The initiative is the brainchild of Haunch of Venison co-founder Harry Blain and former Saatchi Online CEO Robert Norton, and it creates a platform for the electronic trade of high-resolution images and videos by some of today’s most in-demand artists. For the price of a DVD, you can own an image by Damien Hirst; for the price of a tank of gas, a Tracey Emin neon; and for the price of a pair of jeans, a Bill Viola video.

The cooperation of these artists is certainly altruistic, and it also requires a tremendous concession of control in the display of their work. Is the “aura” of the artwork lost when used as a desktop background or screensaver? How exactly will the owners of these images enjoy them?

One thing is certain: collectors of these images can enjoy art with less responsibility for maintenance. Digital works are an anomaly in the art market, being immune to the tangible threats facing traditional art. A collector can neglect an electronic image for months, years, or even decades and find it perfectly preserved—provided one’s hard drive is still operating.

Since the number of editions for each series is in the thousands, rarity is out of the question for collectors. In such an uncompetitive market, the buyers are most likely to be fans, not speculators—but what exactly will they own?

One can easily dispute the difference between a painting and a photograph of a painting. But a screenshot of a digital image and a digital image? s[edition] provides authenticity documents that will be imperative for any re-sale of these works in absence of a digital provenance thumbprint.

Criticism of the company may be more a matter of reluctance to accept a trend toward media that embrace new technology. One imagines the reaction of music lovers to the phonograph or theater aficionados to the motion picture.

For video art, this innovation is most promising, and particularly so for works originally conceived for this format like Shepard Fairey’s Dìa de los Muertos (2008), rather than documentary ones like Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God (2007).

See for yourself here.

Claire Tinguely-Rubin is a Sotheby’s Institute graduate in Art Business and a specialist in Italian contemporary art.

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Women are Heroes - Phnom Penh (2009) by JR. Image courtesy TED Prize.

Enigmatic French Artist Humanizes Global Strife in Unexpected Locations; Wins $100,000 TED Award

New York—The 27-year-old guerilla artist known only as “JR” has joined the ranks of Bill Clinton and Bono in receiving the prestigious TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Award, which allots winners $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World (http://www.tedprize.org/about-tedprize). JR’s widely acclaimed, large-scale street art earned the recognition of the international nonprofit due in part to its impressive scope and playfully subversive tactics, but more importantly, for its deeply humanitarian ethos. Always surprising and often commentarial, JR’s work has been praised by TED director Amy Novogratz for redefining the way in which we display and view art.

The French photograffeur (graffeur meaning “graffiti artist”) debuted in 2006 with a project entitled Portrait of a Generation. The project seized the infrastructure of upscale Parisian neighborhoods as its canvas, plastering the city with enormous black-and-white photographs of inner-city youth. The artist’s personal website (http://jr-art.net/) proudly notes that the initially illegal artwork was embraced by City Hall.

In 2007 JR traveled to the Middle East, where he mounted Face 2 Face—whimsical portraits featuring rabbis, priests, and imams—on buildings in eight cities, including both sides of the wall that divides Israel from the West Bank. In Kenyan slums, JR launched Women, a tribute to the hope and tenacity of the female population, and in Brazil, his art blended powerfully with the favelas’ ubiquitous makeshift abodes. Other works have been achieved in China, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Stressing the vital role anonymity plays in his work, JR’s staunch protection of his identity has earned him comparisons to the roguish master of disguise, Robin Hood. At the TED conference in March 2011, he will announce his intentions for the use of the prize money.

Catherine E. Bailey

October 18, 2010—Chris Boot, author, editor, and seasoned photographer, has been appointed Executive Director of the internationally celebrated Aperture Foundation. He will succeed Juan García de Oteyza in January 2011.

Founded in 1952, Aperture’ s mission is to support and attract public attention to the art of photography. The nonprofit’ s publishing house boasts over 500 titles, and also produces the quarterly Aperture magazine. The Foundation additionally sponsors traveling exhibitions and lecturers. In 2005, Aperture opened its own 3,000-square-foot gallery in the Chelsea arts district of New York City, which features work by a wide range of international artists.

Boot brings a wealth of experience to his newly appointed position. Holding Bachelor’ s degrees in both Photography and English Literature, he draws from an interdisciplinary background that has distinguished him in a number of fields. From 1984 to 1990, he served as the Director of London’ s Photo Co-op (now Photofusion), a resource center and gallery. For the next eight years, he worked for Magnum Photos as the Director of both the London and New York branches. He then went on to become the Editorial Director of Phaidon Press, and in 2001, he founded his own publishing company, Chris Boot Ltd.

Texts released by Boot’ s company, which publishes “ contemporary titles by photographers pushing the boundaries of the medium alongside books that seek to reveal the history of photography afresh,” include two recipients of the ICP Infinity Award: Lodz Ghetto Album (2004) and Things as They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955 (2005). Boot is also the author and editor of Magnum Stories, published in 2004.

Celso Gonzalez-Falla, Chairman of Aperture’ s Board of Trustees, has expressed enthusiasm in welcoming Boot to the Foundation, noting that his unique set of qualifications will be an asset as the nonprofit approaches its 60th anniversary.

CATHERINE E. BAILEY