A SCREENSHOT SHOWS VERTICAL’S 7TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW’S VIRTUAL WALKTHROUGH
VERTICAL GALLERY’S DIGITAL EMBRACE
HOW PATRICK HULL SEES ART ONLINE LONG TERM By GINNY VAN ALYEA Dealer Patrick Hull, like so many of his colleagues, had been preparing for an upcoming exhibition for months. Vertical Gallery’s 7th anniversary exhibition was set to open Saturday, April 4. By mid-March it was becomming very clear that plans would have to be suspended or changed significantly. The gallery’s Saturday night openings on Western Ave. are consistently popular – in COVID-19 terms, they’re crowded. So Hull made a decision to come up with a 3D virtual exhibition in 48 hours and launch a digital preview for his collectors. He told me, “I feel like I missed two days of my life, but during these difficult times I’m trying to find new ways for collectors to experience our gallery, especially for our anniversary!” Hull got it done. He sent the collector preview on April 1 and within two days, he says, he had sold over half the show before releasing it on the gallery’s website for the April 4 “opening” as planned. I asked Hull to share insights on how he put together his digital plan and how he thinks it will continue to be useful to the gallery and its artists long term. Please share some background on what prompted you to dive into launching a digital preview and virtual opening for your latest anniversary show? We’ve published work for sale on our website since we 36 | CGN | Summer 2020
opened seven years ago, so launching digital previews with the ability to purchase artwork online was not new for us. We tried virtual walkthroughs twice before, in 2016, but it did not work out quite the way I wanted. I’ve always kept it in the back of my mind to try again: we have collectors around the world, and I wanted to give them another way to view work. But there were issues with the overall 3D quality, and it takes a lot of extra planning to get it done in time for an opening. When the quarantine went into effect in Chicago [in March], I knew people would not be able to visit the gallery for a while, but I still wanted them to see our 7-Year Anniversary Show, so I called my friend with the 3D camera and asked him to come over and try what we did years before again. We’d learned quite a bit about the best way to use the 3D technology the first time around — such as spacing of the camera photos; gallery lighting — so we had a great starting point. I am really pleased by how this new walkthrough turned out. You can see it on verticalgallery.com What were your primary goals for approaching this new frontier? Purchasing artwork online can be a difficult decision. Our primary goal was to give collectors the closest experience to seeing a show in person — i.e., the ability to walk around
