Cyber Gallery - With the International commercial gallery system on the verge of collapse after five years of (ongoing) recession, what's an artist to do?

Robert Atkins

The not too-distant emergence of more corporatized outlets a la Pace-Wildenstein is as inevitable as the opening of a Virgin Megastore next to the Barns & Noble on your block. The flip side of this concentration of capital is the decentralized version of live as we know it--the Internet. As I mentioned in my last column, the first commercial gallery on the net is Kaleidospace. I'll be your docent on a visit to the "site."

You're borwsing the net on your 14,000-plus baud modem via a worldwide web client program like the free NCSA Mosaic. AFter accessing Kaleidospace (http://kspace.com), you see a handsome mandalalike pie divided into 10 slices, including Music Kiosk and Art Studio. (You know which one to click on.) Now you're in a commercial gallery represented in interactive page format. Access art by medium, subject or artist. Select images of figurative assemblages crafted from war debris by Croatian artist Vitold Kosir. How about a photo or bio of the artist? Leave an e-mail message for Vitold, or order a piece ($800 to $1500). Unsure of your taste? Take a playful quiz to assess your compatibility with the work.

If you find junk sculpture too challenging, try California artist Syl Kelneck's watercolors of tigers, which run $1500. Or a laser print of the work for just $12.50. (Entire prints are shown in imperfect resolution--but augmented by sharp details--so perfect copies cannot be downloaded.) Tired of looking and shopping? Help artists-in-residence David Brin and P. Craig Russell complete their interactive sci-fi and graphic novels. Or take a performance art break in Center Stage.

If you want to post your art in the "studio," it requires a $50 setup fee for the first piece, $25 for those that follow, and then a $50 monthly charge (except for originals). Good news: commissions on sales by individual artists are just 10 percent. (Galleries pay more for the service.)