Wolf Lieser about the Digital Art Museum (2005) (r2)
Digital Art Museum aims to become the world’s leading online resource for the history and practice of digital fine art. It exhibits the work of leading artists in this field since 1956. [DAM] is an online museum with a comprehensive exhibition of digital art supported by a wide range of background information including biographies, articles, a bibliography and interviews. [DAM] has launched a further project, which helps to gain a broader understanding and acceptance of digital media. The new d.velop digital art award [ddaa]. Art Cologne 2005.
Transcript
00:00 When did you start with the Digital Art Museum and what's all about?
00:04 Well, the project was developed in '98.
00:07 The background was that most of these artists which were working with digital media didn't have a market.
00:13 They were not able to sell their work for a long time.
00:16 And there were artists working since 20, 30 years.
00:19 So the idea was to give some kind of information, really qualified information about the field,
00:25 where it comes from, an artist's own background, who are the major pioneers,
00:29 what is happening there.
00:31 So that was the idea of the virtual museum.
00:34 And it's already online since 2000.
00:37 It's still a project stage because we then concentrated on other aspects of the whole concept.
00:44 The other aspect was to open a location in Berlin
00:48 where we actually represent these artists and work as a gallery for them.
00:52 So you can watch the videos in your gallery and also on the website?
00:57 Well, on the website there are not--well, some videos are online, but not many yet.
01:02 If you look at the website, you'll see there are--I mean, the early pioneers,
01:05 mostly it's blotter sketches or prints or some work like that.
01:09 Some of the artists are represented with their whole careers.
01:12 You can follow, like, Manfred Mohr, who we represent here as well.
01:16 You can see what he did in the '70s, '80s, '90s, up to now.
01:20 Other artists, we have just some examples.
01:23 Right now, due to the location which we opened in 2003,
01:27 we are concentrating on really building contacts to institutions and collectors
01:31 to really develop a market for that and to make the money
01:35 because it's totally privately financed.
01:37 The whole thing is funded by sales and, like, this award which we started this year,
01:43 it's an award for digital art, a lifetime award.
01:46 It consists of 20,000 euros in an exhibition in an institution.
01:51 And this award is now given every year, which we are organizing as well from Berlin.
02:01 So there are different aspects to the whole thing.
02:04 What is your background?
02:07 Is your background art or more like direction technology or--?
02:12 No, it's basically working as a gallerist and art consultant
02:16 and doing art projects for corporations.
02:18 That's my background.
02:20 Very early days I was an artist myself,
02:23 but quite soon I went into the other field and represented artists.
02:28 I've been working in this area for more than 20 years.
02:32 How do you distribute the videos?
02:36 On CD.
02:38 Mostly--I mean, rarely there are single ones.
02:42 Mostly there are editions and they're sold as a packaging CD,
02:48 which is then signed in number.
02:50 And you can order it on your website or--?
02:54 The commercial aspects will stay away from the website.
02:58 I mean, the moment we have more money, we will build the website to the original concept,
03:04 but it should always be a free website which has a more educational purpose
03:09 and the location is working as a gallery, and that is selling the work.
03:15 Is this your first art fair or do you have also experience with other art fairs?
03:25 We have done smaller art fairs before and made some experience in that field.
03:31 Due to the last two or three years, the market feels like it's developing,
03:35 so people are getting more interested.
03:37 Now, due to this award, we have a partnership with Köln Messe,
03:42 and so we have the chance to really--otherwise we wouldn't be able to fund this kind of presentation,
03:48 so we could show quite a range of different work from the '70s up to present time.
03:54 So it's the first time that an art fair is actually showing such a special exhibition on digital media.
04:01 It's the first time in Europe.
04:03 That's really great.