Artsy, formally known as Art.sy Inc is a

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

based online art brokerage. Its main business is developing and hosting website for numerous galleries as well as selling art for them. It utilizes a search engine and database to draw connections and map relationships among works of art. The brokerage was founded by Carter Cleveland, a

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

computer science graduate. It is currently led by Jeffrey Yin, who was appointed CEO in June 2024.

History

Carter Cleveland, the son of an

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

, founded Artsy during his senior year at

and worked on the site from his dorm room. Cleveland's goal was for the site to serve as a place where users could discover art online. In May 2010, Artsy participated in the New York City conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, where they competed in the Startup Battlefield and received the Yahoo! Rookie Award! A year later, the team demoed Artsy at the Beyeler Foundation at

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (US), Hong Kong and Paris. Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, an ...

(June 15, 2011). In November 2011, Artsy closed a round of financing from

Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and former computer engineer who was the chief executive officer of Google from 2001 to 2011 and the company's chairman, executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also was the ...

, Wendi Deng Murdoch,

Dasha Zhukova Darya "Dasha" Alexandrovna Zhukova (; born 8 June 1981) is a Russian-American art collector, businesswoman, magazine editor, and socialite. She is the founder of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and ''Garage Magazine''. Early life and edu ...

, Larry Gagosian,

Jim Breyer James W. Breyer (born July 1961) is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. Brey ...

, Joshua Kushner,

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American businessperson, who is a co-founder of Twitter, Inc. and its CEO during 2007–2008 and 2015–2021, as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairman of Block, Inc. (deve ...

, Chris Dixon, and Dave Morin. In 2019, it was reported that in 2018 the data for 1,070,000 accounts were stolen from Artsy. The information included the name, email address, location, IP address and password SHA-512 hashed with a salt. The passwords were not stored in cleartext, but an email from Artsy encouraged users to change their passwords.

Corporate affairs

Financials

Since launching, Artsy has raised a total of $100 million from individuals in the worlds of art, tech, and media.

Products (website and app)

Artsy currently features over 1,000,000 works by 100,000 artists on its site through partnered galleries. As of March 2018, Artsy averaged 2.3 million unique visitors each month.

The Art Genome Project

When Artsy launched in October 2011, its main product was The Art Genome Project — "an ongoing study of the characteristics that distinguish and connect works of art." A collaboration between art historians and engineers, and led by art historian Matthew Israel, The Art Genome Project drew upon art-historical scholarship and artificial intelligence to assign values to artwork based on eventually as many as 1211 characteristics or "genes." These categories ranged from color and period to "Technique: Documentary Photography" and "Group Portrait." The Art Genome Project aimed to help users uncover works of art based on personal taste and preference to facilitate the discovery of art. As of 2020 the AGP was on hold for restructuring.

Reception

According to ''

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

'', Artsy "has the potential to introduce each buyer to a wide range of artists and artworks, all of them related in some way and—this is key—most of them unknown and otherwise inaccessible to any but the most knowledgeable connoisseurs." Critics of Art.sy label The Art Genome Project forced and artificial and point to the difficulty of representing the full experience of art online.

References

External links

*
Artsy Open Source
on GitHub Pages
The Art Genome Project
{{Authority control Online databases Online marketplaces of the United States