THE ARTS+ launched to great Success!
THANKS, MY FRIENDS!
You all made the first edition of THE ARTS+ a great success – as a speaker, partner, exhibitor and engaging audience! The premiere comprised five days of a “fair within a fair” and an international conference featuring many prominent personalities (and David Hockney, just saying…). We counted 120.000 visitors, 15 state ministers, thousands of journalists and professional bloggers, 2 kings and 1 queen. So, here is a short recap of what was going on!
51 exhibitors and partners
Already in its first year, the cooperation between the Frankfurter Buchmesse and media entrepreneur Christiane zu Salm managed to attract 51 exhibitors and partners. These included well-known names such as the Google Cultural Institute(opens in a new window), TASCHEN Verlag(opens in a new window), SKY ARTS(opens in a new window), the Van Gogh Museum(opens in a new window), Kodak PixPro(opens in a new window), Steinway(opens in a new window) and Europeana(opens in a new window). But diverse young entrepreneurs, such as Refrakt(opens in a new window) from Berlin and 360Fashion Network(opens in a new window), also used the specially designed area to present their ideas for digital business with creative content.
“With THE ARTS+ we have succeeded in giving the many curious visitors their first insights into tomorrow’s digital world of art and culture,” said Christiane zu Salm, co-founder of THE ARTS+.
150 international speakers
All in all, 150 international speakers appeared on the three stages throughout the five days. The kick-off conference on Wednesday was sold out, with 240 participants. Speakers including the famous choreographer Sasha Waltz, Edward Budd (Deutsche Bank), Giorgia Abeltino (Google Cultural Institute), art collector Julia Stoschek, Dieter Gorny, Jeff Jarvis and Jens Nymand Christensen (European Commission) spent the day discussing topics such as blockchain, virtual reality and copyright.
Bas Korsten from Amsterdam showed us “The Next Rembrandt(opens in a new window)”, a 3-D printed portrait produced by an artificial intelligence, which had learnt from the digitised versions of 300 original works by Rembrandt. Not only do such digital tools throw up new questions about originality and authorship, but the technologies they draw on also enable new forms of restoration and of publishing, as well as new ways of presenting art.
Giorgia Abeltino, Google Cultural Institute. Foto: Stefan Stark
David Hockney
The legendary artist David Hockney presented his digital painting techniques to an enthusiastic audience, as well as his life’s work in a large-format SUMO edition by TASCHEN.
“From virtual and augmented reality in museums, to copyright in the digital art market, the diversity of the past five days clearly illustrates the coming opportunities and challenges of digital cultural content,” added Holger Volland, co-founder of THE ARTS+ and Vice President of the Frankfurter Buchmesse. “We’re very pleased with this first outing, and we’ll get moving at once to keep developing the fair.”
But not only THE ARTS+ founders are very happy with the outcome, as Suzanne Bogmann of Van Gogh Museum put it: “We have had five very successful days at THE ARTS+. To meet colleagues, to show our app and what the museum is: for books and digital publications. Our director Axel Rüger joined on the weekend for a broader presentation and to talk to the public about van Gogh, about books, about the digital way of informing people, about the research in our museum. It was a great experience.”
A big THANK YOU
We could not agree more, it was a great experience indeed. A big THANK YOU to all our speakers, exhibitors, partners and engaging visitors during the five days! The registration form for exhibitors for 2017 can be found here(opens in a new window) and more photos here(opens in a new window). Stay tuned!
And if you speak german, follow our co-founder Holger Volland on his youtube tour through the exhobition:
We use Youtube, to embed content.
Since you have rejected tracking with cookies, this service cannot be displayed. Because this third party collects information about your activities, tracking with cookies is a requirement for using their service. Should you change your mind and want to use these services with tracking enabled, please agree to its use so that the content can be displayed.