MIXED MEDIA DIGITAL
Is There
a Market
for Digital
Fine Art?
A REPORT FROM ART’S
FINAL FRONTIER
words REGINE DEBATTY
SINCE I MOVED TO BERLIN A FEW MONTHS AGO, my favourite activity has The edginess of the German city attracts collectors from all over
been gallery-hopping. And at the risk of exasperating art lovers living in the world. They know that artistic trends and talents often emerge in
bigger cities, I’d say that the contemporary art scene here is the most Berlin. And they know that the resultant artworks tend to be on of_f er at
exciting in Europe. Rather than dedicate the column to this bold (but not reasonable prices. The works exhibited at the gallery are mostly screen-
utterly original) af_f_i rmation, I’ll just illustrate my point by focusing on one based: animations, software art, projections, etc. All of them present the
example. [DAM], for Digital Art Museum, is located on Tucholskystrasse, kind of qualities that one expects to fi nd in a ‘normal’ fi ne art piece: their
perpendicular to Auguststrasse, which mainly consists of a long line of authors – whether they are pioneers in the fi eld or relative newcomers –
art spaces and gemütlich bars. What makes [DAM] stand out, not only demonstrate a real mastery of the technique and use it in an innovative
in the area but on the Continent as a whole, is that it is entirely dedicated way; and more importantly, the medium never overshadows the aesthetic
to digital art. I went there the other day, admired Holger Lippmann’s experience. But selling digital artworks remains a far from easy task. It takes
‘computer-aided visual art works’, stepped out of the gallery and started a lot of patient explaining. Most people in the artworld still don’t have
wondering whether a space that promotes and sells only digital art was much of an idea about digital art, the impact of computers in our culture,
viable. Does it really have a market? And how does it feel to be a the way the medium is changing the artworld on every level or the amount
lonesome cowboy in the European art gallery landscape? of work involved in the creation of, say, the rendering of scenery in three
Two days later I was sitting by the gallery window with [DAM]’s dimensions. Lieser sees [DAM] as a long-term project. He had to build
owner and curator, Wolf Lieser. He started working on the concept behind everything from scratch and foresees that it will probably take another fi ve
the galllery back in 1998, and his fi rst step was to set up an online museum years of hard work before the value of digital fi ne art is really recognised.
of digital art, a kind of resource centre for the history – the discipline is So yes, there’s a market. It’s slowly coming to light, and as usual, the smart
already 50 years old, after all – and practice of digital fi ne art. At the time, ones are already investing in it.
Lieser was running art galleries in Frankfurt and London. Both cities
proved to be fantastic places to make money selling artworks but – alas –
not of the digital variety. The reason for this seems to have been the fact
that the cities’ respective art scenes were too conservative and that the
costs of renting gallery spaces were ridiculously high. So with that in mind,
Lieser looked around and fi gured out that the best place physically to
Manfred Mohr, P706/A, 2000, endura chrome on ground his project was Berlin.
canvas, 132 x 114 cm. Courtesy [DAM], Berlin
ARTREVIEW one.linone.linzero.lin
p110 Digital AR May07.indd 110 3/4/07 22:38:41
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