The Art Worl and the World Wide Web

the Art World and the World Wide Web

the

Art World and the

World Wide Web

Essays, Interviews, and Case Studies

2010

CONTENTS 7

Introduction

11 The Art World and the World Wide Web 23 Google for Galleries 31 Mobile-Friendly Websites 39 Video and the Internet 47 Web-Based Gallery Management 53 Interview with David Maupin, Lehmann Maupin 65 Interview with Hanako Williams, Gagosian Gallery 73 Interview with David LaChappelle Copyright Š 2010 by exhibit-E, LLC All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this brochure may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the permission in writing from the copyright owner. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material is fully protected by copyright and is subject to royalty. Requests for permissions should be addressed in writing to exhibit-E, LLC, 40 Wooster Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013

79 Interview with Ryan Quigley, Interactive Director, exhibit-E 86 Case Study: www.gagosian.com 94 Case Study: www.matthewmarks.com 100 Case Study: www.carrolldunham.com 107 Sample Websites 130 Glossary

Introduction

This edition of The Art World and the World Wide Web is dedicated to my good friend Nancy Spero, who passed away last year. Nancy, along with her late husband, Leon Golub, befriended me when I was an aspiring designer fresh out of college. Their knowledge of the art world and commitment to their own art are constant sources of inspiration to me. d m

Rocked by the sudden collapse of the world financial markets and subsequent deep recession, the art world staggered through a difficult 2009. Yet, despite continued uncertainty, some shuttered doors, and some downsizing, it is clear that the art world is astonishingly resilient. The auction sales have been surprisingly robust, and some galleries even chose to expand in 2009—Hauser and Wirth in New York and Gagosian in Athens, Greece. So while it was undeniably an unpleasant year of belt tightening and angst for many galleries and artists, the world didn’t end, and collectors continue to buy.

It has been ten years since we first published this guide to the art world and the World Wide Web. That’s the equivalent of a century in Web years, given the speed with which technology advances. But the principles of good design have not changed, regardless of the quantum leaps in technology. The approach for galleries remains the same. A gallery Website should be, in a phrase, the total expression of the gallery in the form of a Website, connecting people to the exhibitions, the artists, and the gallery’s vision.

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This year we feature Case Studies of two new Websites, both very different and both very beautiful: matthewmarks.com (page 94) and carrolldunham.net (page 100). For Matthew Marks we created a fully integrated gallery site, rich in content, with an exceptionally disciplined design and an elegant interface. The Carroll Dunham Website is a departure—it’s designed specifically to showcase the artworks of one artist. It includes Dunham’s ongoing work, as well as a comprehensive archive of his past artworks. With this groundbreaking design, browsing becomes a much more informative, rewarding experience.

Since 1998, exhibit-E has focused solely on developing Websites for galleries. We have grown with our gallery clients, and we have evolved with the expanding needs of the art world. Because of the constant churn of technology, we have revisited many of our earlier Websites and completely redesigned them. A recent example is the Marian Goodman Website (mariangoodman.com). Based on our accumulated knowledge of how people browse sites and using all the most current technology, we added new features, improved navigation, maximized search-engine placement, and, as a result, increased traffic to the Website.

If a Website can be an “it” place, the buzz around David LaChappelle’s Website might warrant that title. In this edition of our book, David LaChappelle talks about his ravishing new Website, lachappellestudio.com (see page 73 for the interview).

“If I can manage my Website and email online, why can’t I manage my gallery’s inventory the same way?” Gallerists who have been asking themselves this question now have the answer they’ve been hoping for, as Web-based gallery management is now available. As described on page 47, this breakthrough tool moves galleries away from the current collection of clunky 8

management programs, and offers a more mobile, streamlined, and sensible way of handling gallery business. Accessible anytime and anywhere, Web-based gallery management lifts a huge weight off the shoulders of anyone who has had to worry about extra servers and extra hard drives. exhibit-E’s interactive director, Ryan Quigley, interviewed on page 79, shines some light on this development and on the thinking that has gone into creating this product.

Economic recessions often bring out the best ideas, and Gagosian may have the brightest one of all in the form of the vibrant new Gagosian Shop on Madison Avenue, where you can find a smart mix of limited-edition works by gallery artists.

Whether an accommodation to younger patrons or just a rollicking good start to the New Year, the shop has drawn the attention of the art world.

Dan Miller March 1, 2010 New York

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The Art World and the World Wide Web

In 2010, the art world is wired. Websites, once a novelty, then a craze, are now de rigueur for all galleries intent on doing real business. This high-tech stuff is not just confined to an external Website either. Internally, galleries rely on a sophisticated array of management software to track inventory and sales records.

(To read more about gallery-management systems, see page 47.)

Like the rest of the world at large, the art world is firmly implanted in the Information Age.

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Art galleries, based on the nature of their business and their internal structure, have unique needs when it comes to Websites. Their business depends on information from and communication with clients, collectors and gallerists. With seasonal exhibitions coming and going, gallery Websites require regular updates and maintenance.

But who does the work? Traditionally, Website maintenance would require a fairly skilled person with some knowledge of HTML programming. It is very unlikely that an art gallery would hire its own in-house Web designer or programmer. Galleries have had to work within their existing staffing structure to figure out who is responsible for site maintenance.

But most gallery staffers are focused on the job at hand— working with museums and collectors, organizing exhibitions, managing and supporting the gallery artists, and, in most cases, managing a public exhibition space. So the task of Website maintenance can sometimes be lost in the shuffle. For gallery Websites to be successful, they must be kept up-to-date; so a maintenance solution that simplifies operations has become an absolutely crucial piece of the Web puzzle. the unique function of art gallery websites

Art is not a commodity. Although it is sold from a gallery to a collector or museum, the process is much more complicated than selling books, CDs or consumer electronics. E-commerce is not what drives an art gallery in its search for a Website.

The primary purpose of an art gallery Website is to represent the gallery—its exhibitions and artists—to the art public. It is a mission of communication and presentation: The Website must serve as an extension of the gallery, both in its content and its 12

look. Each gallery has its own identity, and it is the job of the Web designer to capture the feel of the gallery and make it digital.

Design and the “artfulness” of a Website are nearly as important as its function. But a Website must work properly as well. The information must be accurate, and it must be easy to access.

Gallerists and collectors are likely to be experienced Web browsers, but not expert users. With the immense amount of information stored in a gallery Website, the site must be organized well, and a premium should be placed on clear navigation.

For art lovers and collectors, a gallery’s Website can serve many purposes. At its most basic level, it can inform about what’s new at the gallery, and the current and upcoming exhibitions. It can educate about an artist and present some of their work online. It can provide a communication channel for art lovers or collectors who wish to inquire about an artist or a particular piece of art. It is a digital resource that can contain a virtually unlimited amount of information. for the gallery

Galleries are regularly changing and installing new exhibitions.

For galleries with Websites, that means updating the site with new content: digital pictures of works in the exhibition, biographies of the artists involved, press releases, etc. Conventional design and programming for multiple pieces of content is timeconsuming, and if an outside party (non-gallery staff) is updating the site, it can be a cumbersome and expensive process (see illustration, page 14).

For a gallery’s Website to work, the site must stay up to date with this new content; otherwise it ceases to be relevant 13

4Start

Email exhibition details to designer

4Start Prepare images

FedEx, FTP or email images to designer

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5 min.

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Wait for designer to get back to you

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10 min. - 1 day

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Review mockups

1 hour

Problems with corrupt images?

1 hour - 2 days

Add images and text 20 min.

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‘ 5 min.

3 hours - 1 day

Add press release and biography

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Problems with exhibition details or image color?

5 min.

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‘ 20 min.

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Wait for designer to post changes to Website

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Dictate changes to designer

‘ Problems going live with site?

5 min.

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Wait for designer to get back to you

Review Website and instantly revise or approve

Done

‘ Done

End3

End3

Total 1 to 5 Days

Total 1.5 hours

The old method of updating Websites, as outlined here, can be cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive.

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The new exhibit-E process for updating your Website in-house has proven to be easy, efficient and cost-effective.

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not only to the visitor, but to search engines (see page 26).

The Website’s ideal function should be to communicate gallery activities and other essential gallery information. It can also serve as a useful internal resource, an instantly accessible archive of a gallery’s current and past activities.

A good Website is particularly useful to a gallery because of the international nature of the art business. Collectors are located all over the world, and their tastes and interests tend not to be confined to their local region. The Website can serve as a communication bridge—if a London collector can’t physically visit a New York gallery, they should be able to visit the gallery’s Website to know what’s going on. Like almost any company today, a gallery represents a brand, a particular type of experience. Among in-the-know artists and collectors, certain galleries do have a cachet, a unique “vibe” that resonates with the art public, and a gallery Website must be designed to reinforce that impression.

For any gallery Website to be relevant and practical, it has to accomplish a number of diverse tasks. The ideal solution is to automate the Website’s functions and to make that automation as easy as possible. Some galleries choose to work with Web design companies that can automate their gallery Website for in-house maintenance, placing the gallery Website on equal footing with other everyday gallery administration tools. By simplifying the process and working with a Web designer that offers an automated solution, the gallery can bring those tasks in-house. A gallery’s staff already uses computer software as part of their daily routines—Microsoft Word and Excel, Adobe Photoshop and the gallery inventory database, i.e., exhibit-E galleryManager, ArtBase or ArtSystems. There’s

no reason that, with the right administrative package, updating a Website shouldn’t be included as one of those tasks. the standard syntax of gallery websites

While there is no set format that a gallery Website should follow, there is a remarkable consistency between sites regarding their content. A common syntax of content, in terms of what content is presented, appears to have developed among almost every gallery Website. This is not due to collusion among Web designers and galleries. This similarity reflects a common purpose—galleries need certain content online, and over time, a design and navigation logic has emerged. This is a positive, informal development that facilitates ease of use.

Typically, sites are broken down into an arrangement of the following content: Exhibitions: A list of upcoming, current or past exhibitions at the gallery. Exhibition information usually includes a link to the press release, images, publications, biography or a link to the artist’s page.

A list of the artists represented by the gallery or works that are available. Following these links usually leads to a biography of the artist, some images of the artist’s work, catalogs and a list of exhibitions.

Artists:

Publications / Catalogs: Publications relating to exhibitions and artists that the gallery has published.

SM

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General contact information about the gallery such as directions, history, visiting hours and email addresses.

Gallery:

While this syntax has made gallery site browsing a familiar experience, this does not mean that all Websites are the same.

In terms of design, most gallery Websites tend to be individual and unique, with major differences in layout, Website hierarchies, user interfaces, menu setup, etc., to distinguish the sites from one another. If a user is browsing with an eye toward design, each site viewed is a different experience from the last: Some are satisfying and pleasing; some can be frustrating and confusing.

But beyond the look, feel and design of the Websites, there is a startling similarity and reliance on certain conventions that has made the experience of browsing gallery Websites remarkably similar. After all, the art world is a finite group of people who communicate regularly, with a high level of mutual respect and interest among peers. Websites are the ideal vehicle for keeping current on what’s going on at other galleries. So when it comes to building a Website, it would be natural for gallery owners to choose what they want on their site based on their own browsing experience.

necessary to keep the site current. These early clunkers quickly fossilized.

By 1998, out of frustration, galleries sought out all-in-one Web design firms, some hiring expensive agencies with no experience working with art galleries. With no firm out there specializing in the art world, galleries settled for overly technical, bulky Websites or over-simplified HTML sites that looked more like financial-services sites than art world site.

Today, few companies have taken a leadership role in the field. Only one, exhibit-E, has branded itself as a design firm specifically focused on providing art world Websites and has the portfolio to back up the claim. With its roots in the art world, exhibit-E is unique. Not only does the company understand the needs of the art world, but it offers automated Websites for in-house maintenance, taking on the most vexing problem facing art world Websites: keeping the site current and up to date using existing gallery staff resources. Their level of design is very high too. With gallery staff updating their exhibit-E Websites and using them just as they would any other software application, exhibit-E continues to become an easy-touse option for more and more galleries. tm

summary who is making art gallery websites ?

When the Internet exploded into the national consciousness around 1996, galleries, like many companies, looked to individual designers (some still in college) to design their Websites.

But there was a lot of confusion, and the galleries were unable to update the sites themselves. They had difficulty getting the individual Website designers to make the updates and revisions 18

To an outsider, the art world appears vast. But while it is big, there are some clear observations that can be made.

A Website has become an essential part of a gallery’s effort to promote, educate, and communicate. More and more, art world players are spending time thinking about their Website design. If they want a Website, they will want to identify the most reliable company, one that understands the art world and 19

offers the best design, customer service, and technical support and go with it. Obviously, this doesn’t take into account the eccentricities and personal tastes of art world principals. But as opposed to a big corporation or e-commerce firm that must have certain technical specifications met for a Website, with few exceptions an art gallery is more likely to go with the bestlooking and best-priced option. Balancing out these values must be a consideration of time and energy. Which site offers the best solution when it comes to updating new content?

Which site is the easiest to operate? What staff will handle these updates? The ultimate goal is for a gallery to end up with a Website that’s built to grow with a minimum of headaches, that looks great, and that represents what the gallery is all about.

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The ultimate goal is for a gallery to end up with a Website that’s built to grow with a minimum of headaches, that looks great and that represents what a gallery is all about.

Google for Galleries

Search Engine Optimization

Getting visitors to your Website is the oxymoronic practice known as “driving traffic,” and it’s been one of the biggest challenges for Web developers since the Internet first became a mass phenomenon.

Alternatively, Web users can have difficulty finding the information and content they’re looking for. To simplify, the vast majority rely on search engines like Google and Yahoo! to get to the Webpages they need.

Harnessing the power of these search engines can be a powerful tool for anyone trying to drive traffic to their Website.

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This is particularly pronounced if you can position your Website on the first page of a search engine’s results page.

If one were to search Google for “Andy Warhol,” for instance, more than 1.3 million results would be returned. One would be more likely to visit a site that turns up on the first few pages rather than continuing through hundreds of pages. The numbers bear this out—a study by OneUpWeb.com found that a month after a Website turned up on the second or third page of a Google search, traffic increased by five times from the previous month.

But getting your gallery Website to turn up in those searches is no easy trick, and many galleries are willing to pay to get there. That’s why there’s so much talk among Web developers about search engine optimization (SEO) these days. In fact, there’s a whole cottage industry of SEO consultants that has sprung up—firms that pledge to improve search engine performance with a mixed bag of tricks. While some SEO consultants are doing good work, many are peddling snake oil, claiming that they can guarantee number-one placement with little or no work required on your part, or promising instant results when it usually takes three to five months. Some use tactics frowned upon by search engines; the worst offenders can even get a client’s Website banned from Google.

The reality is that there’s not just one quick fix toward getting good search engine results. It’s a holistic process that must take into consideration everything from the site’s structure, to the copy, the technical components and the design. It’s best to have your site optimized for search engine ranking by the company that built it.

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Design vs. Optimization: Having it Both Ways

Oddly enough, the best-looking html and Flash-based Websites, which include many in the art world, actually work against search engines, blocking them from finding content. But gallery clients cannot do without design, and for that reason, some Web design studios, like exhibit-E, have developed custom SEO strategies to accomplish both aims: good design and good search engine ranking. In exhibit-E’s case, they have developed an automated “content-only” solution that requires no work or maintenance on the part of the gallery, because it’s automated and has proven to be very effective. But regardless of how great your SEO solution, some design conceits should be avoided if you’re looking for better ranking: e.g., splash pages should be discouraged and a Website’s first page should feature content.

Most Websites struggle with outdated SEO concepts, trying to tweak META tags and keywords, which search engines have learned to ignore, and chasing after costly pay-to-play solutions that are expensive and require constant attention. The search engines often change the criteria for their searches, which can instantly undermine past optimization efforts. The best longterm solutions are content based.

Searching by Artist Name

Where does your gallery rank? Galleries in particular can benefit from quality search engine optimization. One of the greatest hopes of a gallery is to come up high in a search engine ranking when someone searches for one of their artists. This is not easy to do, especially for galleries that are getting started late. But it is possible.

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If a Web user searches by the gallery’s name, galleries will generally come up on top. The battle is in the more general searches, e.g., when searching by an artist’s name, style or period of art. If a gallery’s Website comes up when someone searches by an artist’s name, then the SEO is working well. For example, if you Google Fred Tomaselli, James Cohan Gallery ranks in the top position. That’s what you want.

Aside from a custom “content-only” solution, getting that top placement requires a lot of time, persistence, hard work and regular brushing up on search engine metrics. But even all that won’t guarantee a top placement.

Freshness, Words, Links and More: Other Ways to Increase Your Ranking

Keep Content Fresh: Regularly updating the content on sites is one way to get the attention of search engines. Websites that keep content fresh tend to get more traffic, which translates to a higher ranking. A site that doesn’t update is neither very useful nor interesting and will be passed over in favor of a fresher site. Aside from the search engines, adding new content is good practice in general.

All of your gallery’s advertising, exhibition catalogs, announcement cards and emails that go out should include your gallery’s Web address. Try to get your Website URL featured everywhere that your gallery is mentioned. If you circulate a press release announcing an exhibition, include the URL in it. If that URL gets picked up and posted on other Websites, that will increase the

Get Your URL Out There:

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visibility of your site and the likelihood that it gets picked up by a search engine.

Links and More Links: Other qualified Websites linking into your Website play a major role in search engine ranking; some experts think links are the best way to get higher rankings. In essence, the more sites that link to your Website, the greater chance that your website will rank above a competitor’s. Therefore, getting your site linked from portals and industry resources like the BBC, NY Times, Artnet. com, Artincontext.com, Artforum.com, and passive traffic like Wikipedia is highly recommended. People clicking from these related sites to your Website will increase your ranking.

In addition to incoming links, optimizing your Website so the content-to-code ratio attracts search engine spiders is another important step for increasing your search engine ranking. Web searchers search by keywords, looking for things like “contemporary American sculpture” or “Ed Ruscha catalog.” A site won’t turn up on a search engine if it doesn’t feature relevant keywords that describe its content specifically. Try to keep that in mind when writing headlines and text for your site.

Write for the Web:

Target your artists and keywords by using paid advertising services such as Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. A search for “Ed Ruscha” will display a prominent link to your artist, exhibition or publication. AdWords and Search Marketing also allow

Use Paid Advertising:

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you to tailor your ads and keywords on the fly and get instant feedback on what keywords prompt people to click to your Website. These services include extensive reporting to track your progress, and their costs are negligible.

Talk to Your Designer or Web Developer: Any competent Web firm knows the importance of search engine ranking days has developed strategies they can implement to improve performance. Again, there is no magic spell they can cast to instantly boost Web traffic, but there are proven techniques (like “content-only” solutions) that can be employed to put your Website in a better position.

Search engines exist to connect Web searches with the content they’re looking for, so let the Internet do some work for you.

There’s no reason that your site can’t be harnessing some of the search engine traffic that’s out there now. Even if you capture one new client, all the effort and expense will have been worth it.

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Regardless of how great your SEO solution, some design conceits should be avoided if you’re looking for better ranking: e.g., splash pages should be discouraged and a Website’s first page should feature content.

Mobile-Friendly Websites

www.lissongallery.com

Smart phones and other mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous in our culture. These devices present challenges to Web designers, who must learn to optimize Web content for a user interface that has limited display, interaction, and bandwidth capabilities.

Anyone who has used an iPhone to browse the Web can testify to its usefulness as a mobile tool, but it can be frustrating too: some sites take forever to load and navigate, and any intensive browsing is taxing and clumsy, not at all like the seamless, rich experience you get using a computer with a monitor and full-sized keyboard. In large part this is due to the inherent 31

www.lissongallery.com

limitations of the mobile devices themselves, but a contributing factor is the design of Websites, many of which are not optimized for handheld devices. designing for mobile devices

Recognizing that smart-phone use is expanding exponentially (mobile broadband use jumped 200% in the last year alone), savvy gallery owners want a Website that can deliver a satisfying experience to art world insiders and the gallery-going public. That starts with understanding why people are using their smart phones to browse the Web. They are on the go, away from their laptop or desktop computer, and looking for specific information—an address or phone number or the name of the artist currently showing at the gallery. These users don’t just happen to stumble on your Website; they’re familiar with you, value your gallery, and talk about you. What they want most is quick access to essential information.

A mobile-friendly Website needs to be clean, simple, and intuitive. The design should suggest that of the full-fledged Website, but feature content front and center. Because of the smaller screen display, care should be taken to minimize page styling and file sizes. It is generally best to hide graphics, as these will invariably be resized when displayed on the smart phone’s screen, reducing their usefulness. By carefully paring down the content and simplifying the interface, galleries can create a better mobile experience for users. So while the Website won’t look the same on a mobile device as it does on a desktop or laptop, it will be responsive and easy to navigate, and have the familiar look and feel of the gallery’s main Website interface.

For a gallery whose very essence is the presentation of works 34

of art, these strategies—spare use of page styling and graphics, smaller file sizes — might seem self-defeating. Smart design, however, can help bridge the gap between the conflicting needs of providing a responsive Website for mobile-device users and displaying rich interactivity.

Gallerists should keep in mind that the functions important to a mobile user are different from those of a desktop or laptop user. Simple and quick navigation is important for all users, but it is essential for mobile users. A Website optimized for mobile devices should display all the important navigation options in easy-to-read fashion on the home page. Keep in mind that a typical smart-phone screen is only 2 x 3 inches, so the options need to be pared to a minimum. The home page of a mobilefriendly site, therefore, might display just three navigation keys: current exhibition, artist list, and contact information. To learn more about the current exhibition, users would navigate to a separate page, where, along with links to information about the artist and exhibition, they would find links to view images. These images would be sized for quick loading on the customer’s mobile device. The idea is to mirror the content of the fullfledged Website, while delivering it in a form suitable to a small display screen. apps for galleries (perhaps not)

For gallery owners, another issue with smart phones is the temptation to design special iPhone applications for promoting and enriching a gallery’s Web presence. We believe galleries should rethink this strategy. Dedicated mobile applications are expensive to create, and they work only on one platform, ignoring BlackBerry, Palm, Android, and Windows-based mobile devices.

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Moreover, apps cannot be updated as rapidly as Websites, and they merely duplicate information that is, or should be, available as links on the gallery’s Website.

In essence, an iPhone app, which involves full software development, is nothing more than an app wrapped around a Website. And since the app will work only on Apple products, spending money on one is not good business. A better and much more economical solution is to create rich content for your Website, either on your own or with assistance from your Web developer, and then optimize that content for mobile devices.

“This year, the number of mobile broadband subscribers—people who access the Internet via laptops or mobile phones—is forecast to pass one billion...”

—The New York Times, February 20, 2010

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Video and the Internet

Today even the most casual Web user watches video content online via the nytimes.com, yahoo.com, or espn.com. You see it almost everywhere. And not surprisingly, YouTube is now the second-most-popular search engine, after Google. In short, using your computer or smart phone to watch videos has become commonplace.

Dozens of Websites specializing in user-submitted videos sprouted up seemingly overnight. Led by YouTube and art-centric sites like Vimeo, the popularity of these Websites has spread at a viral pace, fueled especially by the emergence of social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The success of YouTube and Vimeo (two of our favorite options for video uploading), and 39

the fact that so many consumers are comfortable viewing video content online, presents enormous opportunities for galleries.

It is easy to upload videos to YouTube or Vimeo, and both sites offer a way to embed the uploaded videos onto your own Website, where they can be viewed by anyone with a click of the mouse.

To use a video-hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo, all you have to do is go to the site and open a free account. Once you’ve done this, uploading video files is easy: • Click on the Upload Video button.

• Select a video file to upload from your computer.

• Click OK, and the file is uploaded and then automatically converted from its original format to Flash.

• Give the video a title, a description, and a “tag” (a keyword that describes the video so it can be found by other Web users).

The process is almost as simple as adding an attachment to an email. Anyone who has experience adding photos to sites like Flickr or Facebook will be comfortable adding video content to YouTube or Vimeo.

Viewing videos is even simpler. Just type a keyword (or keywords) into the “search” box prominently displayed at the top of the site, and pages and pages of thumbnailed videos will be displayed. Clicking on a video takes the user to a page where 40

the video automatically loads, with buttons to pause, rewind, and control the volume and a drag bar that navigates through the video itself. To share the video, a URL is included, as well as HTML code that can be used to “embed” the video on a Web page. The videos are displayed as Flash, eliminating any need to have a multitude of plug-ins or players on a machine.

Vimeo is popular with the creative community and has a less commercial interface, while YouTube is more mainstream, with a much larger share of the market. YouTube has a file limit of ten minutes. Vimeo allows videos of longer duration and offers better video quality, two attributes that result in good artistic content for a more discerning and creative audience.

It’s the embedding function that has made YouTube and Vimeo such a phenomenon, as it allows videos hosted on these sites to be played on any Website. With the embedding feature, a blogger, for example, can simply paste the “embed” code into his Website and the video will appear, complete with pause and playback controls. This allows for quick and easy “viral” transmission of videos, as “hot” videos are posted repeatedly on other blogs, Websites, message boards, and Facebook pages. Whereas most photo-sharing sites are used to share photos among friends and families, video-sharing sites have become video repositories for everything from lost TV shows, current events, curious personal creations, old music videos—all the detritus of pop culture’s history. Pretty much anything that’s ever been captured on film makes it onto YouTube or Vimeo, and the content library is ever growing.

Video sites are rapidly influencing mass media and the marketplace. Advertisers are particularly infatuated with the idea of “viral” videos and media and have begun concocting 41

campaigns around the way users employ the video sites—in particular their tendency to share out-of-the-ordinary videos. In January 2007, Domino’s Pizza launched its own multi-part video campaign starring a spoiled teenage girl who throws a tantrum when she’s given a red Saab instead of the powder-blue car she craved. Deliberately shot to look like a homemade video — and conspicuously lacking any logos, branding, or advertising message whatsoever—the campaign was intended to get users to share the video and talk about it before the idea that it was an advertisement was even introduced. (That came in the final video installment.)

In an incredibly short amount of time (even by Web standards), video-sharing sites, especially YouTube, have had a profound impact on the Internet. Aside from the billion-dollar deals and piquing the interest of marketers, the sharing of videos itself has become a medium of communication. Web users express themselves by choosing certain videos to place on their sites; viewers can comment on a video in blogs or on YouTube itself.

Telling someone to go “YouTube” a clip has already become part of almost every Web user’s lexicon.

What are some of the implications of video for art world websites?

The advent of online video has opened up enormous opportunities for art world Websites. Whether featuring their own video art collections online or using the phenomenon of video-sharing sites as a way to promote the gallery, artists, and exhibitions, online video gives galleries a powerful and wide-reaching medium for interacting with Internet users.

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All galleries can do this, not just galleries with video art collections. Websites like YouTube and Vimeo make it simple for galleries to upload videos of art pieces to the Internet and quickly share them with art world Web surfers. By selecting and uploading short clips and samples of video art pieces to YouTube or Vimeo, and tagging them properly, a gallery can use the widespread reach of these host sites as a way to help build traffic to the gallery site. Since a Google search often turns up YouTube as a first link, this is a way for galleries to take advantage of YouTube’s high search engine results.

Internally, galleries can use the technology behind sites like YouTube and Vimeo as a quick way to catalog and feature their video art collections on their own Websites. A gallery could host its videos on YouTube or Vimeo and then use the embedding feature to encode the video directly into a Webpage. There’s no need for complicated coding and customizing of a video player when someone else has done all the work for you.

Security is a concern for galleries that don’t want their video art to be taken off a site and distributed without authorization.

While the low-quality and limited “artistic” value of online video cannot compare with the impact of an installation or a gallery setting, galleries should still take steps to ensure that their content is protected. One idea is to select only excerpts or short clips from video pieces and bookend them with information about an exhibition, a gallery, or an artist. Brief samples of a video piece can only create more interest about the artist and the gallery itself.

Galleries should not ignore video content as a way to build gallery awareness and Web traffic. Gallery tours, artist video interviews, documentaries, commentary, event footage—all are content ideas that can be realized and distributed with online 43

video. Galleries can generate their own video pieces, feature them as content on their own Website, and distribute them throughout the Internet via YouTube, Vimeo, and other video sites. The galleries can also reach out to art blogs and other online media to spread the word about the new pieces and videos.

On sites like iTunes, the videos can be paired together with gallery podcasts as excellent multimedia packages for gallery-goers to download to their mobile devices.

The biggest challenge for a gallery seriously considering producing original video content is the production process itself. Generating finished, high-quality video is a multi-step process, from scripting and shooting to post-production.

Expertise and experience are required, skills that might not necessarily be found in-house at a gallery. But any gallery that can add this type of content to their Website will earn immediate dividends in terms of increased visibility, exposure, and buzz. After all, high-quality video has the potential to capture a viewer’s attention far beyond that of flat images and text.

The explosive growth in popularity of YouTube, Vimeo, and other sites has made Web video virtually ubiquitous. Now is the time for galleries to decide what role video will play in their Websites.

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Web-Based Gallery Management

While everyone predicted that using the World Wide Web would become an important part of everyday life, has anyone not been surprised by how fast—and how profoundly—the Web has been integrated into almost everything we do?

Think about some of the pre-Web habits of regular life.

Ordering take-out from a restaurant. Paying bills. Checking movie times. Keeping yellow pages and phone books around. Is there any activity that hasn’t been replaced, or at the very least

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made easier or quicker, through some sort of Website?

As the Web has become accepted by the art world, the speed of that migration has accelerated. The most profound shift is happening on your very own computer. All those applications you installed—the ones you brought home in the big boxes with the thick manuals—are finding a new home on the Web. Word processing, spreadsheets, even photo editing and manipulation—all of these applications are being adapted and transformed into “Web applications.” Dramatically less expensive than the regular programs (in some cases free), easy to use, and instantly updated, Web applications are causing people to rethink the way they use their computers.

Now these changes are impacting art galleries in the most important place: the gallery-management software that sits at the heart of a gallery’s operations. And as anyone who has worked with the existing management programs knows, this upgrade could not have come a moment too soon.

While galleries have become significantly more wired over the last few years—email and Websites are a given now—the management software is still lagging behind the times. Difficult to learn, complicated to use, prohibitively expensive, and completely immobile, these types of programs have been practically demanding to be revamped and simplified. For a gallery that would like to make things easier on itself from a computer and technical standpoint, transforming the gallery-management software to a Web application would have an immediate impact on productivity. exhibit-E’s galleryManager is one of the first software solutions to look at gallery management exclusively from a Web perspective. This is not a Web add-on to some landlocked PC 48

program; this is pure online gallery management, accessed entirely through a Web browser and programmed with the latest in secure Website technology. exhibit-E has already set the pace for creating top-of-the-line art gallery Websites, all of which are administered by the galleries themselves using a Web interface. This is the same model that has been applied to the creation of galleryManager: providing users with an easy-tomaster solution that doesn’t require extensive upfront training or a hefty manual.

Moving gallery-management software to the Web opens up entirely new ways of working, both in and outside of the gallery.

Under the old model, the programs were installed on a limited number of computers in the gallery. In order to work on the program, one had to be sitting at the actual computer where it was installed, or employ a cumbersome solution to access it remotely. That limited mobility and accessibility; for a gallerist with a busy travel schedule, that meant always having to update a laptop with the gallery software before hitting the road.

Under a Web-based approach, the software can be accessed from any computer connected to the Internet with an up-todate browser. That means a gallerist can operate the software at an art fair, at a client’s office or home, or from the comfort of his or her own bedroom. And everyone has access to the software in its entirety—you can do the same amount of work at an Internet café in Zurich as you can sitting at your desk in the office. All the information of a gallery—the inventory, the contacts, the transaction history—is instantly accessible with just a few clicks.

There might be some skeptics who think that gallerymanagement software that doesn’t come on a compact disc 49

along with a hefty manual and price tag must not work right: there must be a catch; there must be something wrong with it.

But think about the evolution that has taken place with Webbased applications. You use this type of software anytime you take part in online banking or managing your credit card online. Consider the evolution of email, which for a long time was landlocked, tied down to whichever computer the emails were delivered too. If you wanted to check your email, or get to your old email, you had to have access to that particular computer. But with Webmail—meaning sites like Gmail and Hotmail—inboxes can be accessed and checked online, from any computer, anywhere with Internet access. Important documents or emails that were buried in an inbox on your home computer can now be easily accessed if they are in a Gmail inbox.

It’s not as if the current boxed programs on the market don’t do the right job for galleries.

To say that these programs have already helped streamline gallery operations and reduce redundant work would be putting it lightly. But they require a lot of investment, both financially and personally. These applications tend to be very expensive, with prices for the top programs running into the thousands of dollars. On top of that, they might require that additional software be purchased. Some of them are not compatible with both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. Setting these programs up can be time-consuming, and typically they must be customized for the gallery installing them. And since this is a specialized and relatively small market, getting the users up to speed must be done without the benefit of third-party help;

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there are no “Art Gallery Management Software for Dummies” books out there.

When done right, Web-based gallery management can save a lot of time and prevent a lot of frustration for gallerists who don’t feel comfortable studying manuals or taking classes in order to be able to perform routine functions. Web-based management is a broader, easier way to approach gallery operations, and it is a concept that is likely to spread quickly among galleries.

After all, who doesn’t like making things easier on themselves?

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David Maupin David Maupin founded Lehmann Maupin with his partner, Rachel Lehmann, in 1996. The gallery has organized and curated exhibitions for an array of international contemporary artists working in painting, sculpture, photography, video and new media. Interviewed on February 23, 2008, by Adam Lehner.

I want you to know that I think your Website is amazing.

It’s about to be totally changed! Well, the look won’t change much. It was designed about five years ago, and it looks pretty much the same way now as it did then. But now it’s going through a bunch of improvements. A lot of them are things 53

that you won’t notice—the overall look won’t change. But the opening images will change—there will be six new images, which will rotate randomly so you’ll get a different image every time you go to the site. The architectural images of the 26th Street gallery will be different. There will be a presence for our new Chrystie Street space. We’ll have better image quality, so they won’t be so pixelated. Technology has changed a lot over the past five years! We’ll also have more Flash videos from the openings. We’d even like to have blogs.

Blogs?

Yes. Maybe written by someone at the gallery. We want to replace the news section with blogging. Let’s face it: the news section is super-boring. So we’ll have someone blogging instead.

We’ll have bigger images. The whole Website will be bigger, faster, and more animated. It will be more lively. But otherwise it will look the same.

Sounds like a real party on your screen.

Yes. I think your Website is an unusual combination of the raw and the beautiful, and I was wondering how you came up with that.

Funny you should mention that. Raw and beautiful—that’s what we call honesty. And honesty is not a moral issue! It’s more about things being interesting-looking. Elegant, attractive, pleasing. And it also just makes sense—it’s easy to use. So, yes, we want our Website to be honest. This desire for honesty, for example, was behind our approach to the artist page.

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I was going to mention the artist page. It’s quite distinctive. For example, for every artist, you have a big author photograph.

The artist page is really important to our overall approach to the site. We want the site to function as part of the network of our artists, and in some way our context. After all, we have artists who live all over the world. It’s very hard to create a community when they are all so far apart. We have one in Germany, one in Korea, one in Brazil, a couple in Japan, a few in England, a few in New York, a few throughout the United States. It’s just hard to keep it all together as a family this way! The Website is a really good way of establishing a real context and community.

Can you give me more of a sense of how you see this happening?

Number one, we made a decision that we were going to keep our Website really up to date. We have someone who works on it almost full-time. So we are always in communication with the artists, finding out what they’re thinking, what they’re up to, et cetera. We also decided really early on to use photographs of the artists. I have to say, it was my idea. It’s an attempt to try to establish and maintain a kind of intimacy with the artists— and between the artists. We regularly change the pictures, at least once a year, or something like that. It sets the tone we want: high-tech intimacy. I’m just looking at the site now, and I see Tony Oursler has a new portrait up—I haven’t seen it before. Those are his eyes and nose and face. He uses himself quite often. He probably contacted us and wanted us to change his picture. He’s done that several times. On the other hand, we haven’t changed Ross Bleckner’s picture since we first set up the site. It’s too perfect! He was moving studios, and I saw that 55

he had a box of photographs and I saw the picture of him as a young boy pointing at the announcement of his bar mitzvah outside a synagogue and I said, “This is it! It’s just too funny not to use!”

It sounds to me like one of the things you’re doing is giving artists a way of visualizing and participating in the gallery even if they live thousands of miles away. I would imagine that makes a huge difference. It would be so easy for them to feel totally disconnected, like they had no idea what was going on and nobody cared. But the Website must really help bridge that gap.

Yes, I think it does. Also, our artists tend to be interested in what other artists are doing. They want to know what their exhibitions look like. And so we’ve emphasized putting exhibition photos and even photos of art fairs online. It wasn’t so clear that we should do that a few years ago. Art fairs were more trade shows then. Now they’ve developed into satellite galleries with three- or four-day-long life spans. As that shift has happened, you’re really trying to have the booths represent the gallery. So we sometimes do solo shows at art fairs. We ask artists to do special installations. In the most recent Art Basel Miami, we had a kind of curated booth, with all of the female artists in the gallery.

www.lehmannmaupin.com

You really do have good coverage of your exhibitions and art fair installations. This must be a good way to keep your artists engaged in the creative process of coming up with ideas for installations.

They don’t have to attend the art fairs, but they see what’s going on, which must help them try to come up with even better ideas for you.

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www.lehmannmaupin.com

Absolutely. Our artists don’t usually appear at fairs, and we don’t encourage them to do so. But they are part of the process.

We program art fairs the way we used to program the gallery ten years ago. And art fairs are so intensive and involve so much work and creativity. And yet they’re so brief—a lot of people don’t see them. So our documenting of the exhibitions and art fairs is a way of using the Website as an archive. Now you can have video and great images. Another change is we’re going to start selling large editions on the site. I’m kind of excited about that. Of course, it’s been happening forever in other businesses, with books, et cetera, but the art world is very old-fashioned— that’s the charm of it—but I think things have gotten to the point where people will go online and buy a Tracey Emin edition or a Gilbert & George edition or a Do Ho Suh edition.

I didn’t think that five years ago.

What has changed?

The comfort level. People have gotten used to using their computers and Websites to buy things. One of the things that turned me off was how slow things were. Another thing that turned me off was people didn’t keep their Websites up to date.

But I think people are getting better at both of those things now, and so the climate is changing.

It occurs to me that one of the benefits of upgrading the image quality of your site is that you make it easier for clients to feel comfortable buying things without seeing them in person.

No, there is no substitute for seeing the work in person.

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Okay, but I was just thinking that improved image quality might make clients even more comfortable with this process. Aren’t you doing more business that way?

It really depends on the work. With many kinds of photographs and paintings, yes, jpegs can persuasively convey something important about the actual works. But sculpture, video, animation, work that has a minimalist aspect, work with any kind of optical illusion—with these kinds of pieces, the work doesn’t usually translate well into jpegs. You begin the conversation with emails. You do the background work, you do the homework, with emails. But then you meet at the gallery or at an art fair.

I sense that there’s an unusually close fit between the identity and mission of your gallery and the identity and mission of your Website. When you started the gallery in 1996, did you have a specific vision in mind for what Lehmann Maupin Gallery should become?

Yes, absolutely. The fundamental thought behind starting the gallery was that the art world was undergoing a de-centralization. Great artists could live anywhere in the world. We wanted to give those artists their first shows—in New York in particular. With a lot of the artists, that happened. That wasn’t our only idea—there are nuances to our program that deal with identity, and so on. But we gave Do Ho Suh, Tracey Emin, Kutlug Ataman—we gave them their first shows in New York.

Anya Gallaccio. Sergio Prego. Mr. So we realized what we set out to accomplish. And of course we also began to include older artists, people who expanded our program. That’s what the Web does—it brings us into one place.

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So you wanted to be unusually international?

Yes, that was our identity. Every gallery has an identity.

This was ours.

And now you’ve opened a satellite office on Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side. Maybe you’re taking this international expansion thing too far! But seriously, what inspired you to open an additional space on the Lower East Side? Is it somehow a commentary on what you see happening in Chelsea?

It was simply a matter of finding a perfect, irresistible space.

We weren’t particularly looking on the Lower East Side. We’d also been looking in Harlem, in Brooklyn, in Queens. But when we saw this space, we just fell in love with it. Of course, the fact that it’s right around the corner from the New Museum, that there are other galleries nearby, that just made it all the more perfect.

Founded by partners Rachel Lehmann and David Maupin in 1996, Lehmann Maupin presents exhibitions that examine the work of both emerging and well-established artists whose work impacts contemporary art and culture. The gallery has given important artists their first oneperson exhibitions in New York, including Kutlug Ataman, Tracey Emin, Anya Gallaccio, Shirazeh Houshiary, Do Ho Suh, and Adriana Varejão. In addition, the gallery has exposed emerging talents—such as Suling Wang and the Japanese artist Mr.—through exhibitions at the gallery and participation in select art fairs. The gallery’s program also includes important established artists such as Ashley Bickerton, Gilbert & George, and Tony Oursler. First opened in SoHo, Lehmann Maupin moved in September of 2002 to its present location in Chelsea. A second New York gallery space opened in late 2007 at 201 Chrystie Street in Manhattan’s new cultural hub, the Bowery area.

View more at www.lehmannmaupin.com.

Do you have different programming for Chrystie Street? Is it complicated to have two spaces in totally different neighborhoods?

No, not in the slightest. It’s the same with everything else involving us. We’re one gallery. We just happen at any moment to be in a few different places. **

pictured on page 52: Do Ho Suh, Reflection, 2004, nylon and stainless-steel tube, dimensions variable, edition of two, courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.

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Hanako Williams Archivist, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. Interviewed on January 11, 2005 by Dan Miller.

Are you originally from Los Angeles?

Yes, I am.

Do you live in Beverly Hills?

No, I live in Silver Lake, which is east of Beverly Hills.

So is Silver Lake like the Nolita of Los Angeles?

Yes, it’s trés hip. It’s actually filled with tons of New York transplants. Its got a really nice vibe. It doesn’t feel so L.A. My husband and I just bought a house there.

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I have this vision that you have a pool, you run and have a very healthy diet?

No, it’s not quite ... I used to do yoga, but I haven’t for a while.

I am “pescatarian,” if that helps to fit your profile. I am not fully vegetarian; I eat fish.

The Gagosian Gallery Website contains a lot of information—it has some depth. It doesn’t get complicated for you? exhibit-E is extremely easy. To update the Website, you just plug in images and information.

I first met you in New York. What brought you there?

I knew I wanted to be in the art world, and where else are you going to go besides New York?

Your site was one of the earliest ones we designed. How many years has it been now?

Six. And we’ve had close to zero problems with it. People call all the time asking, “Who does your Website?”

Was your first job at the Gagosian Gallery?

No, I got a job at this place called Alliance for the Arts, which is a non-profit. They pay close to zero money, which in New York is a big problem. But within three months Gagosian uptown needed a receptionist, and I took the job.

How much time during the course of a month do you think you actually spend maintaining the Website?

Maybe three to five hours a week, which isn’t a lot considering I’m doing (e)nnouncements, updating the mailing list, updating artist bios and going through tons of emails.

So, you were working at Gagosian when the gallery first decided they wanted a Website.

I’ve worked here for nine years, so, yes. We weren’t even networked when I started.

Now you work at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. Among other things, you maintain the gallery’s Website. And that covers all of the gallery locations, including both New York galleries, L.A. and both London galleries. You maintain all five of these locations utilizing the exhibit-E self-administration, right?

Which I love.

You are the archivist for the Beverly Hills gallery. Can you describe what an archivist does?

I maintain the image library. Any work that comes into the gallery has to be photographed and then archived. There are binders that we keep, which have all the information about every single work that comes into or leaves the gallery. We scan all the images into the computer now, so that we have a digital record of every work that we have. Then we put the images into the inventory database. But on top of being an archivist, I also do registration work, which includes putting all of the information into the database and logging it in.

Do you have any help managing the Website?

No.

Do you use your Website the same way you use other administrative tools like Microsoft Word, Excel, and so on?

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Yeah, it’s definitely all intertwined, and they’re all used as tools for sales. For example, through the Website we have private viewing rooms, which we set up all the time for collectors. If someone in New York wants to see all the works that are in an L.A. show, the easiest thing to do is just set up a private viewing room. But I’m also constantly telling gallery employees to check the Website if they want to know what our upcoming shows are. We have so many employees that sometimes people feel left out of the loop information-wise. It’s easy for me to just post information on our Website, and they can see all the exhibition histories of all the gallery locations there. I think the Website is one of the most useful tools that we have.

Often times we’re asked, “Well, why do I need a private room?

Can’t we just email images?” What do you think the advantage to the private room is?

We use Outlook, and there is a storage capacity to the mailbox, you know, you only have so many megabytes of space. Just sending one email with a password and a username is so much easier than having to attach all these files and take up space. You can just set up a room for a collector and every single piece of information that they’ll need is right in front of them. You don’t even have to type in anything to send to the client. I think it’s so much easier.

Do you prepare all the images for the Website?

Each gallery has its own archivist who scans their own images, and we retrieve them from each other. We all share image drives through our network, and I just pull the images, resize them and save them for the Web. 68

What is the process for updating the Website for a new exhibition?

First I get the OK from Melissa Lazorov to post an exhibition on the Website. Then I call Alison McDonald, who designs all of our announcement cards and advertisements. I get all the specs from her—what images she’s using, what the dates of the show are—and then I talk to the artist and ask him what images he’d like to see posted on the Website. Then we scan the images and save them to the size and format that is required for exhibit-E, and then post them.

Do you know that the Gagosian Gallery Website averages about 42,000 visitors a month?

That’s amazing to me. I had no idea, no idea. I was thinking maybe we got one or two a day.

Why do you think you’re getting so much traffic?

We have high-profile artists. Larry’s very aggressive with the advertising. He usually gets back page art magazine ads, and he’s creative too. For our Richard Prince show, we did a billboard in L.A., and the announcements he sends out are always eye-catching. There are a lot of factors, but I think his name, in the art world, is synonymous with quality.

Do you think the Website reflects the gallery identity?

Definitely. I honestly believe we have one of the best gallery Websites that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them.

Do you think the Website has supported the gallery sales efforts?

Yes, we get calls all the time—whether it’s for book sales, limited editions or artwork—from people who say they saw 69

something on our Website. The sales staff also uses the Website as a reference tool because it has a great search feature. Catalogs and works that aren’t even available anymore can be referenced.

So the Website is also an archive in itself. Taschen did a book on the best Websites, and they asked if we would agree to have our Website included in it. I noticed that about twenty percent of the gallery Websites in the book were created by exhibit-E. We were thrilled by that.

I personally like the Website because it got me away from being the receptionist! So, thanks.

Since the time of this interview, Gagosian has opened four additional gallery spaces, most recently in Athens, Greece on September 25, 2009, with the inaugural exhibition ‘‘Leaving Pathos Ringed with Waves,’’ by Cy Twombly. Hanako is in her 14th year at the gallery.

** Easily one of the most well-known and powerful figures in the art world today, Larry Gagosian is also one of its most wired. He operates eight galleries around the world, and all of them are connected through Gagosian.com, perhaps the most well-trafficked Website in the art world.

Updating and managing that site is no small task, especially with Gagosian’s eight galleries’ all maintaining rigorous exhibition schedules.

That task falls to Hanako Williams, Gagosian’s archivist, who uses exhibit-E’s automated maintenance system to keep things up to date and accurate. While the galleries have their own separate staff, Hanako collects images and information from each location to add to the Website.

View more at www.gagosian.com.

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Taschen published a book on the best Websites, and they asked if we would agree to have our Website included in it. I noticed that about twenty percent of the gallery Websites in the book were created by exhibit-E. —Hanako Williams

David LaChappelle Recognized as one of the leading photographers of our time, David LaChappelle has wroked for prestigious international publications such as Italian Vogue, French Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Rolling Stone, and i-D, and he has been the subject of exhibitions in both commercial galleries and leading public institutions worldwide. His work spans the worlds of fashion and art, including documentary filmmaking, music videos, and live theatrical events. exhibit-E recently designed and launched lachapellestudio.com.

Interviewed on February 1, 2010, by Dan Miller.

How did you find exhibit-E? Fred Torres. He was really the one that recommended exhibit-E because he was so happy with what you did for his gallery Website: fredtorres.com.

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www.lachapellestudio.com

What was the goal of redesigning your Website?

I wanted something that reflected the work that I was doing, that was organized and fast, let the work be the star and not the design. Design should be easy and simply for quick navigation, because there is such a large variety of the things that I do and wanted the user to have clean, unobtrusive access to the work.

Do you think the site is successful?

Yes, absolutely. No question it is the best photographer Website ever. Just from looking at other Websites, I know it is good. Everything that we are doing is going on there—articles, news, videos, all new projects. There is a rich amount of content on there.

How many people manage your site?

One person updates the Website.

What is the most important thing about your Website?

To get information out regarding new exhibitions and a place for people around the world to see what we are doing. I don’t do Facebook or any of that stuff, so my Website is the main way to see what I am doing. Aren’t you going to ask me any personal questions? I mean, don’t you have any personal questions?

www.lachapellestudio.com

When did you meet Fred Torres?

I plucked him right out of high school to help me produce a Diesel Jean ad, and Fred has been producing projects for me ever since. We have worked together 16 years.

Did you like the cup of coffee we gave you today? exhibit-E has the best coffee.

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Ryan Quigley Interactive Director, exhibit-E, New York. Ryan discusses exhibit-E’s new online inventory gallery-management system, galleryManager —the origins of the product and how it sm

compares to the existing offerings on the market.

Interviewed by Michael Gwertzman.

Where did the idea for this product come from?

We felt we could reduce the headaches that we found many of our clients experience with existing gallery-management software. Knowing that their software wasn’t a natural tool, we knew we could make a big contribution. The more we looked into it, the more we found that everyone wanted something 79

that was easier to use, something that didn’t require taking courses to understand, and something that eliminated the need for an in-house server. We realized we had the capabilities to do all that and seamlessly integrate with their Website. So it made sense for us to do this.

even be moving up from using Excel, or just having file folders filled with images or whatnot. They’ll now be able to store hi-res photos of artworks, contacts of people, invoices, and things like that, all in the same place. If they already have an exhibit-E Website, they will be able to integrate it with galleryManager.

You guys are known primarily as a design company, as a Web design company. Has it been a challenge to have your clients think of you in a different way?

The gallery-management firms that are already out there, they’re coming from the technology end of things and trying to force good design on top of the offerings. We’re coming from the opposite end; we’re starting with great design and a good user interface in terms of how both our Website and admin pages function. We understand that really well, so we’re able to hide the complexity of the Websites and the admin areas to the point where it’s so amazingly easy to teach someone how to use one of our Website admins—they don’t even really think of it as a technology product. Galleries don’t want to be bothered by tools or be hindered by the technology. They just want to get the job done. They want to be efficient and effective for their clients and their artists, and that’s what our focus has always been.

Has it been difficult for you to get your head around things like accounting and inventory and other administrative functions, the kinds of things that galleries use the existing programs for?

I don’t think it’s been terribly difficult. We end up using all of the same tools in terms of how we take care of our infrastructure, which is, you know, all the Websites we handle. Which handle all the inventories for the galleries that we take care of.

So I think our biggest advantage in developing this is that it is all part of the day-to-day of our operations, dealing with different galleries’ inventories. We’re using it the same way they do, but in terms of keeping track, keeping everything secure, keeping everything organized perfectly, that’s been kind of our primary concern for our clients over the past years. So in that respect, it’s not really new territory. It’s a well-trodden path.

How do you see this product being used? Is this going to become the hub of the gallery?

By default, any inventory-management system will be at the center of the administrative hub of a gallery, whether it’s ArtBase, Art Systems, or some other system. But we are taking it a step further in terms of ease of use. Initially, galleries may replace their old inventory systems that are out there now. They might 80

So let’s talk about the offerings that are out there, without going into too many specifics. Do you think these programs traditionally have been a little needlessly complicated, or does that complexity serve a purpose?

The existing programs are certainly complicated and that was our sole impetus for developing galleryManager—to eliminate complexity and streamline things. Most of the management software that galleries currently use are application-based, and they can be limiting in terms of what you are able to do 81

with them. On top of that, just getting to learn how to use them can take up a lot of time. You have to read manuals, you can even take classes and get instruction if you’d like. And we just felt that there wasn’t a need for all that complexity—to have such a steep learning curve in order to manage the administrative needs of a gallery.

I know people sometimes look at something and see that it’s very complicated and difficult to learn and think, “Oh, well, this must be something very powerful and special.” Do you think galleries will bring that prejudice to what you guys are proposing here?

No. This goes to the core of what we are trying to do as a company, which is get rid of all the complexities and make it so it’s really accessible technology, so you can use it without having any kind of training, without having to read through a manual. It just makes sense. We’ve been able to do that very well with our Websites, and now we’re doing the same thing with galleryManager. So the hope is that they’re not daunted by it, so that they look at it and say, ‘Oh, this is easy’ and just jump right in.

I know people get nervous about transferring data and migrating things. Have you thought about that? Will you be able to manage that process with galleryManager?

We’re definitely going to be able to transfer data without any sort of issues. This is definitely a part of the process of getting started with galleryManager.

So as someone who knows how the galleryManager software works, what would you say are the strengths of the program itself?

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Definitely ease of use. Reliability. You don’t have to worry about keeping a server on premises, you don’t have to deal with viruses, and your data is reliably backed up. With a normal computer, if something goes wrong you could have lost your entire collection of data and images and invoices. And that certainly is not going to be an issue with galleryManager. You don’t have to pay for any upgrades. And it’s going to work seamlessly with your exhibit-E Website.

What about the mobility? Anyone who has switched to using something like Web mail loves the ability to check their email anywhere.

Right. You can do it anywhere. You’re not locked to one computer.

If you’re at an art fair, if you are at Art Basel Miami and you want to show a couple of works to someone down there that you haven’t thought to bring photos of, you just log right in and everything’s right there. Everything. All the information that’s associated with an individual piece of work, all the information about past clients you’ve worked with, the location of a work, the provenance. Or if you’re a gallery owner and your assistants are away for the day or on vacation and you need them to upload something, they can just hop right on and change it for you.

It’s really like a one-stop shop for everything related to running a gallery.

In terms of flexibility and mobility, this does sound like an extension of what you’ve already been able to do with exhibit-E. Exactly. It is just one more piece of functionality of the Websites that we provide for the galleries. It fits in seamlessly, and it’s one less thing that the galleries have to worry about.

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Do you think the galleries are worried about that information being exposed, that information being hacked?

I think that there’s probably a perception that stuff is exposed.

But in reality, well, two points here. One, we’re using the same sort of security system that a bank would use protecting your credit card information. But two, by having this information on our Web servers, we’re adding an extra layer of protection and reliability that some galleries just might not think of.

A computer in a gallery might not be as up to date on all the right patches and virus protection. We take all of those headaches out of the equation. I feel that it’s more secure than if you were on one of these programs in the gallery.

To sum it all up, what do you think is next ? You’ve taken the Website now to a platform that everyone can manage themselves.

You’re doing this now with the online inventory management.

What are the major things where you can say, “Well, let’s do this next”?

There’s really not one specific thing we’re planning to do next.

Generally what we’re going to do is keep listening to our clients and respond to their needs and demands as new things come up. The art world moves so fast, and there are so many new tools for communicating and exchanging information these days that we have to stay in sync with how the galleries themselves are doing business. More specifically, we’re going to keep adding new features and capabilities to our products, improving and developing what we have already started.

Technology moves fast. There will be a lot of opportunities to continue to innovate features and just keep getting better.

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Case Study

www.gagosian.com Organizing information—and making it look good in the process—is ultimately the end goal when producing any art gallery Website. Even for the smallest galleries, keeping everything easy to find, well-ordered, and efficient to navigate, while still properly representing the gallery’s image and stature, can be a heroic challenge.

Now consider a larger gallery—one with multiple locations, a significant stable of artists, and a long history of exhibitions, and that challenge quickly becomes compounded.

Without a clear vision, effective design, and a smart use of technology, the most important information can easily get overwhelmed in a sea of links, text, images, and all the other trappings of a standard gallery Website.

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That was the challenge facing Gagosian Gallery, which unveiled their redesigned Website, www.gagosian.com, in the fall of 2006. With seven locations (stretching from coast to coast and across the Atlantic to London and Rome) Gagosian Gallery is unique among its peers in terms of scale, history, and complexity. Translating this online, and presenting the true depths of its content and archives required a new approach to building a Website. And since Gagosian is well known as a leader in the contemporary art world, settling for anything other than a bleeding edge Website would just not make sense.

The redesigned gagosian.com is not a typical gallery site.

The difference is not in fanciful design conceits, the noise too often used in Web design. Rather, what sets this gallery Website apart is its directness and simplicity. The site’s streamlined navigation allows the user to easily process a dense amount of content within a remarkably restrained and elegant design.

From its back-end framework to the external user experience, browsing gagosian.com provides an up-close look at how gallery Websites can be built with an eye towards the future. This redesigned gagosian.com is now on the cutting edge of Web technology, utilizing many of the same features that have made “Web 2.0” such a buzzword.

Upon first approaching gagosian.com, the site wastes little time getting to the most relevant information. Right there on the front page are the current exhibitions taking place at the different Gagosian locations, with an image from the exhibition, the gallery location, the artist’s name, exhibition dates, and a link to “View Exhibition.” One is immediately taken with the uniformity and restraint of the site. There are no visible bells and whistles.

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For the user, browsing the new Gagosian Gallery site is an engrossing experience; an art lover can easily spend hours digging through the amount of content contained within. And getting to the content is not a formidable challenge: it’s built to let the user navigate, and there are multiple “connections” throughout the site, i.e., there are no dead-ends where the user is left with nowhere else to go. It’s quick and easy to jump from artist to exhibitions to related multimedia.

The site uses a familiar but sleek top navigation bar to provide the user with a menu of areas to click to. The navigation menu is only revealed when the user needs to click to another portion of the site. When the mouse is not near the top of the site, it fades away. The effect is not only to clear up space on the page, but to encourage the user to spend time scanning the page they are currently looking at. With no links at the top to distract the eye, the user doesn’t feel like he/she has to rush off to another portion of the site.

The site itself features an all-white background and the only color comes from the art featured on the site; all links and text are either black or a soft grey, while exhibition images pop with contrast and color. The clean white background highlights the artists work; it doesn’t compete with background images or other navigational elements.

There are numerous methods of getting to the content.

Users can browse by exhibitions—either current, past, or upcoming. Or, if a user is looking for information on a particular artist, there is an “Artists” page with the full list of exhibited artists featured. The artists currently being exhibited are featured with a thumbnail image at the top. The “Publications/Editions” link lists—from 1989 to the present— 88

all the publications, editions, and catalogue raisonnés that Gagosian has produced; it’s an invaluable resource for collectors, art lovers, and historians alike.

But without sensible, clean navigation, all the engaging content would go to waste. So gagosian.com’s most important triumph is the way in which it links between the various, related pieces of content. For example, each artist is given their own page (with a biography and a sample of their work), and from that page, the user is given links to their exhibitions and publications on the left hand column. On the right hand column, a “more” box provides blog-like links (time stamped and dated) to the latest site updates that are relevant to the artist—a new exhibition or a new edition. Likewise, if a user enters into the content by browsing upcoming exhibitions, the page for each exhibition features links to the artist’s information. So no matter how a user dives into the site, they’re not going to miss the relevant content they’re looking for.

Although the site appears simple, it’s powered by a strong back-end that achieves a number of important technical goals.

In terms of drawing traffic to a site through optimal search engine placement, gagosian.com is a search magnet and routinely turns up as the top result on Google. Searching for “Damien Hirst exhibition” pops gagosian.com right to the top; even for an artist as widely exhibited as Andy Warhol, gagosian.com will turn up high in a Google search on relatively simple keyword searches.

Gagosian.com also features a powerful—and quick— search box that’s featured right at the top of the page. The best part of the search is that it pre-sorts its own search results.

Instead of just presenting the user with a meaningless list 89

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of links, the results are divided into artists, exhibitions, and publications (where appropriate). It is touches like this that make browsing the site an overall sensible and intelligent experience.

Gagosian.com is clearly built to grow, and there are a few clues that the site has its eye on the future of the Internet as well. For example, the Gagosian RSS Feed lets users “subscribe” to gagosian.com through an RSS reader program, and be automatically notified when there are new content additions to the site. The site is also structured to allow for hosting artist podcasts and other gallery-related multimedia content.

All of these ingredients collaborate seamlessly on gagosian.com, and the end result is a site which fully accomplishes its mission: to enhance search engine results arithmetically, to enhance usability, to increase the capability of the gallery to present the art and artists that make it, to present the Gagosian Gallery in an innovative, informative fashion and ultimately to serve as an extension of the gallery online. It’s a reflection of the current trends and thinking in contemporary Internet design as well. Anyone who has spent time understanding the “Web 2.0” transition of the Internet, for example, will recognize a number of the “2.0” hallmarks in the Gagosian site, namely usability, simplicity, and a focus on content. It is using technology in the service of presenting information, not abusing technology for the sake of getting attention.

There are still plenty of opportunities for what galleries can do with their most valuable resource—their content, namely the art and the artists who make it—and the redesigned gagosian.com is positioned to advance as technology evolves and as the art world further embraces the Internet as a means of doing business.

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“Gagosian sold out the show before it opened…New works, even in the six-figure range, are selling by digital image alone.

For the Friedman show, Gagosian set up a private section on its Website, accessible only by a password sent via e-mail message to select collectors.”

— Jori Finkel, The New York Times, February 4, 2007

Case Study

www.matthewmarks.com Founded in the early 1990s in New York City, the Matthew Marks Gallery is one of the world’s most influential gallery spaces for international contemporary artists. The gallery represents over twenty-five American and European artists of different generations and has three locations, all in the heart of Chelsea, with more than 15,000 square feet of exhibition space. The gallery is known for representing both established figures like Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns and younger artists like Nayland Blake, Nan Goldin, and Darren Almond. Matthew Marks was one of the pioneers in the Chelsea district and is known for its deep commitment to its artists.

When the gallery approached exhibit-E about creating a new Website, they had firm views about the kind of user experience they were after.

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They wanted a state-of-the-art Website with an elegant and intelligent design that would reflect both the vibrant contemporary side of the gallery and the established 20th-century masters as well. They also needed an efficient interface that would allow them to easily update Website content. They knew their old site was in need of an overhaul; artist information was hard to find, search engine ranking was poor, and managing the site was cumbersome.

The new Website features a beautifully spare and intuitive design. Our goal was to make everything easily accessible to the user. The clean look has the appearance of simplicity, but in fact the Website is deceptively robust—it is rich with content and features, including e-commerce, downloadable PDF press packets for each artist, links to museum exhibitions (both present and past) for gallery artists, and links to private rooms. The architecture of the Website achieves a new level in gallery Website design.

The first thing you see when you arrive at the site is a large image announcing the current exhibition against a black background, with the Website menu arranged horizontally at the top of the screen. The screen transitions to a new image every three seconds or so, revealing other current Matthew Marks exhibitions at the gallery’s various locations. The Website can facilitate up to eight current exhibitions on the opening page. Clicking on one of these thumbnails takes you to the exhibition page, where you find information about the artist and the exhibition on the right half of the page, with a clickable image filling the left half of the page. Click on this image (or the button below it) and you’re taken to a screen full of large thumbnails, each an image of artwork from the exhibition immaculately framed with a white border. Click on one of these, and an eye-popping image of the artwork fills the screen, again framed attractively in 95

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a white border against the black background. Here the black background becomes an active element exploiting the white border and activating the space around the artworks with an irresistible clarity. It’s a beautiful device for displaying artwork on the Web. As you move from page to page, the menu bar is always displayed at the top of the page, allowing for easy navigation wherever you go in the site. Another navigational aid is available when you are viewing full-sized images: near the top of the screen, just below the left side of the menu bar, are three simple directional arrows which enable you to move backward or forward one image at a time, or jump one layer up the menu to the thumbnail page.

Also on the exhibition page is a button taking you to another corridor in the site, this one devoted to the artist and his body of work. The organizational structure for this section gives the gallery the ability to share a generous amount of information about the artists. Here you will find selected images of the artist’s work; biographical information about the artist and a brief description of his work; the artist’s exhibition history; links to publications available for purchase; links to press packets (in PDF format); and links to current and past museum exhibitions for the artist. The artist’s previous Matthew Marks Gallery exhibitions are also archived here, with full-page images of the artworks available for viewing.

The menu bar gives you the choice to navigate by “Artist” or “Current Exhibitions.” Another menu choice lets you view a list of museum exhibitions featuring artists represented by Matthew Marks; there are links here to the museum Websites, where images of artworks and descriptions of the exhibitions can be found. Customers can click on the “Books & Posters” menu option to view a gorgeous display of items available for 98

purchase directly from the gallery. The site is fully set up for e-commerce.

It should come as no surprise that Matthew Marks, an active promoter of art fairs, would include a menu button taking you to information about art fairs where the work of the gallery’s artist’s are represented (“Art Fair Installation Views”). Another menu option takes you to news about the gallery and its artists. A fun and interesting feature here is a tab called “Diary,” which takes you behind the scenes for a more intimate look at gallery artists, events, installations, and interviews. This area also includes content from years past. In addition, there is an option here to view video content in the form of links to YouTube files; the site supports custom Flash video as well. The decision to embed video or use Flash video is up to the gallery, depending on its need. But this special feature, developed especially for the Matthew Marks Gallery Website, is a capability most gallery Websites don’t have. The menu also includes a search tool, which sorts results logically by artist, exhibitions, and books.

The Matthew Marks Website is driven by a powerful back-end.

The site is entirely managed by gallery staff via a simple-to-use, intuitive Web interface. The result is a totally integrated gallery solution, with an elegant public interface and a refined back-end interface that makes the day-to-day maintenance of the site easy for the gallery staff.

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Case Study

www.carrolldunham.net The Carroll Dunham Website is exactly what an artist’s Website should be. It provides access to the artist’s work, writings, interviews, lectures, video, publications, articles, and reviews, all within easy reach and organized in a way that helps the Web user understand more about the artist at any given period in his career. The result is a Web experience that is rich and informative for the art connoisseur, scholar, student and art lover.

For instance, one feature that differentiates this site is its ability to aggregate information from every period of Dunham’s career in a way that would make it possible for a site user to easily view artworks and writings from one specific period. That capability is a powerful tool for research and comparison.

Artworks are organized by period. To view images of paintings 100

from 2000–2002, the user clicks the “Paintings” tab, then clicks on the “2000–2002” button and images of paintings from this period are displayed. The user can opt to view thumbnails or scroll through large screen-sized views of the art, all displayed against the backdrop of a clean white background, like an exhibition space. When viewing an individual image, the user can page down further and find links to other artworks, writings, essays, and reviews from this same period of time. The beauty of this is that when you are looking at a particular period of paintings you can also see drawing, prints, sculpture, and writings from the same period. That logic applies to any menu section the user visits. This ability to drill down to another layer of detail enriches the user experience, giving the user the freedom to wander through the site retrospectively and contextually, but with ample information to digest, ponder, and enjoy.

The design of the Website is graphically simple, providing a clean canvas for the art itself. The first thing a user sees when he goes into the site is the art—images of paintings drift up the screen, past a prominent “Carroll Dunham” banner at the top of the screen. When the user clicks on the banner, the menu bar is revealed, with buttons for paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, writings, press, publications, biography, and contact information. Observant users will notice that the shape of the menu bar is suggestive of the hat worn by Dunham’s notorious “Killer” character, seen so often in his paintings between 1997 and 2006.

For the artist, maintaining the Website is simple and intuitive.

With exhibit-E’s Web-based back-end, the artist can quickly and easily add images and other content, and the structure of the site is designed to support unlimited growth. The site is not 101

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intended for commerce—for this, there are links to the galleries that represent the artist.

The Website gives the artist enormous flexibility in the way content is organized. Dunham is free to create different categories and date ranges. For instance, instead of categorizing works by period, he might sort them by series or specific date. The data, though, remains fully associative, enabling the artist to easily build an intersecting web of information regardless of how he organizes the site.

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This ability to drill down to another layer of detail enriches the user experience, giving the user the freedom to wander through the site retrospectively and contextually.

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sample Websites

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www.cheimread.com 109

www.ropac.net 111

www.skny.com 113

www.marcjancou.com 115

www.lissongallery.com 117

www.friedmanbenda.com 119

www.davidnolangallery.com 121

www.mariangoodman.com 123

www.mapplethorpe.org 125

www.fredtorres.com 127

www.petzel.com 129

Glossary Admin

The section of your Website where you update and make changes to the site’s content.

into the Website server’s IP address. Every computer on the Internet has a unique IP address, which is its location.

Domain Name

A Google advertising service where you pay only when users click on your ad.

The address/URL of a Website that corresponds to the unique IP address of a computer on the Internet, for example, www.exhibit-e.com or www.google.com.

Blog

(e)nnouncement

A Website where entries are display in chronological order. It is also the process of posting to a Website.

A custom mass email solution (with mailing list administration) produced by exhibit-E, allowing galleries to create email promotions designed to integrate with the gallery identity.

Adwords (Google Adwords)

Browser

The program used to navigate the Internet and view Websites. Popular browsers include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.

Browser Cache

Memory on your computer that is used to store frequently accessed Webpages, allowing you to access these sites more quickly upon subsequent visits.

Cookies

Flash

A format that allows the addition of dynamic movement or animation to a Website, offering the Web designer a broader array of design options. Notable users of the FLV format include YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com and MySpace.

FLV (Flash Video)

A new video format that is integrated into the flash player so that there is no additional software to install.

A small file that certain Websites send to your computer to keep track of your preferred settings or to keep you logged in, for example, Hotmail or Gmail.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

DNS (Domain Name Service or Domain Name Servers)

GIF

Computers that translate the domain name you type into your browser

A graphics format that is adept at displaying type and solid objects on a Webpage.

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Method of uploading files to a server over the Internet.

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GB (Gigabytes)

KB (Kilobytes)

A storage measurement that consists of 1,000 megabytes.

A storage measurement that consists of 1,000 bytes.

http:// (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

MB (Megabytes)

The standard protocol for information transfer on the Internet.

Domain names are prefixed by this in the browser’s address bar.

A storage measurement that consists of 1,000 kilobytes.

META Keywords

Image Optimization

The act of preparing an image, whether scanned or imported from a digital camera, for the Web, using resizing, cropping and compression.

An obsolete method of identifying keywords with a particular Webpage.

The modern search engines ignore the contents of META keywords.

Operating System

IP Address

The unique numerical address of a computer on the Internet, for example, 216.239.37.99.

The brain of the computer; the operating system runs all of the programs on your computer. The most popular are Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Java

PDF (Portable Document Format)

A programming language that is designed for programs that can be safely downloaded through the Internet without harming computers with viruses.

A standard format used for transferring documents over the Internet that preserves the style of the original file.

Photoshop

Javascript

The most popular program for optimizing images.

A scripting language embedded in Web browsers that allows advanced functionality to be added to a Website.

Pixels

JPEG / JPG

The smallest unit of measurement on a screen. It is used for dimensions of images that end up on the Internet.

A graphics format that is adept at displaying images.

Podcast Keywords

Words that are used to summarize sections of content; they are integral to searching the Internet and optimizing Websites for search engines and particularly effective if integrated into the site content.

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A Web feed of audio or video that can be subscribed to and downloaded to your mp3 player automatically. You can then listen or watch the content whenever and wherever you want.

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Pop-up Blocker

Spam

A utility that prevents unwanted pop-up windows from appearing on your screen.

Unsolicited email that is sent by marketers. It represents over 75 percent of all email sent today.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

Spam blocker

A Web feed format that summarizes the content on a Website. It allows you to track any new content on a Website without having to frequently go to to the site.

A program that stops a user from receiving Spam. There are two types, each with benefits: one that resides on your computer and one that resides on a server.

Quicktime

TIFF / TIF

A video plugin developed by Apple Computer capable of playing back video and sound.

A file format used for storing uncompressed images.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

Screen Resolution

The width and height of a screen measured in pixels.

Describes the location and access method of a resource on the Internet, also referred to as the Website’s address, for example, http:// www.exhibit-e.com.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The process of making sure a Website’s content and programming are best executed to allow search engines to index and rank the site.

Search Engine Rankings

A measure of how well a Website performs on a particular search engine.

Wikipedia

This is a multilingual, Web-based, free content encyclopedia project.

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers; with rare exceptions, its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Website.

The name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Website) and encyclopedia. Its primary servers are in Tampa, Florida, with additional servers in Amsterdam and Seoul.

Server

A computer that is used to offer information to other computers for download, for example, the computer that hosts a Website.

Webmail

A Website that allows you to access your email when you are away from your computer.

Site Traffic Report

A summary of site traffic over time for a Website. It can show at a glance the number of unique visitors, when people accessed a Website, how long they stayed there, what country they were from and a wealth of other valuable information.

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Yahoo! Search Marketing

A Yahoo! advertising service where you pay only when users click on your ad.

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Michael Gwertzman is a freelance writer living in New York City covering cultural news and urban affairs. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, the New York Post, XLR8R magazine and URB magazine.

Adam Lehner is the Managing Editor of October magazine and author of The Rearrangement, a fictional account of an interior decorator’s descent into madness, published in 2008 by MER. Paper Kunsthalle.

Photograph of Hanako Williams © 2006, courtesy Hanako Williams.

All other photography © 2006–2010, exhibit-E.TM. Designed and edited by Dan Miller with Billy Maker, Ryan Quigley, Dale Garcia, Greg McDermont, and Kelly Zajkowski.

Special thanks to Jim Cholakis and Mike Miller.

Digitally printed and bound in New York in an edition of 250.

Copyright © 2010 exhibit-E TM All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing by exhibit-E.

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