UNIQUE TWITTER ART AUCTION BY NEW YORK GALLERY FEATURES SIX CALGARY ARTISTS

November 6, 2009 by Markham Hislop

Works by Calgary artists Geoffrey Adair Hunter, left, are Kristen Carleton are part of the 140 Hours of Fame Twitter auction

Works by Calgary artists Geoffrey Adair Hunter, left, and Kristen Carleton are part of the 140 Hours of Fame Twitter auction

A New York gallery is holding the first online art auction using Twitter, the popular social media tool, and the works of six Calgary-area artists are included. Gary Brant, director of Galerie St. George, an artists’ cooperative on Staten Island and the founder of 140 Hours of Fame, says his New York customers “have been highly receptive to Calgary artists” and he expects them to do very well in the auction.

The Twitter auction began at 12:01 p.m. EST Thursday. Artist’s projects are available for viewing by potential buyers online at www.140hours.com. Buyers must have a Twitter account and pay for their purchases using PayPal, the popular online payment system. Bidders “tweet” their bid to @140hours and include their name, bid amount, the art item number, a contact number and a personal email address. By “following” @140hours, bidders can follow rival bids almost instantaneously.

Mr. Brant developed the system, which he calls Virtual Art Gallery Auction System (VAGAS). The event is free for the artists, who hope to be connected to art lovers and buyers around the globe.

Calgary artists bring something special to the auction, says Mr. Brant. He says that is partly due to the excellent training they receive at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

They are “what I call ‘break-out’ artists,” he said in an email interview, “Where they are challenging their peers with a new, raw energy and style that is quite against the grain of most art school graduates, who are for the most part being trained for careers in the commercial arts.”

Two Calgary artists, in particular, have captured the eye of New York art customers. Alicia Hoogveld and Kristen Carleton are both recent ACAD graduates.

“Hoogveld’s intensely personal photographic essays and Carleton’s surrealistic ’space paintings’ have drawn huge responses from our clients,” Mr. Brant said.

“The art world in New York I believe will be very receptive to Calgarian artists because they bring a rawness and energy, again, perhaps atypical of emerging artists who are local to our art scene. I also believe that the natural splendor of your region plays a part, bringing a sense of natural beauty which can only be a positive in the formation of young artists’ visual senses and disciplines.”

Another Calgary artist of note, says Mr. Brant, is Geoffrey Adair Hunter, 49, an abstract painter who works in oil and acrylic and works at the Paul Kuhn Gallery. Mr. Hunter is also a graduate of ACAD and he studied at the Yale Summer School, which he cites as a very formative experience.

“This is a really interesting and innovative project,” he said. “Exposure to new markets and art lovers is my number one interest.”

Midway through the auction, Mr. Brant says bidding on Calgary artists’ pieces is strong.

“As of this moment I can happily report that we have had enormous traffic on the web to our auction site www.140hours.com and the Calgarian artists in our event have uniformly been a tremendous magnet of interest, which I believe will translate into sales further into the event now underway,” he said.

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