Currently the contemporary art market is enjoying an unprecedented boom, with an exploding market as well as a surging wave of new talents entering a gallery scene energized by the immense popularity of international art fairs such as Frieze, Armory Show, and Art Basel Miami Beach as well as record sales at auction houses across the globe. However, the art world remains an exclusive club populated by the fabulous and the fabulously wealthy, which means that most of us still decorate our homes with that picture of dogs playing pool and moody black and white photographic posters of couples kissing on the Seine. If you are hoping for something a little more exciting and original but don't have $500,000 to spend on an exact reconstruction of art celeb Dash Snow's bedroom wall by his friend and fellow art star Dan Colon, the Beholder might just be a great place to start. To help fill us in on what the site's all about, EMERGE fired a few questions over ye olde internets to Suzanne Shade who graciously shot some answers back. Read on peoples:

1) Can you tell us about how the Beholder came into being? There seems to be a double agenda: to both provide a platform for artists to find an audience as well as to help would-be art consumers find that perfect painting/drawing/print/photo without having to take a trip to SoHo.

You're absolutely right about the double agenda...the thing that prompted me most was the people who wanted to feel connected to what artists were doing but didn't know where or how to start. I knew that from my own experience that if you're looking to buy art, it gets tough to follow your local gallery shows and to know what galleries have in their inventory. If you don't live in a major city (and sometimes even if you do) it can be a big project. So if I had to decide between agendas, I'd have to pick that one as the main reason I did it.

That said, one thing I'm learning about art is just how many people out there are making it. It's a really huge number. And there just isn't enough physical gallery space to show them all. I'm finding artists in different stages in their careers all need more outlets to sell their work. They know as well as I do that it really is about having your work be exposed to as many people as possible.

2) How long has the site been up? What sort of traffic is it receiving from site visitors and artists? Do you guys do outreach beyond simply running the website?

I started the site last winter, and have gotten a really steady stream of people since then. I've only been collecting "data" since August, but have estimated about 36,000 visitors worldwide since it launched, with about 35% of people coming back to look at more. I'm selling to all kinds of places in the US that do and don't have great art scenes: Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and a lot in New York which I'm kind of surprised about.

When you say outreach, I'm assuming you mean promotion... This has really crucial and will continue to be one of my biggest duties running the site. My plan is to continue my road show to get more exposure for the site: last year I did a few events in San Francisco and one in New York. They're basically one night parties where I hang a sample of work to let folks see things in person and to introduce them to what I'm trying to do. I just booked a show for my photographers this spring in LA, and am hoping to do a Chicago show as well.

I'm also doing some national advertising to get the word out, which is something not many galleries do. I feel like because the Beholder is non-regional, that it just makes sense to think that everyone would be interested, not just speaking to people who support art in a specific city.

3) Is there an editorial policy of any sort in terms of what artists and which pieces are featured? How about for the artist interview section?

I actually have to admit that the official requirement is if I like it and would hang it myself. And now that I've got many artists, to make sure that there isn't too much of the same type of thing. I definitely love some stuff more than others, but in general I'm feeling good about all of it. I have folks help me with writing/moderating the artist features. In fact, anyone I know who writes and is interested in doing it usually gets asked.

4) The seven day in-home trial is a really interesting notion. Reminiscent of those late night TV ads for Bowflex or the Abdominizer, it's actually a great idea. Have customers availed themselves of this policy? Have you told an artist that their work was returned before? If so, how did that go over?

Bowflex. Nice.

The one drawback of the internet is that you do really need to see a piece in person to be sure. I knew that if people couldn't see it for themselves, than the decision to buy would be tougher. I've had about 3 returns so far, and it's not been a big scene... artists are not as sensitive as you think. In fact, some of them are better business people than I am.

5) As you indicate on the site, many of the artists featured are not "professional" in the conventional sense. Do you see the Beholder as functioning as an online marketplace for amateur creatives or is it just a more level playing field upon which anybody with some creative metle can have a go at selling their work?

Again, you're right on both fronts. It started as way to level the playing field, and I think the presentation has a lot to do with that. It's intentionally set up so that your choices are made by what you like, and if you need get context with the artist, than it's available to you as well. Separating professional with non-professional brings up the collecting issue: If you are expecting a piece to increase in value, obviously the artists record is a factor. If you just love the piece and are not interested in that aspect, than having a piece made by a less career-track artist is totally fine. As I get more experience in guiding buyers through these decisions, I'm sure the site will be organized to reflect that difference. At this stage, I think most of my buyers right now are not so concerned with the difference.

6) There are a couple other sites doing similar stuff as Beholder, such as Artocracy, which also positions itself as an alternative to the gallery system. Is this an implicit critique of the art world's established economy? If so, what's wrong with the gallery system and international art fairs? How does the Beholder fit in with this more established marketplace for art?

This is a really good question. One thing I've learned about doing this, is that most people who sell art at the lower levels work really hard and don't make much money. Trying to get "regular people" to get involved is something that has been challenging for all of us. To me, what I though needed changing was the way that galleries interacted with those people. Traditionally, the art world has been this exclusive club that you needed social entry into. And in the higher market, it's still like that today. The 'art club' is very guilty of only being able to successfully reach out to itself... that is, it's not really customer focused. And I think the reason for this is that it's just easier to communicate with people who get what you do. Even at art fairs, you still get this sense that you've walked into someone else's party.

I'm really enjoying the fact that the art market is booming, but just like the rest of the economy, it's booming for the very top level. I just read an interview with Tobias Meyer who runs Sotheby's and his answer to why its so huge is that there are just proportionately more billionaires right now, which sounds like an obvious answer, but it's true.

My customers are pretty far down the food chain from that (as am I) and I sympathize with their struggles of how much to spend on art when there are a a ton of more practical things your money can be buying. One of the big reasons I don't sell prints, is that I do believe that people can afford and enjoy original art, and that just because they're not on the Fortune 500 list doesn't mean you have to limit yourself to buying posters. So I try to offer a way that makes it easier to find affordable stuff so people can say "yeah, I can do that, too." My favorite story by far has been a woman I sold a piece to in London. She gave up smoking and was using the money she saved to buy art. That was totally inspiring to me, and I'm glad that I was in some way able to help her achieve that.

Now all I need is for Americans to start saying 'I gave up buying $6000 couches and started buying art." Just kidding.


Thanks to Suzanne Shade and the Beholder

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