Genetic Drift: Artsy and the Future Of

João Enxuto and Erica Love Changing the world has long been a Silicon Valley directive, repeated by countless venture capitalists, CTOs, and developers, with usage roots pos- sibly reaching back to some 1970s Mountain View garage-cum-laboratory Genetic Drift: littered with circuit boards and dog-eared copies of Atlas Shrugged. The mantra appeared again in the closing passage of “Here’s to the Crazy Ones,” Artsy and the Future of Art a free-verse poem at the center of a 1997 advertising campaign that mar- shaled Apple’s comeback: Pandora 1 meets Amazon 2 for the artworld. That’s the entire elevator pitch Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemak- for Artsy, which leaves us with plenty of time to spare. When the elevator ers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things doors finally open onto the twenty-fifth floor of the Artsy headquarters, it differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect is clear that the pitch was a success. A black ping-pong table, scattered for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glo- mid-century couches, and a long, gleaming communal table lead to an open rify or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. floor plan. The rare standing wall is glass and frames offices that convey Because they change things. … Because the people who are crazy transparency. The largest area is dedicated to a few dozen staffers who sit enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. across multiple rows—each young face glowing from the LEDs of Apple flat panel displays. They are the labor force behind the startup that aims to Changing the world also requires outpacing the competition. For Artsy this centralize art collecting and education under a single taxonomy called the will mean claiming status as the primary Internet portal between a collec- Art Genome Project. tor and art. Recent history has proven that the network effects and power laws that rule the Internet can foster diversity, but ultimately the tendency The Artsy offices are perched in a pre-war tower on Broadway in Low- has been toward the creation of monopolies. The “old inequities that we er Manhattan over mostly low-slung tenements and cast-iron buildings. hoped the Internet would overthrow are often intensified,” explains film- There are commanding views from windows that frame a panorama of the maker and writer Astra Taylor in her recent book, The People’s Platform: Metropolis. This vista seems extravagant for a company that operates as Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. 5 As Taylor points out, we a data-driven Internet platform, where eyeballs are locked on computer have “one leading search engine (Google), one major bookstore (Amazon), screens at all times. On its website, Artsy is described as “an online plat- one predominant market (eBay).”6 Could a single player also emerge to form for discovering, learning about, and collecting art.”3 We visited in dominate the online market for fine art? early August, for a Friday evening happy hour dedicated to recent college graduates. It was a party to facilitate networking among Millennials Artsy was launched in October 2012, and has since cataloged nearly 200,000 interested in art, technology, free beer, and job prospects. In many of its artworks by 25,000 artists represented by galleries, museums, auctions, and job postings, the company proclaims that it wants “to change the world.”4 art fairs.7 That’s an impressive haul for a startup working in a crowded By the end of that Friday evening, chances are that a few idealistic candi- market to solve how to most effectively monetize art on the Internet. In dates were swept up in the exuberance. April 2014, investors poured $18.5 million in capital to help distinguish Artsy from Google Art Project, Artstor, Artnet, Artspace, Artstar, Paddle8, Contemporary Art Daily, Mutual Art, Christie’s LIVE, and Sotheby’s.8 Each of these platforms (which include for- and not-for-profits) provides one or more service that overlaps with what is currently available through Artsy. 1. Artsy “aims to do for is-succeeding-in-putting-the- 5. Astra Taylor, The People’s of Artsy and .art,” Rhizome 8. A partnership between visual art what Pandora did for art-world-online. The article Platform: Taking Back Power (June 11, 2013), accessed July Sotheby’s and eBay was music.” Melina Ryzik, “Online, begins with a quote by Carter and Culture in the Digital Age 10, 2014, http://rhizome.org/ recently announced. This will a Genome Project for the World Cleveland: “Eventually we’re (New York: Metropolitan Books, editorial/2013/jun/11/internet- connect eBay’s 145 million of Art,” The New York Times, going to become Amazon for 2014), 122. real-estate-art-and-power- customers with instant bidding October 8, 2012, accessed July the art world.” 6. Ibid. cases-artsy-and/; and George access to Sotheby’s auctions. 22, 2014, http://www.nytimes. 3. “About Artsy,” Art.sy, Inc., 7. Artsy launched as Art.sy to Pendle, “What’s in a Name? See Carol Vogel and Mike com/2012/10/09/arts/design/ accessed August 16, 2014, the public on October 8, 2012. Art.sy, the much-hyped online Isaac, “A Warhol with Your artsy-is-mapping-the-world-of- https://artsy.net/about. They had registered the Syrian startup, has a Syrian domain Moose Head? Sotheby’s Teams art-on-the-web. 4. “Jobs at Artsy,” Art.sy, Inc., country-code domain (.sy) as name. Could it be violating U.S. with eBay,” New York Times, 2. Natalie Robehmed, “Why accessed May 12, 2014, https:// a means of creative branding sanctions?” Slate (August 13, July 14, 2014, accessed July Artsy Is Succeeding in Putting artsy.net/job/product-designer, in 2009. They migrated to 2012), accessed July 9, 2014, 14, 2014, http://www.nytimes. the Art World Online,” Forbes https://artsy.net/job/developer, Artsy.net in January 2013 due http://www.slate.com/articles/ com/2014/07/14/arts/design/ (September 6, 2013), accessed https://artsy.net/job/mobile- to the Syrian civil war. This technology/foreigners/2012/08/ with-ebay-partnership-sothe- July 22, 2014, http://www. engineer, https://artsy.net/job/ is discussed in detail by both art_sy_s_syrian_domain_ bys-extends-potential-reach-by- forbes.com/sites/natalierobe- devops-engineer. Orit Gat, “Internet Real Estate, name_could_the_company_be_ 145-million. hmed/2013/09/06/why-artsy- Art and Power: The Cases violating_u_s_sanctions_.html. 42 43 45 Above: Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Self-portrait from the Shelton Hotel Looking East, New York, 2005. Gelatin silver print, 20 × 24 inches. Edition of 25. Courtesy of Robert Klein Gallery. Screenshot, Artsy.net, August 8, 2014. Previous spread: João Enxuto and Erica Love, Artsy Office, New York, NY (8/13/14, 6:18:20 PM), 2014, photograph. Courtesy of the artists. The Artsy headquarters in New York is a hub for art specialists and In the matter of a few years, Evgeny Morozov has emerged as the most gallery liaisons in Los Angeles, London, Munich, Berlin, and Hong Kong, a prolific and acerbic critic of Silicon Valley utopianism, which he argues total of seventy employees worldwide. From its roost high above Broadway, corrupts notions of democracy with an “endless glorification of disrup- it is possible to survey the local datascape of confreres and competitors. tion and efficiency.”13 Morozov contends that the new technocrats apply Paddle8 is a mile to the north on Cooper Square. A few blocks east from what he calls “solutionism,” the use of algorithmic regulation to address there is Artnet. A pit stop at NEW INC, the New Museum’s technology the effects of political problems, such as income inequality and national incubator, is a minor detour on a stroll that concludes at Artspace, situated security, without an understanding of underlying causes. on the southern tip of the island. In fact, it is possible to walk the art world’s own “Silicon Alley” without ever venturing north of 14th Street. In keeping with Morozov’s analysis, a significant margin of error and some degree of skepticism should be brought to any forecast of art market trends From the Artsy office windows one can register a broad expanse of ur- linked to the Internet. The art business is the largest unregulated mar- ban topography marked over time by a sequence of industries, not least ket in the world. Wealth distribution is very unbalanced, even among its of which was the visual art sector that drove the repurposing of the post- stakeholders. There are a small number of dominant galleries, collectors, industrial city and prepared it for gentrification.9 The east-facing view is of and auction houses, then there is everyone else. The art market is less a the disorderly patchwork of Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Further monopoly than an oligarchy. And a significant part of that inner circle has still, beyond the bridges and rising waterfront condominiums, are the for- put its faith in Artsy. Additionally, a link from Artsy to Silicon Valley has mer and current artist enclaves of Williamsburg and Bushwick. The view been engineered through the financing of PayPal co-founder and venture encompasses the homes, studios, and home/studios of thousands of artists capitalist Peter Thiel, Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy, Twitter co-founder Jack (including us) who are the base for art production in the metropolis10—the Dorsey, and Google Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt, first step in a supply chain.

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