it involves the artists in online art curation. “For example, with online art stores and Instagram, you are only ever seeing one painting at a time. So, you are not creating this kind of curated exhibition, you are creating social media posts if it’s one image.”
In comparison, the virtual gallery platform makes the experience “more immersive,” showing “the real scale” of the pieces, how they relate to the space and the “real feeling” of the exhibit, says Merelin. “Because it is interactive, it’s multimedia. There are a lot of possibilities that your physical museums don’t offer.”
Many of the virtual exhibitions featured on the platform combine audio and visual elements to create immersive environments. Navigating virtual art exhibitions effectively means embracing those possibilities for more immersive interaction with online art.
Most people spend about five minutes viewing exhibitions in the virtual gallery. That may not seem like much time, says Merelin, but considering the fraction of time people might spend looking at an Instagram post, it is substantial.
Demo Halo
“People are spending time with your art; they are examining it. They are feeling it. Compared to one image on a website.” The most popular virtual galleries on the site have attracted thousands of visitors in the first hours and tens of thousands of visitors in total, says Merelin.
Compared to a regular art exhibition, which is based on one physical location, virtual exhibits have the potential to create more traffic, explains Merelin.
The platform is made to make art more accessible.
“We created text-to-speech explanations for every artwork,” available in multiple languages, says Merelin.
Their virtual gallery technology is designed so that users can navigate the galleries with just their keyboard or touchscreen. This is a way for people to experience art in a safe space without having to physically get to a gallery. Many great artists who have created beautiful, extensive exhibitions on the site are members of the Phoenix Autism Foundation. Creating a gallery on the site is also free and doesn’t require a credit card, explains Merelin.
Merelin says the platform refuses to act as “gatekeepers” by choosing what art should be exhibited. “We are giving the freedom to sell anything, freedom to exhibit anything, and the freedom for the customers to choose what is good art and what is not.”
Giving artists and audiences that freedom makes fertile ground for some of the best virtual galleries for art exploration, says Merelin. These alternative, independent art galleries share an online presence with major galleries like the Guggenheim and the Louvre, which offer virtual museum tours, online art exhibitions, and digital art galleries.
Immersive Experiences: Visioni’s Revolutionary Approach to Virtual Art
Rock & Art also spoke with Generoso Marco Realino, president and CEO of Visioni Srl, based in Rome, Italy.
Visioni’s immersive exhibits are designed to create virtual art shows where the spectator experiences “a total immersion” in images and sound.
Visioni is a producer and distributor of hugely popular “esperienze immersive” (immersive experiences) which have featured the works of legendary artists like Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, and most recently Maqbool Fida Husain.
The Rooted Nomad is an immersive experience that draws from nearly 160 extraordinary works by Husain from the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) Collection.
M. F. Husain is among the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. He was one of the founding members of Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. Husain was connected to Indian modernism in the 1940s and the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. His narrative paintings, made in a modified Cubist style, used bold, vibrant colours. From Gandhi to Mother Teresa, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the British Raj, his works prolifically conveyed the diverse people and subjects shaping rural and urban life across India’s rich history.
M.F. Husain’s 1967 film “Through the Eyes of a Painter” experiments with sounds, and music, shifting from landscapes to abstract images to create an immersive experience. Husain worked with diverse mediums including painting, photography, film, print, texts and poems.
KNMA says the goal of the immersive show is to “ignite a deeper appreciation and curiosity” about MF Husain’s life and his art.
“By constructing a profound sensory experience, the exhibit encourages visitors to explore and learn more about the artist’s indelible legacy.”
The complex production includes motion graphics, live action, 2D and 3D animation, choreography and sound design.
Realino says by engaging with the work of Husain, it is possible to become part of the re/genesis of his art.
As written on the Visioni site, “The viewer’s vision becomes the set of emotions that, by living “inside” the work, adds meaning to the work itself. This interaction between the artwork and the spectator is the core of our Art.”
Realino says for him what is most important is “il grande deposito” (the great repository) where art is housed, a place full of wonder and curiosity. Both the artist and the audience play a critical role in the process of navigating art spaces.
The immersive experience comes from this continuous path. The Rooted Nomad is in part immersive and in part an in-person exhibition.
Realino explains this was a choice that was made together with KNMA.
KNMA and Visioni decided to combine these two “strumenti” (tools) – that of the immersive show platform and that of KNMA.
Working together in close collaboration with the KNMA was key for the project because there was a great respect that the immersive production of Husain’s work, The Rooted Nomad, was deeply connected to the exhibit of the same name at KNMA. Realino explains the project was born out of a collaborative desire to bring the great art and cultural works of Husain to the world. Realino says he was truly honoured when KNMA contacted Visioni to collaborate to create an immersive show of Husain’s works.
But Realino emphasizes that immersive shows are not meant to be a tool used to substitute for the work of Husain. It’s all about how the technology is used, he explains.
People who come to the immersive shows, come to see an immersive show of an artist’s work which is not a substitute for the artist’s work itself.
Realino says these spaces can coexist.
Immersive shows carry “Una sua anima” – a soul of their own, that respects the life and great work of Husain, explains Realino.
Realino compares the use of immersive and other technologies to a kitchen knife and warns if it’s used in the wrong way it can become a weapon.
Realino adds AI has great potential, but must be coordinated by people, especially in artistic fields.
A Platform for Artistic Growth
Artists across the globe are finding new ways to exhibit their art, share their creative processes, and connect with audiences. Virtual galleries, online art exhibitions, and immersive experiences provide a platform for artistic growth and exploration, helping to democratise the art world. By offering artists more control over their work and making art more accessible, these digital spaces are revolutionising the art world and paving the way for a new era of creativity.
In this exciting landscape, Visioni Srl stands out as a pioneer in the realm of immersive art experiences, showcasing the works of legendary artists and creating unforgettable sensory journeys for spectators. As technology continues to evolve, the possibilities for virtual art exhibitions are endless, and the future of art in the digital age looks brighter than ever.
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