There will always be a debate about whether art can be affordable. I am firmly, firmly in the yes camp—beauty is a pretty relative thing, don't you think? Thus, the brilliance of sites like 20x200.com.
Sell fine art prints over the Internet? No VC would seed this idea, most wouldn’t even take a meeting. This is one of those cases where execution made the difference. Bekman made it work from scratch. Now 20x200 has a track record and cash coming in. Now she can raise money to expand.
"I love the idea of taking the friction out of the art world,” said Mr. Conrad. “A lot of people want to buy nice things, but don’t know how. Jen has built a business from that, which is growing very nicely and has a lot of repeat customers.”
Jen Bekman, site creator and gallery owner, has since mixed up the editions and prices, but the founding principle remains true: Artists and people looking to buy art have an open marketplace in which to play.
Jen Bekman, proprietor of 20x200.com and owner of Jen Bekman Gallery in downtown New York, is not only a bold advocate of art for the masses, she's also a powerhouse dealer, curator, and design maven.
The New Yorker's art editor, saw the prints edition I had done with Jen Bekman's 20x200.com and found cover potential in such images.
Mount’s canvases move beyond the obvious interest in who someone is reading to what they are reading, in a visual sense. [Describing Jane Mount's The Ideal Bookshelf series]
It's a smart way to collect art [DIY Network host Amy Devers on 20x200]
No matter the event, they say, the gift should speak directly to the person or the relationship and, if possible, be one of a kind. [Describing gift giving and featuring 20x200 artist Jason Polan's work.]
His design — the slogan “Get Excited and Make Things” under a crown that includes wrenches — became a Web hit, leading to a T-shirt from Howies, a Welsh clothing brand, and a set of prints sold on 20x200.com. [Describing how Matt Jones' Get Excited and Make Things went from being a slogan to a 20x200 edition]
Striking, affordable artwork is just a click away, thanks to two great websites. At 20x200.com, you'll find limited-edition works on paper by contemporary artists.
Jen Bekman, who keeps a gallery in New York, featured Sarah McKenzie's crisp paintings of partially-built structures at NEXT; she also appeared on a panel to discuss her 20 x 200 project, whereby limited editions of artists' works are sold for as low as $20 via an online outlet....Perhaps the democratic battle cry of ‘art for everyone' is beginning to ring true, after all.
Collecting art is a wonderful pastime but can often be cost prohibitive. With the help of Jen Bekman and her website, www.20x200.com, it is easy to find interesting art pieces for reasonable prices.
Support artists directly and discover relatively affordable pieces at the same time!
But before you blame your apartment’s drab décor on the spiraling economy, check out this amazing site: 20x200. New York gallery owner Jen Bekman is bringing limited edition, covet-worthy originals to the masses through her online endeavor.
[A] great source for finding art easily and affordably.
The best part about 20x200.com is that it's not only providing collectors with cheap art, it's providing new talent with exposure and income: profits are split evenly with the artists minus production costs.
Acquiring art can be tough for the discriminating neophyte: "Afforable" usually just means cheap (or lame), while the "real" variety is still sold only in intimidating, expensive galleries. Bekman's virtual gallery, which draws on her network of seriously talented emerging artists, nixes that dilemma.
For budding collectors, 20x200 beats a mid-afternoon splurge at the vending machine any day.
Sounds too good to be true: great art for twenty bucks....Without a doubt, the most democratic—and addictive—way to buy art.
Her idea was to afford anyone, regardless of location or occupation, the chance to become an art collector...She has already found homes for over 14,000 prints.
Less than a year after 20x200 launched, the site has been an unqualified success: over 14,000 prints have been sold to date, to a customer list that includes artists, celebrities and respected collectors from around the world. The site has become an important corollary to Jen's New York gallery, and a vital part of her ongoing mission to champion emerging artists.
It is always exciting to find a new place, but this one was particularly beautiful because of the red peppers he had drying on the ceiling, which was blackened with the smoke from the small stove. I was really excited about it, because I knew this was going to be one of the major pictures. The daylight gives exactly the atmosphere I want to capture. Afterwards I said to my guide: "You know what? We're not going to look any more today. This was such a beautiful moment that I don't want to push my luck." [Photographer Bert Teunissen describing his most memorable image for the series, My best shot.]
I found myself scouring recent issues of ELLE Decor for chic ways to reinvent the 200 sq ft I like to call "home", visiting MOMA for creative inspiration and signing up for a continuing education abstract oil painting class with half a dozen 70-year old women this summer. In my creative quest I came across 20x200...While I'm not seeking one of the Sex and the City coined "three" (a job, apartment or boyfriend), after this new find I vote to add a fourth- extended wall space.
There is nothing intrusive or especially intimate about these images. Berman does not invite her subjects to let down their guard, but rather offers them a chance to be seen on their own terms. [Describing photographer Nina Berman's Purple Hearts]
Often the best ideas are the simplest, and the simplicity of 20x200 has generated a lot of buzz from magazines such as Dwell and ReadyMade, and sites such as Boing Boing and Apartment Therapy. It’s also generated plenty of sales: In March, small-size prints by Colin Blakely and Bert Teunissen sold out in less than a week.
I love www.20x200.com....Archival pigment prints of their original works are created by top quality artisan printers and shipped to you via Priority Mail for $20. Yes, that’s right. $20!
Bekman, who once couldn't get an Internet job, has become a star in the digital universe. At South By Southwest this month, her old Internet friends bestowed on her the coolest adjective in their lexicon: "Disruptive." Her Web site, they said, is changing the way the art world works....And that's impressed the art world, where once she was an outsider. For Christmas, a Museum of Modern Art curator bought 20x200 Christmas presents for his staff....Even hardcore art lovers love a bargain.
To demystify art-buying for people who’ve never been to (or maybe even heard of) Art Basel, Nolita gallerist Jen Bekman launched in September 20x200.com, a portal for non-millionaires who want to decorate an apartment with real—and admirably cheap—art.
Almost at once, the site was in the black and gaining attention.
Five and a half months later, it counts among its customers art collectors from around the world, dozens of magazine writers and editors, a MoMA executive and many artists, including well-established ones like Brian Ulrich and Alec Soth.
Jen Bekman, lauded curator of emerging artists, takes her Soho gallery experience online, selling carefully selected limited-edition prints. We like the wildlife drawings by 21st-century Audubonista Carrie Marill.
It's a double shot of Joe today. That would be Joe Holmes, the extraordinary eye behind the lens of Joe's NYC. An image of his called Prospect Park is part of gallerist Jen Bekman's 20x200 series—limited editions at affordable ($20) prices. This is one of his most captivating images, and that's saying something. [Describing Joe Holmes' Prospect Park #2 ]
Possibly the single best affordable art project we've ever seen! Every artist should do one! Congrats Jen.. MAO hearts Jen Bekman!
Jen Bekman is not one to sit still. She is working on developing her database “List of Women Speakers for Your Conference” and a website dedicated to a Bowery arts district. In the meantime, she hopes 20x200 will encourage people to consider themselves collectors. “Until you’ve actually bought something and understood the specialness of it, I think there’s big shift with that. With 20x200 it’s a way that anyone can try it.”
Yes, we gab a lot about finding cool, original-yet-affordable stuff for your home. Maybe it's because we hate the idea of you living in an apartment with sparse, white walls, or even worse, some framed Van Gogh poster that your parents forced you to buy at MoMA. Enter our new hero, Lower East Side gallery owner Jen Bekman, and her Web site, 20X200.
What are you people waiting for? Beyond the solid curating, Jen Bekman has done a wonderful job with all the identity work around 20x200. When your prints arrive it really is an impressive production.
It is a new way to think about buying art, and we like it. 20x200 is a very elegant, Web 2.0 sort of way of bringing people who need art in contact with people who sell their art.
Consider it a gateway to springing for those Rothkos.
New York gallery owner Jen Bekman is fed up with the notion that a $5,000 price tag on art is a bargain. So after nearly four years of running her eponymous Soho space, Bekman, a long-time supporter of emerging photographers, set out to offer aspiring collectors something a bit easier on the pocketbook.
Jen Bekman’s new 20x200 project is a wonderful resource for affordable prints. I’m loving this “ny.07.#20” print by Jennifer Sanchez...Such a fun idea.
I know, I know. Some art expert probably told you not to buy prints, because multiples don't appreciate as much as unique works. So what? Personally, I think prints are the BEST thing for a new collector, because they're relatively affordable and easy to resell if your tastes change later on (which they almost always do.)
It means if you have access to the Internet, and $20, you can have a work by an emerging artist. It means no more art from IKEA hanging on your walls. No more blank walls. No more excuses.
Whatever reservations I have about the value of 20x200 to the participating artists and photographers, from a purely materialistic impulse, it's hard to pass up a 16"x20" Tema Stauffer print for $200.
By melding the inclusiveness of internet commerce and nonprohibitive prices with the exclusivity of a curator acting as quality control, Bekman ensures that new collectors can be confident that the "buy" button will not lead to clicker's remorse.
Bekman realized there was an ever-widening gap in the price points between what the typical gallerygoer would pay and what her friends would shell out for original artwork. She devoted her attention to not only nurturing up-and-coming talents, but also making pieces from established artists accessible to a wider audience.
20x200 launches July 27, and the lineup so far is pretty damn sweet—artists having already signed on include Youngna Park, Eliot Shepard, Zoe Strauss and Brian Ulrich
20X200...raises interesting questions about the value of art, the boundary between the inclusive and the exclusive, the state of cultural expertise these days, and the possibility that as products become more like art, art is becoming more like products.
If you’re a lover of art, or simply want to taste the thrill of collecting (and it is indeed thrilling), the internet offers a wide array of opportunities to acquire all kinds of excellent pieces, often at surprisingly affordable prices.