artoffer is more than passion

artoffer community

Ernst Helbling, Initiator and director/president, art lover, resident in Zurich, Switzerland

In 1996 I first became involved in promoting Cuban art, a cause I feel deeply passionate about. The opening of a gallery and integrated digital photo studio in the Calle Obispo (Havana) laid the foundation stone for the artoffer community. Founded in 1999, artoffer is a public forum that allows artists and art enthusiasts around the world to meet and discover works of art online.

The huge growth of social networks in recent years illustrates the basic need of humans for a sense of community and social exchange. And there is more to the current trend of making new contacts through Internet communities than just fun; the technology now available also makes it an extremely efficient and effective way of connecting with others. However, the public sphere also has its pitfalls. Quite apart from the some of the self-portrayals on the web that can only be described as deeply embarrassing to all concerned, there is also the danger of invasion of privacy. It is of prime importance to me to protect our members’ privacy and to find new ways to achieve the level of discretion that each individual member desires.

Nowadays, due to the huge increase in the workload generated by artoffer, I have very little time to devote to our Cuban artists, and I no longer have much to do with this side of the business. As well as this, selling art was always slightly tinged with sadness for me, as I did not like having to give away some of my “favorites”. This is why I am now looking forward to “just” collecting art and focusing on the changes currently taking place at artoffer.

digital media

Thomas Schmidiger, Development and programming, resident in Bern, Switzerland

I have worked as a concepter and developer for artoffer since 2004. The strong increase in data traffic requires the continual upgrading and optimization of artoffer’s processes.

In addition to this, the addition of the “art lover” section to our art community in 2010 has meant large-scale restructuring of the website (artoffer 3.0). Our aim is to create more attractive opportunities for potential buyers to gain access to artworks and, in general, to simplify the exchange of both words and images. I find the work fascinating and meaningful.

social network

Christian Grass, Social Network & Cross Media, resident in Zurich / Switzerland

Since 2010 I have experienced the artoffer community’s philosophy of tolerance, openness and transparency first-hand; this corresponds to my own philosophy, both in my professional and private life.

Art is a living expression of creativity, and realizing projects that promote this artistic creativity is a matter that is close to my own heart. It is equally important to give the patrons who support our art community new opportunities to advertize effectively. We consider it essential to personally maintain the good relations we have with all of our partners.

 Stages

Havanna

During a business trip to Havana in 1996 (I was the director of a music publishing house at the time), I saw the hardships and problems faced by Cuba’s artists on a daily basis, not to mention the lack of opportunities for holding exhibitions and selling work.

The friendships I made and my fascinating experiences with the many artists and their creative world prompted me to help by looking for ways to promote their work. Filled with a passionate enthusiasm for the Cuban “Art Brut”, I took a wide selection of their works back to Switzerland with me to show to several gallery owners here.

Being new to the art business, I was given the “professional” opinion at the numerous galleries I visited that there was clearly no “market” for “my” Cuban art in Switzerland. Since I had previously worked in marketing, it was clear to me that I couldn’t just leave it at that – if there isn’t a market, create one.

I was sure there had to be some gallery owners that would recognize the potential of my Cuban artist friends and would be able to help them. But where and how was I to find these galleries or potential buyers?

The Internet

At that time (1995/96) it was gradually becoming clear that the Internet was here to stay. I realized that this medium provided the ideal opportunity to present the Cuban art works to enthusiasts all around the world.

I had never seriously considered selling works of art directly through the Internet, as it is not really possible to judge the quality and effect of the original on a computer screen. It is a different matter if a person is already familiar with or owns some of the works of a particular artist, and is able to rate other works based on their personal experience. For example, initial purchases from Cuban art exhibitions very often led to further purchases directly through artoffer.

However, the most striking advantages of this medium for me were always the opportunities for networking and presentation, and the fact that it is overwhelmingly easy for art enthusiasts to come into contact with each other. And it has always been important for these contacts made through artoffer to invite each other to their studios, exhibition openings, events and exhibitions in order to show off the works to their best advantage, i.e. in real life. Our motto: “Discover art virtually and experience it in real life” appealed to our members, and the following years were hugely successful with exhibitions throughout the world and a large number of art sales initiated through artoffer.

On TV: en.artoffer.com/TV
How Cuban art prospers: en.artoffer.com/press
Commitment to promotion of Cuban culture: en.artoffer.com/Cuba-Cultural-Engagement

The success story

The proceeds from the sales of Cuban art made it possible for us to expand artoffer and to offer artists throughout the world the opportunity to promote their work online. To this end, in 1998 we formed Nevartos, which now operates artoffer, in Pfäffikon on Lake Zurich, Switzerland.

In the course of the last ten years, our art community has continued to change and develop, and has attracted a constant stream of new artists and art enthusiasts. There has always been a long tradition of forming groups and a sense of community among artists and art lovers, which, in addition to the technological advances of the Internet, explains the huge success of our virtual artoffer community.

artoffer is currently growing by 300% a year (visitors), and we constantly face new challenges, which we rise to with a passion and enthusiasm that can only be of advantage to our artists and art lovers.

Nowadays artoffer is funded through membership fees and sponsoring. For the first ten years I used my own capital to finance the site in addition to the proceeds from the highly successful Cuban art promotion project. Looking back, I am particularly delighted that it was a so-called third world country and its fantastic artists that made artoffer possible in the first place. Thank you.

Ernst Helbling