The online art site Curiator has introduced its first art sale, a digital exhibition titled “Scroll Down Hang Up,” which features work by five emerging artists: Yung Jake, Michael Assif, Yamini Nayar, Tom Holmes, and T. Kelly Mason. It is curated by New York-based dealer S. Bitter-Larkin. In the upcoming weeks, Curiator, which bills itself as “a platform to collect and discover art online,” plans to publish another for-sale exhibition with works by Andy Warhol, curated by the New York-based dealer Afrodet Zuri.
The Curiator app (which the company has dubbed the “Shazam for art”) won the silver medal in Best of Swiss Apps competition, and its website was nominated for a Webby Award. The platform was designed as a digital showroom, consisting of art uploaded by users. Currently, it has 70,000 artworks by 20,000 artists that are searchable by artist, topic, and color, using image recognition technology to prevent duplicates from occurring.
Since launching last year, Curiator has collaborated with artists such as Dan Graham, Do Ho Suh, Byoungho Kim and Patricia Piccinini, and curators including the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Ian Alteveer, Yale School of Art’s Robert Storr, and independent curator Rochelle Steiner.
In a release, founders Moenen Erbuer and Tobias Boonstoppel wrote, “By giving people the opportunity to not only enjoy, but to also buy original art on the platform, Curiator is further expanding on its mission to help people engage with art and considers this a crucial next step in its continuing effort to connect collectors, curators, art dealers, galleries and artists.”