Michael Mandiberg FDIC Insured (First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, NV, July 25, 2008), 2009-2016, Laser cut found book, Denny Gallery, New York, New York
If you’ve been around the art block, chances are you’ve experienced your fair share of shady buyers, opaque interactions and general market inconsistencies. The art world: you could say it’s The Wild West of our time. At NINE dot ARTS, however, we believe not only in the power of art to change the world for the better but also in doing things the right way, which means holding ourselves, our clients and everyone we work with to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. And because we like efficiency and generally making life easier for as many people as possible, we’ve spent the better part of three-plus (emphasis on the plus) years developing a web-based app with the lovely lads of Cirro to be an online, one-stop shop, end-all-be-all art sales platform for our valued gallery and artist partners. Enter: dotfolio!
The Who
We created dotfolio for the galleries, artists, vendors and clients we work for as much as we created it for ourselves. As several dots have studio and gallery experience, we know how difficult it is to keep info straight let alone convey it in a regular manner. dotfolio creates a standardized way to share information about each and every artist and artwork. Gone are the days of mystery mediums, unknown sizes and unidentified jpegs. Everything is laid as bare as Manet’s Olympia; now that’s what we call transparency at work!
The What
dotfolio combines an artist database with a project management and accounting software. (Did we mention we are overachievers?!) dotfolio creates a central location for the tsunami of information we sift through on the daily (gallery contacts, art mediums, sizing, pricing, artist CVs, university affiliations, price lists, gallery contacts, framers, shippers, you name it) to not only co-exist but speak to one another, too. That’s why every artwork we purchase goes into dotfolio.
The Why – Part 1:
NINE dot ARTS has access to a burgeoning niche market: the corporate sector. While corporate art collecting has been around for a few decades thanks to David Rockefeller and Dorothy Miller, many industries are just beginning to understand and leverage the benefits of original art to make a positive impact on their bottom lines. NINE dot ARTS occupies the sweet spot between business and arts: we know how to work with businesses on their terms (i.e. strict budgets, aggressive timelines, kooky selection criteria, etc.) and we value art at the depths of our core, believing art should be experienced every day not just in a white-walled setting.
The Why – Part 2:
Being a part of dotfolio makes it easier to help us help you. Without artists and galleries our curatorial and logistical powers would be worthless and we’d have zero remedies to blank walls and sad, dehumanizing spaces everywhere. In short, you make us look good!
The Why – Part 3:
We have beaucoup purchasing power to the tune of $5 million annually. We buy art from across the globe for projects nation-wide, and we’re always on the lookout for new galleries and artists. We have long-standing relationships with galleries near and wide. We HEART galleries and we want to help support them and their artists. Galleries are one of our most important allies our mission to create stellar art programs far and wide. dotfolio enables us to expand our reach, information sharing capabilities, interactions and communication exponentially which allows us to purchase more art for more art programs more often, all of which benefits the galleries we work with.
The How
There are two ways galleries can interact with dotfolio listed in order of our preference below:
The #1 dot-Recommended Option:
Tell your artists to create a dotfolio profile and to add their images and information. Here’s a template email you can use to get your artists uploading like selfie-obsessed pre-teens.
- Why we recommend this method:
- You and your artists will gain access to many more corporate sales via NINE dot ARTS.
- You, as the gallery owner, get to provide this unique opportunity to your artists to increase your and their income as dotfolio helps increase placement and purchase opportunities to your artists!
- You will be able to help build your artists’ résumés of corporate collection placements.
- It’s 100% transparent.
- Everyone knows how much everyone else gets in each sale.
- We will always purchase art through the gallery channel listed for sale.
- The onus is on the artist vs. the gallery.
- We know you have enough to manage with your own inventories and we don’t want to bog you down with even more data entry.
The 6 out of 10 dots Agree Option
Create artist profiles for each of the artists you represent. We understand some artists have galleries to do all the biz work for them. That’s cool, we get it. Here are some suggestions to make this as easy as pie for you:
- Create a standard format dummy email for each individual artist along the lines of artistname@myfavoritegallery.com.
- Use the same password for each artist so you have one less thing to remember.
- Get an intern to help you upload info for each artist so you can focus on meeting with museum curators, planning exhibits and selling art!
The When
2017, the wee babe, is still ripe with possibility. The time to sell art is always now, so let’s get a move on it together!
