New Revenue Streams for Museums in the Digital Age?

These days, art lovers have a growing number of options when it comes to viewing art or even building their personal collections. But for a quicker alternative to negotiating with dealers, or navigating the frenzy of traditional and digital auction houses, consumers can leisurely shop or stream from online galleries of digital works.

Marketplaces like Sedition feature digital versions of art available for download with strong focus on contemporary works.

Image: Examples of pieces & formats available at Sedition.com

Sedition has secured partnerships with many contemporary art museums like The Broad, Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Stedelijk Museum, ICA London, MACBA, and also features work from household name artists like Damien Hirst, Yoko Ono, Shepard Fairey, and Jenny Holzer.

Startups like Electric Objects (update: shutdown in June 2017), Depict, and Meural offer still and moving images in a slick platform that grounds an interactive display in a familiar format: a wooden frame.

Electric Objects has collaborations with Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New Museum, Museum of the Moving Image, the New York Public Library showing that museums and cultural institutions are exploring.

But with all of these marketplaces and screens for digital art and seemingly impressive partnerships in place, are there opportunities for new revenues streams for museums?

We asked a few #musetech thought-leaders for their take on this topic.

Will the cultural “consumer,” art lover, and casual museum-goer alike pay to buy digital reproductions of museum content for their devices and digital frames?

“I think this is unlikely, given the current market,” says Koven Smith, Director of Digital Adaptation at the Blanton Museum of Art. “The price point is high enough that the kind of person likely to want this is also likely to want higher “quality" and probably more “unique” work than these startups can usually afford to get with their partnerships.”

Critics agree that the combination of a disposable income and a taste for digital files seems unlikely, and are skeptical that the model will provide any sizable revenue streams for most institutions. Sales trends from Electric Objects in 2015 suggest that when it comes to digital art content, consumer tastes lean more towards GIFs and post-internet genres.

“Does anyone really want a monitor screen on their wall?” questions Ben Vickers, Curator of Digital at Serpentine Galleries in London. “My sense is that there will be a big shift when we get the equivalent of e-paper for canvas,” with a nod to the aluminum-mounted Giclee prints of Francis Bacon’s Q5 at Serpentine. “But, is there really a market?” he asks. “I think this is highly questionable.” 

What is the impact of a museum’s decision to license its collection to an online marketplace? Will it benefit museums? 

Referencing trends in Europe and the UK, Vickers cites a “deep drive coming from state funders and audience research to adopt/adapt” to these digital platforms. “The bottom is falling out on funding streams; add to this, that corporations are insisting on getting more and more from their ‘partnerships’.”

“As a result,” he explains, “museums are increasingly desperate to find new funding sources. If ‘tech land’ can guarantee workable models that offer reasonable deals for new revenue streams, [revenue from digital content] could very much happen.”

“I’m pretty skeptical about these platforms,” says Smith. “I don’t see this as a likely revenue stream for museums, particularly since most [museums] are headed more towards a free-use model as far as their digital assets are concerned.”

“I’m skeptical as to the likelihood that these platforms could become significant revenue streams for museums,” says Smith. “That said, I could imagine them being a wonderful way to spread content into new domains, the way that the Google Art Project has done by making museum content available on Chromecast. I think this kind of distribution is more likely based on a free-use approach rather than a subscription-only or other paid model. Then again, I didn’t think the New York Times’ paywall would work either, so who knows?”

But, in the end, it all might come back to what matters most.

“I strongly support art on as many interfaces as possible,” says Neal Stimler, Third Party Partnerships Producer at The Met. “We’re moving away from only one place to look at art. Works of art change and how we interact with them changes. Experiences with artworks move between and beyond any one place or platform.”

Stimler’s bottom line stresses the importance of accessibility to artworks whether they are encountered on digital displays or museum gallery walls: “A work of art is something that is made to be shared with the world.”

One of the optimal ways for museums to provide access to collections today is directly on the public’s own digital devices and displays.

What’s your forecast for the future of art collecting, streaming digital art to your own devices, and new revenues streams for museums? Let us know!

National Museum of Wildlife Art Launches Mobile App.

National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) took a big digital leap forward this week with the launch of their new mobile app powered by Cuseum.

The new NMWA app allows visitors to experience curated tours and special content to make the best of their time at the museum. Visitors can now enjoy a guided tour of the museum’s popular Sculpture Trail and other special exhibitions.

The Sculpture Trail tour begins with a video of sculptor Sandy Scott speaking about the installation of her monumental sculpture, Presidential Eagle. The app also includes numerous pieces of multimedia produced by Storm Show Studio’s Darrell Miller and Amy Goicoechea, the museum’s Director of Programs & Events. Watch Richard Loffler speak about “Buffalo Trail” or Gwynn Murrill discuss “Coyote V.” The library of video content includes interviews with esteemed artists such as Tim Shinabarger and Simon Gudgeon, plus many more.

In the official announcement from the museum they announced that “with this interpretive companion on the Sculpture Trail, sculptures and their creators come alive from every angle.”

“Cuseum is thrilled to be partnering with the National Museum of Wildlife Art to help drive visitor engagement through this new mobile app. With the National Museum of Wildlife Art mobile guide, visitors can take guided tours and learn more about works of art through rich multimedia and artist interviews.” - Brendan Ciecko, CEO & Founder of Cuseum

National Museum of Wildlife Art’s mobile app is available  at wildlifeart.org/app

Recap of Museums and the Web's Roundtable in Boston

Yesterday, we joined Museums and the Web for a special roundtable in our own backyard, Boston! Members of the Cuseum team were excited to connect with friends and local museum colleagues to collectively dive into one of everyone’s favorite topics: storytelling.

Rob Stein started us off with a keynote focused on the importance and fundamentals of a great story. Rob, a museum thought-leader best known for his work at the DMA and IMA was introduced by Titus Bicknell as “an avant-garde agent of change” and his talk hit on a number of important topics. Here are a few points we found interesting.

Science → Social Change

When immersed in a great story, oxytocin is released!

Image: FastCompany

Storytelling makes you more receptive to others who are different; an increase in empathy. With that in mind, the impact of stories on society is immense and should push us to place an even higher value on storytelling in the museum.

What to expect in the future?

Fun fact: before entering the museum field, Rob worked on technology-driven experiential research projects, some including head-mounted displays for virtual reality. He shared his very optimistic view of VR for creating immersive experience at the museum, and further projected that a museum’s use of VR will someday be just as important as is social media presence is today.

Challenges for Storytelling in the Museum:

1. Museums complicated relationship with fiction.

2. Not enough storytellers.

3. Buildings that are poorly designed for immersive experiences.

4. Lack of tools to create and manage transmedia non-linear stories.

5. Unnecessary barriers between museums and the performing arts.

Following Rob’s keynote, Sandy Goldberg, Halsey Burgund, and various audience members shared their perspectives.

“Interactivity is not just digital. It can be interaction between digital and physical space” - Sandy Goldberg, on visitor interaction.

It is always great to include the voice of an artist. Halsey Burgund questioned the notion: “Who is the expert and how can we level the playing-field for all to feel immersed?”

This viewpoint falls inline with shared authority, a current trend in the museum and historical space to open up interpretation with the public.

As the conversation opened up to the audience, the topic of nonlinear (contextual) storytelling and immersive experiences was further discussed.

Even though the event has passed, please join in on Twitter to follow and voice your thoughts: #MWBoston

…the event was wicked awesome. Thank you Museums and the Web for continuing to stimulate, challenge and facilitate conversations that are integral to the museum community. We look forward to seeing again in Los Angeles this April!

Highlights from Art Basel Miami 2015

Early last month we were in Miami for Art Basel, one of the most exciting happenings in the art world.

Since 1970, Art Basel’s goal has been to connect the world’s premier galleries and their patrons, and serve as a meeting point for the international art world.

Not only do leading contemporary galleries convene in Miami, but so do countless directors, curators, and influencers from various museums and cultural institutions. From fine art to large-scale public artworks, film, performance, and graffiti all become a part of the Miami landscape.

Miami Museums

During our time in Miami, we made sure to visit several museums between the art fairs and gallery tours, including the Perez Art Museum, Frost Art Museum, MOCA, ICA Miami, and Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

We particularly enjoyed exploring the grounds of Vizcaya after dark during an evening reception. Aside from the gorgeous gardens and architecture, we were wowed by the performance art that evening. A projected audio/visual piece portraying the mansion’s original architecture drawings, broken glass and letters between Vizcaya’s original owner and mastermind, James Deering, and his architect, builders and craftspeople. Check out the clip to see for yourself!

A video posted by Brendan Ciecko (@brendanciecko) on Jan 21, 2016 at 10:11am PST

Art is for Everyone

At Cuseum we’re all about making art and museums accessible and available to everyone, so naturally we were overjoyed by the public art across Miami Beach as well as the many conversations surrounding the topic of making art accessible to all.

Miami’s public art scene is top notch and takes a form all of its own during Art Basel. Collins Park and SoundScape Park are hotspots for large-scale outdoor sculpture and murals flank the sides of skyscrapers in Miami Beach and warehouses across Wynwood.

For the third year, the fair’s Public Sector is curated by Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator of the Public Art Fund. Baume brought together artists from 11 countries to create 27 site-specific artworks and installations for the outdoor show, which transformed Collins Park into a massive sculpture park filled with large-scale installations, kinetic artworks and an array of performances.

“It’s there for everybody that has the time and inclination to check it out,” Nicholas Baume on public art in Collins Park as part of Art Basel Miami Beach.

Image via Hyperallergic / Artwork by Sterling Ruby, “Big Yellow Mama” (2013)

Another public art event that really stood out to us on this trip was the Visionaire 65 FREE Public Art Installation in partnership with Stella Artoisa at Faena Hotel Miami Beach, which offered artwork by famous artists to the public for free! Yes, that’s right… free art for all!

Visionaire, an art publication, offered its issue for free in the form of artwork from 12 distinguished artists for this installation. The artists, including Marilyn Minter, David Salle, and Glenn Brown, are some of the most renowned and sought-after names in the art world. They generously contributed highly-covetable artwork to the issue in order to give back to the Miami community and art lovers from all over.

Inspiring Takeaway

One of our most inspiring takeaways was from the panel discussion on “Education in the Contemporary Art Museum” with Heidi Reitmaier (MCA Chicago), Jason Yoon (Queens Museum), Pablo Helguera (Museum of Modern Art), and Joanne Lefrak (SITE Santa Fe) at the UNTITLED Art Fair in Miami Beach.

Image from UNTITLED Art Fair via Art Daily

The discussion with museum educators centered around several questions including:

1. How can museums invite audiences to be a part of the process?

2. What’s the point of being if people can’t cite your museum’s relevancy in their experience?

3. How do you open up and design opportunities for different kinds of audiences to work together to create a space which they own - in terms of their passion and love of art?

Jason Yoon described how he looks at museum education at the Queens Museum. “Something we’re thinking about a lot as museum educators is that museums are buildings and institutions that are about more than physical objects and collections. They are also about human interaction and services to people and interacting with people and being in dialogue with them.”

Data, Data, Data.

Joanne Lefrak cited LaPlaca Cohen’s Culture Track stats:

“87% of people who come to museums, come to museums to have a social experience. 76% come to have a new kind of learning experience that’s fun or playful.”

Museum educators and those creating technology for museums are in a unique position to help create thoughtful learning experiences for visitors!

At Cuseum, we engage museum goers in new ways to help them develop a deeper connection with their museum experience. Our mobile guides not only guide visitors through a space, but also allow them to interact with and comment on works that they find most interesting. This is very much in line with “shared authority” - a current trend in the museum space.

Shared Authority

Heidi Reitmaier from MCA Chicago emphasized how this concept embraces that “the multiple perspectives of people who come and experience the art is equally as valuable as the institutional perspective.” We couldn’t agree more, Heidi!

Listen to the entire panel discussion online here for more insightful tidbits about education in the contemporary art museum.

This discussion and the many incredible artworks, fairs, and, of course people, we encountered in Miami left us inspired for what’s to come in 2016! Big thanks to everyone who took the time to meet with us and show us around!