On October 28, 2008, I gave a conference: Internet and the Arts | Searching for the Arts, the Art of Searching at The Cue Foundation in New York. Joelle Deroy moderated the “Conversation.” Both of us and the audience exchanged questions and answers. I opted for a conversation format to initiate an exchange with the audience without any formal presentation: no Powerpoint...It was a very successful event.
Marie-Claude Fischer, Founder & Owner, ArtRegister Network, October 30, 2008

On October 28th, one of the most prominent art galleries and foundations of New York, the Cue Art Foundation, located in Chelsea, hosted a conference on the theme “Internet and the Arts: Searching for the Arts, the Art of Searching”. The event, organized by the New York HEC Alumni Association, featured Marie-Claude Fischer as the guest speaker.

Joelle Deroy, HEC alumna and fine artist leaving and working in New York, moderated the conference and conversation with the audience.

Over ten years, Marie-Claude Fischer has been a pioneer in the field of electronic marketing as creator and developer of the ArtRegister Network, a group of web portals dedicated exclusively to promoting the arts (including artists, art galleries, art dealers and museums). In addition to her expertise in search engines, she was trained as an art historian at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris, and later graduated from NYU in Fine Art Appraisals. She co-owned the Athena Fine Arts Gallery in New York City for six years .

Her art background proved crucial when Fisher decided to make a major shift in her career. The Internet became her true calling. As she says, “When I saw the first white and grey pages of the Internet, I truly had a vision of what it might one day become.”

The conference, which attracted a large crowd, was set up in the form of a conversation with the audience: some of the main questions addressed are outlined below.

According to Ms. Fischer, the Internet can be seen as faces on two sides of a mirror: on the one side, you set up a window that makes it easier for people to find your site out of millions available; the other side learns the art of asking the right questions on the main search engines. Fischer explained that each search engine provides different answers to the same keywords and as such, it makes sense to ask the same question at least twice .

The art of finding the right information is truly the art of combining the right keywords. One approach is to look at a search as a marketing question that is narrowed down little by little. If you start with the type of art or medium you are interested in, artist names will appear, allowing to further narrow the search by names and, as importantly, by geographical location.

When asked “how can we make the most use out of the Internet as collectors, savvy or emerging?” Ms. Fischer advised that it's a good idea to register with big auction houses, as well as secondary ones, in order to be kept automatically informed of the art market trends. It is also a good idea to register with the mailing lists of galleries specializing in one’s field of interest.

The Internet helps document and build up credibility of art professionals such as artists. But interestingly, this is also true for collectors. For example, one ArtRegister Network client reported that posting his collection on the Web opened the doors of very selective galleries, as the quality of his collection could finally be appreciated.

Fischer also pointed out that, from a technology standpoint, a quiet yet very significantly change for Web designers has occured: keywords which used to be indexed on the web sites through “tags,” must now be part of the text itself. So, keywords have to be pertinent to and part of the text content of the websites. This has two consequences: a:) graphics designed in Flash are not indexed by search engines. b:) indexing of words without relevance to the website itself will not be possible anymore (some website designers used to put keywords with little relevancy in their tags just to gain higher visibility).

The conference concluded with an exceptional cocktail: we were given the chance to discover the Prestige Cuvee “Grand Siècle de Laurent-Perrier,” renowned and appreciated among champagne connoisseurs.

The HEC Alumni Association of New York warmly thanks Laurent-Perrier for its outstanding support to this event, joining camaraderie, ideas and art in a prestigious gallery in Chelsea, the heart of the New York contemporary art scene. We extend our warmest thanks to the Cue Art Foundation, a must to visit next time you come to New York…