Twitter, Buzzfeed, Upworthy: News is getting easier and more convenient to digest, but what of art world news?
The days of trawling gallery websites for openings, scrolling down patchy wikipedia pages or searching museum websites for images are over. If you’re searching or browsing, looking for hard facts and biographies or criticism and essays, there are now art websites which offer solutions to news, research and discovery that are visually appealing, well designed and optimised for mobile.
Not without room for improvement and by no means definitive, here is a list of reliable destinations for international art news online.
Artnet News. The tagline for the website is ‘The Global Art Market newswire’. It presents the art world from many angles from the art market, art people, galleries and exhibitions. Click-bait listicles are entertaining reading with curated selections of Top Ten’s and Best of’s; it’s the art world Buzzfeed. The website is easy to navigate and optimised for mobile. news.artnet.com
E-flux. Founded in 1998, e-flux send out e-press releases to a mailing list of 70,000 people. Updates with future and current openings are sent out three to four times a day. Although it is a commercial endeavour with galleries paying for an e-flux, it is remarkably international and covers a wide selection of non-profit spaces, biennials, museums and galleries are all represented. An inbox search on an artist or city can therefore pull up some interesting results. E-flux also produce a monthly online journal and have a partnership with art agenda for a service for commercial galleries. e-flux.com
Artsy. Marketing itself as a database, Artsy is the online equivalent to flicking through a big glossy art book. Browse is the key word here. Navigation is made simple through scrolling and articles are accompanied by brilliant images. The website holds information on individual artists from biographies to recent works and a follow function allows you to keep up to date with your favourites. Articles are short, ideal for mobile use and there is also an app. artsy.net
The Art Newspaper. A reliable source of art market news content, which is well written and reported. The website is functional, similar to a Guardian style web layout, but not optimised for mobile. The Art Newspaper still works better as an actual newspaper rather than a wesbite, a digital edition is available online for subscribers. theartnewspaper.com
Art Slant. An art listings website with exhibitions and gallery news along with interviews and reviews. It presents itself as a ‘Contemporary Art Network’ where artists and galleries can create profiles to keep readers updated. This website is good for browsing galleries and exhibition openings by city. It first started in Los Angeles in 2007 and then expanded to 16 cities worldwide. artslant.com
Studio International. A reviews and interviews website with a vast archive. Type an artists name into the search box and results will pull up relevent articles which often include video. Long form text is succesful here because the format is simple and Studio International have remained focussed on solely reviews and interviews which are all the same length. They publish a yearbook of the best arts writing from the website. studiointernational.com
Contemporary Art Daily. In a blog style format this website is a curated list of current international exhibitions. Each post contains high resolution installation shots and video, placing art in the gallery context it is viewed in. Using tags it is convenient way to browse the archives on artist, gallery or location. Quality of selection is one of the strengths of Contemporary Art Daily. contemporaryartdaily.com
by Harriet Thorpe
