Co-curated by Unit London and Avant Arte, the exhibition offered Avant Arte’s 400,000 followers a rare opportunity to see the art they have discovered online on the walls and floors of the central London gallery.
In 2016 art insurers Hiscox reported that 48% of art buyers use Instagram, and predicted that by 2017 there would be more art purchases online than via galleries, auction houses and art fairs. January 2017 saw innovative young gallery Unit London team up with fast-growing online art platform Avant Arte to stage an exhibition of art popularised via Instagram. Co-curated by Unit London and Avant Arte, the exhibition offered Avant Arte’s 400,000 followers a rare opportunity to see the art they have discovered online on the walls and foors of the central London gallery.
With more artists to be confrmed, artists for this special group show include Avant Arte’s Jason Seife (US), Lionel Smit (ZA), Brian Willmont (US), Unit London’s Ryan Hewett (ZA), Ivan Alifan (CA) and Massimo Agostinelli (IT). The exhibition followed Unit London’s Paintguide (2015/16), which showed art popularised solely by Instagram. The show – hailed as ‘the first Instagram curated art exhibition’ – generated huge attention, with a social media reach of 8.2 million views, 15 million unique impressions and queues around the block to view the exhibition.
Avant Arte was launched in 2014 by two entrepreneurial young art lovers from Holland, Curtis Penning (22) and Christian Luiten (24). In June 2016 Huffngton Post listed Avante Arte as one of the most infuential art Instagram accounts. The account – and the accompanying ‘Tinder for Art’ App – enables art lovers to swipe through art, discover new artists and connect directly with the artist, gallery or museum. Driven by the desire to democratise the process of finding and buying contemporary art, Avant Arte has built an online following of over 400,000. With 16/17 million views monthly, followers are growing at 10-14K per week.