A few weeks ago, I was invited to the opening of a new media art exhibition at the island6 Arts Center located in the M50 arts district of Shanghai. New media art is quite common now at museums, but this was my first time experiencing it in a gallery. The exhibition was fun and eye-opening. I was immediately attracted to the moving images in still frames; the paintings embedded with cameras which projected the images of the audience and flashed moving lights onto the wall.
The new media artworks are fun to look at because of the interactive and immersive experience audiences get from them. However, to sell them is another story. Looking around in the primary market, there are few galleries that feature new media art. Island6 itself is so far the only new media art gallery in Shanghai.
New forms of art are never persuasive to buyers or academics. Looking back at just a century ago, paintings by impressionists were strongly criticised by the academic art community and sold only for 20 Francs a piece. This is the same obstacle for galleries that sell new media art now. Thomas Charveriat, founder of island6, explained: "Art is art – and selling is the most difficult part of it. If there’s a difference between selling new media art and paintings or sculptures, it's not because new media art is more expensive but because it's newer."
▲ island6, The Most Vile Creature, courtesy of island6
Released on Tate Paper, New Media Art and the Gallery in the Digital Age points out the challenges galleries face when presenting new media art. Unlike paintings, the art form of new media art presents its own challenges in terms of acquisition, curation, andinterpretation. The new media art that sells in galleries is very different from those in museums. New media artworks exhibited at museums are usually big complicated installations, such as the Rain Room by Random International or the Non-objective Multimedia exhibition by teamLab, while the new media art in galleries are designed to be in a portable size and easy to install. Charveriat told us: "When we started to combine painting, Chinese paper cutting and LED-based video art, our main goal was to make objects that are plug-and-play moving pictures that don't require difficult installation—only two mounting screws and a household power outlet."
▲Most of the digital artworks from island6 are plug-and-play moving pictures that don't require difficult installation
However, what truly makes new media art more difficult to sell is that the art is probably not as competitive as other forms of art in an increasingly media-saturated world. "Can new media artworks can be considered as art?" is a question frequently asked by buyers. Marc Glimcher, the president of Pace Gallery once talked about his first impression when seeing teamLab's works: "At first I thought this was not art. However, I realised that I should see it with an open mind, to rethink what is art. I am under the process of it." In fact, new media art has a history of more than 70 years. In the 1950s, John Cagedeveloped work that engaged with interaction and multimedia, such as his famous 4'33. In the late 1960s, artists started to involve televisions and videotapes in their artworks. Nam June Paik was among the first to use televisions and portable video cameras to produce video art.
Of course, we are now talking about new media art under a totally different context as we are now so used to having technology in our lives. The question we should ask now is: what is the most essential thing in art that technology changes? The island6 team believes that it invokes collaboration on different levels. Its multidisciplinary nature makes artists work together, while the technologies engage the audience through interaction. New media artwork is not what you see hanging on the wall, but what happens between the object and the audience within a certain environment. The new media art at some level reflects about our real, lived experiences within the complex web of human and technological interrelationships in this era.
▲ John Cage,4'33(1952), see the full video here
Art has always been like this; it's changing along with the world. When something new happens in society, it eventually infiltrates the arts. Many galleries believe the price of digital art will eventually go up as it gains significance in the history of art. Just like Monet's paintings, which now hammer down for millions at auctions, many galleries probably have the same faith for new media art. In 2014, Pace gallery announced that they will represent teamLab. Soon after, they put Random International under their wings as well.
Another gallery,Lisson gallery, has represented Tony Oursler, Tatsuo Miyajima, and Haroon Mirza, while David Zwirner has represented Diana Thater. More blue-chip galleries have started to add new media artists to their profiles.
Meanwhile, the performance of the new media art in the market has been getting better in recent years. In fact, the art market of new media art is very different from what it was a decade or even five years ago. When island6 was first founded 13 years ago, new media works were only part of its profile among paintings and sculptures. At that time, when people saw those moving images in frames, they usually had a “what is this?” look. But now, they rarely see customers question artistic quality and the importance of the pieces. For island6, they now have a number of customers who are specialised in the field of digital art or new media art. They also easily spot buyers willing to shell out some cash for the newness in the ideas of these works.
Charveriat told us they have so far sold their artworks to many private collectors including LVMH owner Antoine Arnault Collection, the Wemhöner Collection, the White Rabbit Collection, and the CEO of Prada's the Patrizio Bertelli Collection, to name a few. Pace Gallery in Beijing also sees visitors from the local government, high-end restaurants, and real estate ask about TeamLab's artworks.
If we see new media art in a more commercial perspective, it is good for a gallery's branding. As an art form that is interactive and immersive, it is naturally loved by a more general audience. For example, teamLab's debut exhibition in Tokyo in 2015 attracted more than 500,000 people. At teamLab's first show in China at the Pace gallery in Beijing, people waited for more than 2 hours just for an hour of experience. While in Milan, the queue time even reached 8 hours. The exhibitions also attracted a lot of media.
▲ Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together, Courtesy of teamLab
Moreover, especially for small galleries, featuring new media art helps to distinguish themselves from their competitors in the primary art market. Charveriat explained: "The new media art market in Shanghai has been kind to us. In M50, no one else is really creating new media art. It's a niche island6 has gladly made its own in Shanghai, and has allowed island6 to stand out among the rest, both in our galleries and at art fairs around the world."
As more young artists from the 80s and 90s involve in making digital art or new media art. New media art or digital art will soon be common in museums, auction houses and galleries. Chinese curator Zhu Zhu once said in an interview: "Compared to artists from previous generations, artists born in the 80s and 90s grew up in the digital age. How to use mass media and other new media to create art has become part of their creative process."
Art echoes society and its changes. New media art simply reflects our current advances in technology and the like.