Art Renewal Center (ARC), a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to skill-based training in the visual arts, is partnering with Sotheby’s to launch a virtual salon exhibit at Sothebys.com. Instead of showing the 14th International ARC Salon Exhibition live at Sotheby’s NY as planned, ARC is displaying work from the 21st Century Representational Art Movement online.
Enriching this virtual exhibit, 70 of the artists have participated in video interviews about themselves and their works, which ARC has edited into short 40-second to 3-minute mini-films. The videos and 99 works included in the exhibition come from around the world and collectively form a powerful story of the Representational Art Movement, totaling 2 hours of edited video footage. All this footage has been embedded directly into their newly designed digital catalog, creating a uniquely engaging virtual experience.
Each artist and story is different, but together they tell an overarching global story about the passion behind representational expression, life and the human condition as reflected in the art itself. Starting as only a murmur in the early 1980s, the Representational Art Movement has now become an undeniable force in the contemporary world, with thousands of students, artists and organizations reclaiming artistic elegance with poetry and grace. The virtual exhibition will be presented worldwide at Sotheby’s.com from July 13 to July 31, 2020. Click on any of the exhibition banners on the ARC website during the exhibition dates to view the virtual exhibit at Sothebys.com.
In addition, the virtual show includes three distinctive walkthrough exhibition spaces where viewers can see the curated show of all 99 works. Other featured topics cover the importance of representational art and why it is a good investment. A short video also captures the core philosophy of the movement including live footage of the exhibition while it was on view at the European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM) in Barcelona, Spain, this past winter.
ARC Partners With Fashion Week San Diego
The ARC has also partnered with Fashion Week San Diego® (FWSD), California’s largest traditional fashion week, to present “Art and Beauty Behind Fashion,” as part of this virtual event, where eight FWSD designers will debut their original couture outfits paired with and inspired by premier pieces from the 14th ARC Salon Competition, presented on socially distant models.
The distinguished ARC Salon Competition is the largest in the world for representational art, receiving more than 4,300 entries from 73 countries during the last cycle and spanning six continents. The eight winning paintings, paired with FWSD designers’ original looks, allows the artists to promote Contemporary Realism to a wider audience and expose the Representational Art Movement to top fashion designers around the world. In addition, this will allow FWSD designers to gain exposure to top art collectors and influencers around the world, creating an ideal partnership.