Howells.

Today I met Carter Cleveland, the CEO of New York-based start-up Art.sy. At it’s core, Art.sy helps you browse and discover your taste in art, and if you are so inclined to buy it will connect you with the galleries that showcase the pieces.

To me, Art.sy is important for three things.

Firstly, it is one of the most beautiful web interfaces I have seen in recent times: dramatic in its black and white simplicity and careful typography, complemented with slick functionality that makes the site incredibly sticky. It’s a triumph of design and front-end development, such that unlike any other art site you can easily find yourself falling into a rabbit hole of beautiful content. You can jump effortlessly from a Dutch master to a hyper-contemporary sculpture, all tied together with a powerful taxonomy they term The Art Genome Project:

…an ongoing study of the characteristics that distinguish and connect works of art. Art.sy evaluates artworks across 800+ characteristics (we call them genes)—such as art-historical movements, subject matter, and formal qualities—to create a powerful search experience that reflects the multifaceted aspects of works of art.

Secondly, with stunning high definition artwork (supplied by their gallery partners) the site becomes an extension of the gallery experience. On a large screen, the images are huge, with a zoomable interface that allows you to explore a piece’s texture and detail. (And incidentally, the copyright protection that obviously is required for such a site is ingenious.) A particularly nice feature is being able to see a piece in context, hanging on a wall in a gallery. It sounds like a skeuomorphic novelty, but feels great and relevant. This also means Art.sy becomes an important educational tool; a perfect encyclopaedia for the arts.

Thirdly, you are able to curate your own taste. The social layer of Art.sy is in development, but from the initial wireframes that Carter showed me this is an exciting execution of the idea I posted recently. Your own profile can sit alongside well known individuals profiles: imagine jumping from Sofia Copolla’s curated collection to that of your friends. It’s a powerful discovery tool.

Finally, Art.sy will rip open the art industry. To outsiders the art scene is a closed circle composed of the privileged few. And to insiders, it’s all about playing political games with gallery owners. Art.sy will cut through this leaving traditional auction houses and galleries resisting engagement with the web to suffer. I like to imagine the site will inspire a whole new generation potential art buyers, previously shut out from the system.

Importantly Art.sy has a robust and obvious business plan. As well as taking a haircut from each referred transaction, they provide services to gallery owners who can manage their own inventory, and once payment processing systems are in place on the site, the model becomes even more clear. The benefits are not constrained to gallery owners: I’d like to see how an art advisor might leverage the site to help their clients.

☛