Since analog galleries are difficult at the moment, I’m testing out some online options. First up is Saatchi Art. We’ll see if there’s anyway to be seen in the sea of noise from their alleged hundred thousand “emerging” artists and 1,400,000 artworks.
See that at: https://Saatchiart.com/jeffbayer
There are some bugs with the Saatchi Art site already. Uploading art for sale is a pain and they add a TON of shipping cost to everything. Still can’t get the system to set anything available for prints (aka poster quality reproduction done by them). Seems like a reasonable option for much lower priced goods, but they need to add a different system for uploading the print quality image vs the web quality cropped display images. Seems strange that they don’t… it also doesn’t work at all at the moment. Filed a ticket a few days ago, we’ll see if that goes anywhere.
Also, the “following/followers” model for social media really isn’t good for their target artist group of “emerging artists”. If I had followers in the art collector world I wouldn’t be signing up for Saatchi. See how that works? Just like facebook pages, instagram, twitter, and all the rest of the follower model social media platforms, it requires bringing your own audience and doing your own marketing. Fuck the introverts right? I expect they are trying to show some kind of social proof of others liking your work and therefor sell to more people. Unfortunately that takes getting over the tipping point to “organic” followers on your own. I wonder what that number is.. 50? 100? 500?
It would also be great if they let artists showcase art in a more cohesive way, instead of in order of most recently uploaded work.
But I’m trying it out anyway. Currently grinding through their “How to Get Featured on Saatchi Art” list. I suppose we will see if it works!
Update (Sept. 2024):
Featured never happened. And I have yet to get paid for the two artworks that were sold through their site. All shipping expenses, all material costs, time spent, etc. all a massive loss because of their theft.
So, don’t use Saatchi Art.
