The Contemporary Art Fair Art Madrid , with 13 years of experience and a solid project that counts on the trust of national and international galleries, takes a step forward in its professional services and launches Art Madrid Market, an online sales platform that will provide service and support for the galleries throughout the year and which will also be a virtual space for the presentation of new artists without a gallery selected by curators and a committee of experts.

THE PLATAFORM

Art Madrid Market is the first online sales platform developed by an art fair based on these 4 pillars:

1) Relationship with the public 365 days, 24h.

2) Work sale service and communication campaign to the participating galleries (before, during and after the fair).

3) Platform for launching artists without a gallery selected by curators and a committee of experts.

4) Generation of own contents disseminated to the public: selection of outstanding works, virtual exhibitions, curatorships and collaborations...

Art Madrid MARKET is the ideal environment that offers all the information of the galleries, artists and works of Art Madrid'18, an e-commerce platform in which the user can make a direct consultation on all available works of the fair and where users and followers will be able to enjoy the advantages of buying art online, directly and safely. Art Madrid MARKET promotes the visibility and the trade of galleries and artists, eliminates boundaries between gallery owners and the public and expands the horizons of online art sales for the global market.

On the platform, each gallery will have a virtual space in which to put on sale its catalog of works of the artists present in AM18 and also curate and select their own online exhibitions. The gallery will have a user panel where it can manage the information of its artists and their works, a control panel with visibility of statistics, metrics and the status of shipments. The support to the galleries will be done before, during and after the fair.

For the gallery, Art Madrid MARKET is the perfect complement to disseminate its artistic projects nationally and internationally, since it will allow a direct and permanent relationship with the public throughout the year, through its own content and several events:

Online exhibitions curated for galleries and their artists. Exhibitions where the galleries may temporarily present the curatorial projects.

Support services in communication and marketing campaigns to the galleries for their exhibitions, expanding the scope and dissemination of their proposals.

Positioning and presentation of new artists. Platform for launching new artists / new talents without a gallery. Art Madrid MARKET will serve as a presentation letter between the public and the fabric of galleries.

This is just the beginning of numerous projects that Art Madrid will host, based on its presence and digital reputation.

ART MADRID COMMUNITY

Art Madrid carries out an important work of communication and diffusion of its projects with a 360º strategy that includes continuous contents in online and offline media from the previous phases of the fair (call, presentation of programs...), to the own actions of the fair (participating gallerists, featured artists, partners and collaborators, parallel activities), including the subsequent balance of the event. Aware of the impact that social networks have today and their inestimable value in contemporary communication, Art Madrid carries out an annual planning that includes Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, speaker of its news and means to know and make known new artists, new proposals, new research topics, as well as an essential channel to know first hand what our potential audience wants.

Art Madrid’s website has become a complete multi-channel communication platform for news of its own creation (related to the fair and its participants) and a source of information on current issues related to contemporary art, galleries, collecting, etc... and now, also, in a modern online sales tool.

Art Madrid has an active community of 30,000 unique users per month from more than 40 countries and an AUDIENCE of 3 million users reached with 100k interactions.

WEB: +30k users

NEWSLETTER: +10.2k contacts

REDES SOCIALES: 40k followers

TWITTER: +20.8k

FACEBOOK: +17.9k

INSTAGRAM: + 10.7k

Among the specialised professional profiles that we find in the cultural sector, and more specifically, in the field of visual arts, one of the most recent occupations is that of the curator. The ‘80s put attention on the role of the artist, with its innovative character and the enhancement of its figure as an essential articulator of creative proposals, while the end of the century moved the interest towards the exhibition centres themselves and their work as custodians of current production and as spaces to accommodate all proposals. The change of millennium strongly introduced in this panorama the role of the curator. Perhaps together with a social identity crisis, perhaps with the complexity that contemporary projects are currently acquiring, the need for building, articulating and delving into artistic discourses became evident.

Although the functions entrusted to this profession are not entirely new, since previously they belonged to conservatives, critics or experts according to the themes, the role has gained solidity because it combines all these purposes while allowing the specialisation of other professionals in their fields of competence. Now, as some curators themselves point out, the genuine spirit of this figure, who was born to facilitate the understanding of the discourse, create narratives within a sometimes chaotic and scattered context, mediate between the works and the spectator and create bridges between contemporary art and society.

The art of our day raises a multitude of unknowns for the visitor who must face proposals many times away from the aesthetic standards, which gives way to uncertainty and confusion; but, in turn, these works employ a closer language, materials and even compositions detached from the sophistication and the technical display of yesteryear, something that, far from favouring proximity to the message, generates some distancing. What we have just described is part of the very essence of current art. The questioning of the formalist guidelines and the recourse to tangible elements that are more utilitarian than embellishing are the new criteria of creation, where, above all, the message to be conveyed stands out.

Likewise, another inherent characteristic of the work of our time is the artists' concern for more immediate themes, for social, political and economic issues that seek to create a narrative and conceptual revulsion, leaving behind the aesthetic priority or, rather, making of the message its own aesthetic. In this context, strange as it may seem, contemporary creation encounters a linguistic barrier hindering the viewer's understanding. And to this circumstance, the abundant current production is added, covering a wide range of themes that are nothing more than a transcript of our diverse and globalised society.

The curator helps to facilitate this understanding by articulating a coherent discourse that allows the grouping of related ideas to set up the message. This requires to have an in-depth knowledge of the current state of the art, the lines of work of the creators, the most recent aesthetic proposals and the real demands of society to bridge the dialogue and allow the approach to art. If art deals with the same issues that concern us all, how can we not share its postulates? Cultural mediation requires the work of the curators to open a small window for reflection and to enable a space for exchange and idea generation. We share the thought that José Guirao expressed in a recent interview: "The curator is someone who reveals something new, and it would be a mistake for curators to become managers."

Understood this way curator’s role, many institutions have joined the trend of creating specific calls for new professionals to give light to their proposals. Let us remember, as an example, the call "Unpublished" of La Casa Encendida, or "Curator wanted", of the Community of Madrid or the call of Curating of La Caixa.