Introduction
The World-Wide Web is but one component of a vast, rapidly growing
internetwork of computers known collectively as the Internet.
Ongoing development and liberal distribution of full-featured
Web browsers like Netscape(TM), however, keep the Web at the leading
edge of Internet growth. From within a single application, users
can send email, chat, telnet to a remote site, perform extensive
file searches, download software, and read Usenet news. Based
on a hypertext paradigm (Barry, 1994; Greene, 1994), the Web allows
for a truly multimediated interface to the Internet's resources.
From within a single document users can view text, graphics, and
movies, and listen to sound clips or real-time audio transmissions.
As both an application and an information delivery system, the
Web is replacing the earlier-generation gopher as the Internet's
principal navigational tool (Howell, Lacy, & Sutter, 1994a,
1994b; Porterfield, 1994). Little wonder that new users, once
prone to view the whole of the Internet as "email,"
now equate Internet access with Web access.
It is fitting for new consumers of computer communications technology
to focus on the Web, for in many respects it stands alone as the
Internet's commercial domain, and in fact is often referred to
in the press, erroneously, as "the commercial part of the
Internet." The very existence of the Internet is traditionally
based on free exchange of information and resources, so commercial
activity is not only not condoned, but actively militated against
by a core cadre of long-time users who are quick to indoctrinate
"newbies" (McLaughlin , Osborne, & Smith, 1995;
Smith, McLaughlin, Osborne, in press). But federal subsidies of
the Internet's electronic "backbone" have been gradually
and purposefully replaced by for-profit network conglomerates
such as MCI, Sprint, and their partners (Kahin, 1990), resulting
in multiple, proprietary "backbones" (Fazio, 1995).
While the culture of the Internet remains that of easy access
and free distribution of information, the means of transport indicate
the future of the information superhighway is driven by profit.
The genesis and subsequent development of the graphical Web, coupled
with the relentless quest for secure transaction technology, reflect
a clear mandate to pursue this extraordinary commercial potential
(Hoffman & Novak, 1995).
Much of the Web's recent growth results from the opening of Internet
gateways by self-contained, proprietary online services such as
Prodigy, America Online, and Compuserve (Savetz, 1995). With a
pre-existing user base numbering in the millions and savvy marketing
strategies -- the free 10-hour trial and ubiquitous load-and-go
software disk is a staple insert in popular monthly computer magazines
-- the major access providers continue to draw on a seemingly
endless population of new and inveterate computer enthusiasts.
In turn, these users are drawn to the Web with an easy point-and-click
interface, the promise of a multimediated and interactive world
of information, and most importantly, the ability to contribute
resources of their own with nothing more than a modem-equipped
home computer.
Rapid expansion of the Internet user base has resulted in demographic
changes to that user base. A recent survey completed by GNN indicates
the typical American Web surfer is both older and more affluent
than the average Internet user of even a year ago (O'Reilly &
Associates, 1995). The implications of such key demographic changes
remain to be fully explored, but suggest a smaller proportion
of users rely on free access provided by academic institutions
and that more users may approach the Internet from a commercial
perspective rather than looking to it for any one purpose such
as entertainment, education, or email. Indeed, while Internet
culture kept commercial enterprise to a minimum for many years,
recent developments in online commerce have necessitated more
rigorous policies on the part of both academic and corporate providers
regarding the uses to which access accounts are put (for an early
example, see Jacobsen, 1993).
Regulating unscrupulous use of educational or corporate accounts
for commercial gain has not put a noticeable dent in the Internet's
growth. Price wars among access providers are not uncommon, and
a whole industry of geographically localized Internet access providers
(IAPs) has challenged the triumvirate of traditional networking
alternatives: university or corporate accounts, local bulletin
boards (BBS), or information servers such as Prodigy and Compuserve,
which for many years were nothing more than grandiose BBSs themselves.
Access has never been easier or more economical, and the ability
to self-promote or publish, along with the promise of financial
gain for a relatively small capital outlay, is irresistible to
many.
Selling Art on the World Wide Web
The Web has taken the business world by storm, and the "stampede"
to acquire an electronic presence on the Web is well underway
(McLaughlin, 1996; Neubarth, 1995). A "home page" is
a personal point of pride, a social necessity, and a business
imperative for those who wish to appear on the cutting edge. Despite
its well-documented expansion and despite the realization of secure
transaction technology, the Web as a marketing "promised
land" remains relatively uncharted. Each day brings more
business ventures to the Web, but there are relatively few reports
of anyone hitting the mother lode of commercial success (Resnick
& Taylor, 1995). "Don't quit your day job" could
join "Your mileage may vary" as a popular catch phrase
among the digerati. Still, certain types of businesses are more
irresistibly drawn by the Web's promise than others. Art galleries,
for instance, have been among the first segments of the business
community to stake out the Web as a potentially lucrative supplemental
venue for sales (Gaffin, 1994).
The Web is increasingly populated with the virtual presences of
well-known and distinguished galleries along with a rising tide
of cyber upstarts. Both types are finding "there's an art
to selling art over the Internet" (Maddox, 1995). Traditional,
tried-and-true exhibition and promotion practices are giving way
to trial-and-error as galleries attempt to chart a course to prosperity
amid swelling competition.
Art Online
Mezzotint by James Talmadge
|
Artists themselves have long embraced the computer as a medium
of expression (Noll, 1993; Popper, 1993) and the Internet for
creative networking (Grant, 1993; Malloy, 1994; McLaughlin, 1994;
Wood, 1993). Recent emphasis on technological media such as CD-ROMs
for digital reproduction and widespread distribution of traditional
art, however, has museum and gallery administrators scrambling
to keep a virtual eye on their curatorial interests (Besser, in
press; Nowlin, 1995; Patton, 1994). While some of these administrators
may despair at their seeming loss of control over context (Mitchell,
1992), others embrace new technology as a viable means to explore
new contexts and expand their audiences (Broun, 1994).
Despite its current bandwidth limitations (large or high-resolution
graphics still require an inordinate amount of load time), the
Web has caught the attention of forward-thinking artists, administrators,
and arts advocates alike. The American Arts Alliance, for example,
uses its Web site to solicit support for pro-art policies in Washington
(American Arts Alliance, 1995). Several major museums and collections
have already established Web sites dedicated to showcasing particular
features and exhibits. Among them are the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, the British Library, and the Royal College
of Art in London. Such venerable institutions as the Smithsonian
and the Getty Museum are virtual neighbors to a steadily increasing
number of college and university-sponsored galleries as well as
private "commercial" galleries devoted to the sale of
works rather than pure exhibition.
Mezzotint by James Talmadge
 |
A previous examination (McLaughlin, 1994) of world wide Web art
galleries revealed a fledgling commercial enterprise poised to
catapult itself into the jetstream of online commerce. Art and
the Web, it would seem, are ideally suited to each other. Easy-to
create online forms promise to facilitate the conduct of business,
allowing galleries to process orders over the network and keep
track of their customer base. Digital scanning, compression, and
multimedia-capable Web browsers invite extensive online exhibition,
while progress in encryption technology promises secure financial
transactions in a world-wide market. Still, the match made in
virtual heaven is not without impediments. McLaughlin gives voice
to the concerns of artists, their representatives, and their audiences
in noting that copyright and authentication issues arising from
the new media are unresolved (see especially Broun, 1994b; and
Karnow, 1994). Furthermore, the democratizing aspects of an easily
accessible conduit such as the Web threaten the exclusivity and
elitism which has traditionally distinguished "fine art"
from "lower" forms (Nowlin, 1995). While this threat
is taken seriously by some, others see the confluence of art and
technology as a sort of "grand experiment," a crisis
of opportunity during a time of barrier breaking and boundary
blurring:
"[T]oday we find that the idea of a high art dictated from
a small aristocracy of critics, collectors, curators, and gallery
owners no longer has much validity or power. There's a lot of
excitement all across the country ... among folk artists and self-taught
artists, among craft artists and photographers--as they emerge
from the obscurity in which they long lingered. There is a new
understanding of what quality means. It no longer implies a universal
transcendent standard; instead, it means identifying different
directions, traditions, and ideas in art and making distinctions
of quality within each type. The "canons of masters"
are beginning to share their stage. (Broun, 1994a)
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the transition from the
"real" art world to its digital counterpart is the apparent
breadth and fluidity of the artists' stage. Heretofore, exhibition
practice has been largely determined by physical space, and the
problems of accessibility have contributed to notions of "high"
versus "low" art along with "appropriate"
exhibition practice (Sherman & Rogoff, 1994). Such distinctions
blur in a physically, if not practically, unbounded space which
prides itself on facile and democratic access. Furthermore, interactive
technology is closing the gap between artists and their audiences,
between content and delivery systems.
Connectivity, interaction, and emergence are now the watchwords
of artistic culture. The observer of art is now in the centre
of the creative process, not at the periphery looking in. Art is
no longer a window onto the world but a doorway through which
the observer is invited to enter into a world of interaction and
transformation. (Ascott, 1993)
In what Ascott calls "the radically new role of the artist,"
context is shaped and presented as much as content, if not more
so because content becomes a collaborative process in which artists
and observers are one.
The implications of an unbounded, electronic creative space are
many. Foremost, "studio" as "working space"
and "gallery" as "exhibition space" become
indistinguishable frames for artistic endeavor. Secondly, the
notion that the artist's "message is in the work" takes
on entire new levels of meaning when "work" is simultaneously
product, process, and medium, and "message" is (at least)
two-way and occurring sychronously or asynchronously. Last but
not least is the implication that works (if not the artists themselves)
which appear online are more open to critique by virtue of a global
forum.
Both traditional media and electronic compositions are represented
online. Traditional media are usually offered as digitally scanned
photographs and slides of original works, the images compressed
and at a less-than-optimum resolution. Moving images are also
digitized and compressed for easier online exhibition and downloading,
typically at a rate of five frames-per-second. Electronically
generated works range from royalty-fee-based clip art to rendered
3D models (donation-ware) to complete interactive installations
where viewers have the option of becoming participants in the
artistic process (the OTIS Gallery is perhaps one of the oldest
such installations).
Illustration by Thomas Helmintoller
 |
Electronic gallery sites come in a variety of forms and functions:
a site may consist of a single gallery representing several artists
in the sale of works (for example, the CandyStick Gallery); it
may be a simple slide-registry, an intermediary between buyers
and artists who may be contacted directly (Art Direct); it may
be a re-seller offering classified listings of works wanted and
works available (Art Cellar Exchange); or the site may qualify
as a sort of "meta-gallery," whereby the site maintainers
provide any service from web space and maintenance to page layout
and design for multiple galleries (Art-ROM Gallery). Any of these
alternative forms of presentation may vary considerably with regard
to artist representation. Some galleries do nothing more than
display some form of the work, usually a low-resolution image,
with a minimum of information such as dimensions, media, and price;
others offer extensive artist biographies which may include exhibition
histories and candid shots of the artists themselves or their
studios.
Aside from the distinctions which may be made regarding form and
function, online commercial galleries may be distinguished on
the basis of whether a "real world" counterpart gallery
exists. Although they may be better equipped, from an economic
standpoint, to exploit the full capability of the Web's multimedia
and interactive features, physically-based galleries may be less
open and "experimental" in their exhibition practices
than are virtual galleries (McLaughlin, 1996). Well-established
purveyers of art may be reluctant to parlay their offline images
of exclusivity and distinction into a more free-wheeling approach
to mass Web audiences. Galleries with physical presence may tend
to offer more works of traditional media, but they may also have
the reputation and expertise to take a more active role in representing
the artist.
An exponentially expanded audience must be enticed and, perhaps
more frequently than is realized, educated. By contrast, consider
the privileged ambience of a showing in a "real world"
gallery versus idle web surfers virtually stumbling across a "cool"
gallery site. Careful construction of the online exhibition space
requires anticipating casual, as well as enthusiastic, audiences.
As noted above, the online gallery allows innovative forms of
representation, thereby perhaps altering both artist-seller and
artist-buyer relationships, as well as buyer-seller relationships.
Given the persistent growth of the Web and its much-touted commercial
promise, another look at art galleries on the Web is warranted.
The study reported below continues the exploration of online artspace,
focusing exclusively on the trends and trajectories of commercial
galleries. Specifically, this study examines the variety of gallery
forms and functions as art exhibition culture makes the transition
from a physically-bound space to one in which physical boundaries
are largely irrelevant and exhibition boundaries are as yet to
be determined. One implication of the transition is that promotional
and representation practices may change. Galleries may take a
more or less active role in artist representation and assume an
active educational role in anticipation of more casual audiences.
Another implication is that digital media will augment more traditional
offerings. One important question is whether digital media will
serve merely to enhance the exhibition of traditional works or
be offered for sale.
Procedures
Commercial art sites for the study were selected from a list of
sites posting announcements to the NCSA What's New and the Yahoo
What's New pages during the months of March, April, May, and June
of 1995. After duplicate entries and non-commercial galleries
were removed from the resulting list, each site was given a preliminary
review to determine (a) if in fact works of art were available
for sale at the site, and (b) if the site displayed the works
(or was under construction in anticipation of displaying the works)
of multiple artists. Those sites which did not meet both criteria
were eliminated as were any which presented persistent difficulties
in access. Items were randomly discarded from the list to reduce
the number to fifty sites. Of the fifty remaining, three were eventually excluded from the study
because of access difficulties. The 47 commercial art sites included
in the study were
A and B Design,
Arrival,
Art Cellar Exchange,
Art Direct,
Artist's
Point Gallery,
ArtNetWeb,
Art.Online,
The Art Store,
Art to Live With,
ArtWorks Gallery,
Artworks Gallery,
James Baird Galleries,
Bergamot Station Arts Center (multiple galleries),
Bridge Square Gallery,
British Columbia Virtually Yours! - Artisans' Gallery,
Candystick Gallery,
Linda Cannon Gallery,
The Canyon,
The Collection,
The CyberGallery,
East End Portfolio,
Elite Fine Art Gallery,
Elliott Brown Gallery,
Find-Arts (includes Creiger-Dane Gallery),
Galerie d'Art,
The Golden Spirit Gallery,
The greencART MALL,
Guildhall, Inc.,
hyperVision,
Internet Shopping Galleria Art Gallery,
Island Art Publishers,
The Issacs/Inuit Gallery,
JAAM Original Art,
Markel/Sears Works on Paper,
MauiWeb Gallery,
Mirror Images Gallery,
Muscovy Imports,
Native American Art Gallery,
The Pope Gallery,
Ravenwood Studios Fine
Art Gallery, Rock and Roll Digital Gallery,
Sante Fe Southwest Artists Marketspace,
Santa Fe Fine Art,
Scope Gallery,
Scultura Arts Forum,
Waxlander Gallery,
Wentworth Gallery, and
The Williams Gallery.
(The reader should note that non-standard spellings and use of lower
and upper case are common among Web galleries).
All data were collected July 8-July 15, 1995. The coding form
used in recording information about the sites was an online survey
which could be viewed in a Netscape Web browser window so that
the coder could easily move back and forth between the art site
and the coding forms. Completed forms were then E-mailed in by
pressing a submit button at the bottom of the form. Items included
on the coding form are presented in Appendix 1.
Data from a subset of the 173 raw indicators on the coding form
were selected, and in some cases collapsed and combined, to provide
seventeen variables for the present analysis: real-world gallery
(yes/no); relationship to artist (represents, provides
slide registry, provides classifieds, provides page design for
publishers, or provides page design for multiple galleries); number
of artists; number of female artists; information
(number of discrete informational units offered) about the
artists; information about the works of art; courtesy
information (help for WWW newcomers); information about
the gallery; number of discrete types of
document elements such as number of decorations (inline
images, logos, fancy bullets, etc., hypertextual images
(interactive thumbnails, imagemaps, etc.); extensions (HTML3.0
and Netscape tags), interactive forms, and other advanced
design features (Web chat, dynamic document updating, etc).
The remaining variables were networking and promotion strategies,
variety of forms of art available, artist-orientation
(online sign up, explicit fee structure, etc),
and customer-orientation (secure credit card transactions,
slide previewing, guarantees, etc).
Factor analysis
A factor analysis was conducted to extract the dimensions underlying
ratings of galleries; loadings of the variables on the dimensions uncovered by the factor
analysis were used to develop a more parsimonious set of descriptive
measures.
The dichotomous grouping variable real-world gallery
was not included in the analysis. One of the fortyseven
cases had a missing value on the number-of-female-artists measure
and was consequently dropped from further analysis. The rotated factor
matrix is presented in Table 1.
A three-factor solution accounting for 47% of the variance was selected. Eigenvalues,
respectively, were 3.57, 2.01, and 1.95. High-loading items on
the three factors (primary loading of .70 and no secondary loadings
of > .40) were used to create three composite scales. From
Factor 1 the items networking and information about the
gallery were combined to create a new composite index, promotion
(alpha reliability = .80). From Factor 2 three items, number of
artists, number of female artists, and variety of artworks
were combined to create the composite index, inclusiveness
(alpha reliability = .83). From Factor 3 two items, customer-orientation
and relationship to artist, were combined to create a third composite
index which we labeled responsibility (alpha reliability
= .51), a measure of the extent to which the gallery assumed full
responsibility for representing the artist and assuring customer
satisfaction.
Results
Sample Summary
The sample consisted of 47 electronic galleries, listed above,
with sites on the World Wide Web. Of these, roughly 62 percent
(n=29) indicated the existence of a physical counterpart, i.e.,
an address to which customers could go and view or buy works from
featured (or other) artists.
Discriminant analysis
Discriminant analysis provides a multivariate analysis-ofvariance
test of the hypothesis that two or more groups differ significantly
on a linear combination of a set of dependent measures.A step-wise discriminant analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis
that galleries with a physical counterpart to the virtual one would differ from "merely
virtual" galleries with respect to the three composite indices, promotion, inclusiveness, and
responsibility.
The Wilks' lambda criterion was used for the discriminant analysis,
with values of Ftoenter and Ftoremove
set to 1.0. Prior probabilities were set at the default value
of .50. Box's M was 3.17 ( p < .39), indicating that the withingroup
covariance matrices were homogeneous. The discriminant analysis
resulted in a significant linear combination of two of the dependent
variables, promotion and responsibility, which maximally discriminated
between commercial and noncommercial sites (lambda =.86, Chisquare
= 6.31, p < .05). The real-world group of galleries had the
higher mean score (.49 vs. .31) on the discriminant function,
indicating that real-world gallery sites generally were more likely
to exploit network opportunities for promoting their business
and were more likely to assume full responsibility for all aspects
of the transaction between artist and buyer of art. Although the
inclusiveness variable was removed from the discriminant function, univariate means testing indicated
that a slight, nonsignificant tendency for the real-world galleries
to be less inclusive. A test of the predictive ability of the
discriminant function indicated that the linear combination of
the two variables, promotion and responsibility, was able to reclassify
68% of the galleries correctly with respect to the grouping variable.
Discussion
Our results suggest galleries with proven experience in the real
world are better able to translate that experience online and
to serve the interests of the artist. Most importantly, such galleries
appear to bring their standards for customer service online as
well. These galleries are more likely to explicitly state their
customer satisfaction policies, possibly because over time the
online and offline trade may take on a symbiotic relationship
whereby the practices (and ultimate success) of one has some relationship
to the practices (and success) of the other. As a rule, dual-venue
galleries seem reluctant to alter their modes of operation appreciably
from established practice, and only time will tell whether this
tendency remains productive or becomes inhibitory.
An area of considerable variety is how the transactions themselves
are conducted. Some galleries simply provide contact information,
a phone number or email address for the interested buyer to contact
the artist directly. This necessarily skews the observations of
artist information provided, but does not effect the degree of
representation observed. Future studies of how artists are represented
online will need to make careful distinctions between types of
information offered. Other galleries offer elaborate schemes to
pinpoint the buyer's interest, or more likely, the buyer's commitment,
and then conclude business by telephone or other offline means.
Very few galleries from our sampling frame were using electronic
means to conduct the entire transaction.
A surprisingly little amount of viewer education activity was
observed. "Instruction" was limited to optimized viewing
strategies: browser, color depth, and screen resolution. Purely
electronic galleries were more likely to offer gallery-specific
information, such as ownership and staff, overall mission, customers,
and artist-representation arrangements. Dual venue galleries seemed
more inclined to rely on their real world reputations and simply
present their featured works and pertinent sales information.
The World Wide Web of Art is a bustling industry with room for
the savvy cottager as well as Sotheby's and Christie's (both of
which have online presences), but budding soloists should beware:
the competition is already fierce. The well-represented artist,
whether online or off, still has the advantage over the under-represented,
not only in terms of promotional potential but also because such
artists are freed of mundane business details. The more extensive
online gallery services should continue to grow in size and presentation
resources, while the small, start-up galleries will continue to
face increasing competition both online and offline. Still, some
exposure is better than none, and the potential profits to be
had online are difficult to undercut with such low overhead costs.
In a business where exposure is everything the advantages of launching
a virtual presence on the web cannot be overstated, but neither
can the risks be understated. Unauthorized use and copyright issues
are ongoing problems for artists and their representatives, and
while larger galleries may have the wherewithal to pursue property
right abuses with legal recourse, this ability may simply translate
into higher costs for artists or a reluctance to handle certain
artists or types of works. One of the gallery sites in our original
sample serves as a perfect illustration of the perils and pitfalls
of consigning one's works to the Web. What was once a thriving
exhibition area is now a simple message to the effect that
[Artist name deleted] Studio has decided to remove its home page
from the Internet due to the overwhelming number of people wishing
to use his photographs free of charge with (and probably without)
permission.
The issue of intellectual and artistic property rights is bound
to have a profound impact on electronic commercial activity. For
now, however, online vendors and exhibitors are obviously feeling
their way. The means of protecting works are as varied as the
means of producing and exhibiting them. Perhaps the most typical
method is a simple copyright statement imposed on or appended
to a low-resolution image of the work. Some have gone so far as
to deface the images in a way that renders them reproductibly
unappealing (e.g., "SAMPLE" inscribed across the image)
while promising that the purchased work will be of much finer
quality and, of course, without the "graffiti."
Electronic commercial galleries come and go with volatile regularity
and for any number of unknown reasons. The most common may be
simply a lack of access while the original site maintainer is
in transition from one institution to another or one provider
to another. Several of the galleries in our original sample are
no longer accessible, but perhaps the most striking point is that
few (or none) of these are virtual galleries with physical counterparts.
For reasons that remain to be explored, an anchor to the "real
world" apparently gives the online gallery a sense of literal
permanence.
There are as yet discernable differences between exclusively virtual
galleries and those with off-line counterparts. These differences
present a paradox for the artist just venturing into Web space.
On the one hand, the artist is able to pursue a global audience
unfettered by physical and curatorial constraints; on the other
hand, a lack of curatorial, promotional, and network expertise
may mean more maintenance and less time for creative work for
the artist. Someone has to mind the store, regardless of whether
it is virtual or physical.
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Appendix 1
Coding Form for Commercial Art Sites Study
Gallery Name:
URL:
Document Title:
Is there a realworld counterpart to the virtual gallery?
Yes No
If so, where?
Is site maintenance and/or page design outsourced?
Yes No Not clear
CONDUCTING COMMERCE AT THE GALLERY
Does the gallery overtly solicit artists to represent/list?
Yes No
What is the nature of the relationship between the art site
and the artist?
The site belongs to a single gallery which represents the artist
in the sale of works
The site provides listings/slide registry of individual artists
who may be contacted
directly
The site provides classified listings of works of art for sale
The site provides page design/Web space for publishers of artists'
works
The site provides page design/Web space for multiple galleries
What means are available to submit artworks for representation?
Online (ftp site,
uuencoded email) Offline (mail slides, diskettes)
Does the gallery offer online signup for artists or sellers
wishing to lease space/be
represented? Yes No
What does the gallery offer to do for the artist? (paste
offer of services to artists into
window below)
Is there an explicit statement of the fee structure for representing/listing
artists?
Yes No
What strategies are employed to protect the artist's copyright?
Simple "copyright artist'sname"
Statement copyright policy/acceptable use
Low resolution version of images
Alter images ("sample" imprinted)
Inline images only
None
Is there a clear indication that works of art at the site are
for sale?
Yes No
(If, no, skip ahead to the section "DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS
OF GALLERY")
Which of the following does the gallery sell/list?
Originals
Artist's proofs
Limited edition prints
Open edition prints
Printer's proofs
Remarques
Reproductions
Gallery products or services are sold:
Online Offline Both
Does the gallery offer to send slides for previewing of works?
Yes No
Does the gallery offer a guarantee of satisfaction/have a refund
policy?
Yes No
Forms of ordering offered:
Artist is to be contacted directly
Art seller is to be contacted directly
Art distributor is to be contacted
Surface mail to gallery
Email to gallery
Toll free call to gallery
Toll call to gallery
FAX to gallery
Fillin form to gallery
Check
Certified check
Credit card
Money order
Will bill
Virtual bank card/check
If payment can be made online by credit card, does the
site offer secure transport of
credit card information?
Yes No
What is the price range of typical works for sale at the gallery?
under $50
$50$499
$500$4999
$5000$14999
$15000 and above
Is the gallery actively recruiting for staff?
Yes No
DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS OF GALLERY
Is password registration required to gain access?
None is required
Required to gain access to certain features
Required to gain access to all/any features
Toplevel organization of collection(s) by:
Artist
Medium (image/animation; painting/drawing/print)
Contexts (geographic, chronological, style)
Analogy to physical spaces (walk, room, wing, annex)
Individual works
Decoration:
Original logo
Fancy bullets
Legend
Inline images
Transparent gifs
Hypertextual/navigational artwork:
Hypertextual thumbnails
Fancy buttons
Menu bar
Imagemap
Player bar for movies, sound
Extensions:
Tables
Backgrounds
Background color
Text/link colors
Blinking text
Custom hard rules
Nonstandard alignment of images
Author control of font sizes
Author control of borders
File formats supported:
gif
jpg
wrl
avi
flc
mpg
mov
ps
pdf
Forms:
Comments Page (Email to Curator, Artists; Guest Book)
Keyword search (archives, data base)
Order form
Voting form
Questionnaire/survey
Other Features:
Live video image
Threaded news
Number of visitors report
Web chat
Updated images (server push/pull)
Continuity:
Page layouts functionally equivalent
Logo present on every page
Uniform use of color and graphics
Balance: Is site predominantly text or graphics/features?
Text
Graphics and/or Features
Balanced between text and graphics/features
Navigation
Internal anchors
Return/back button
"Go anywhere" menu bar
GALLERY CONTENT
Still images, computergenerated:
Digital photographs
Paint or photomanipulation works
Rendered (raytracing, 3D)
Algorithmic (fractals, genetic art)
Scanned still images, analog art:
Photographs
Drawings (pen and ink, pencil, charcoal, chalk)
Paintings (oils, acrylics, watercolors, tempera)
Prints (woodcut, engraving, lithograph, silkscreen)
Miscellaneous artworks (CD covers, rave flyers, posters, animation
cels,
sculptures and assemblages, installations, textiles. furniture,
ceramics,
clips from videos)
Moving images:
Animations (fractal animations,genetic algorithm animations, morphs,
raytrace and 3D animations)
Digitized videos from movies and television
Other art forms with images:
Graphic novels or comic books
Illustrated poems, essays and short stories
Information about the artists
Artists' portraits
Artists' bios, resumes and/or exhibition records
Artists personal statements
Home pages, hyperlinks on artists' statements
Artists' email addresses
Artists' individual mailboxes (mailto form)
Artists' surface mail addresses and/or phone/FAX numbers
Picture of studio/shop
Number of artists featured:
Number of women artists:
Information about the works presented:
Name of artist
Title/caption of work
Extended caption
Date produced
Approximate image file size
Image file format
Price
Dimensions
How work was made/medium
Number in the series
Courtesy information:
Index or menu for viewers without graphics
Information about/pointers to helper applications
Information about/pointers to browsers
Information about file formats
Other information about the gallery available:
Mission statement
Directions to the gallery
Arrangements for representing artists
Customers/clients of the gallery
Staff of the gallery
Howto/technical
What's new?
Press Releases
Reference shelf (bibliographies, databases)
About the maintainer
NETWORKING AND PROMOTION
Tips for artists
Vendor presence
Newsletter
Mailing list
Pointers, hot links
Realworld meetings, salon
Promotional items (mugs and tshirts)
Affiliated newsgoup
Sponsor collaborations
Sponsor online meetings/"speakers"
Post annotations
Professional organization /arts collective link
Listing of shows, CFPs, conferences
Affiliated gopher/ftp site
Resident critic/columnist
Contests and awards
Criticism/reviews
Affiliated BBS
Discounts/specials on artrelated materials
Sponsor events (festivals, seminars)
Studio/design firm affiliation
Invite studio/gallery visits
List of seminars given
Pointers to other galleries (list):
Pointed to by other galleries (list):
Use this space for any other comments you might have: