Dear valued partner,
If we haven’t met, my name is Dustyn Kim, and I lead Artsy’s marketplace partnerships business. I’d like to start by wishing you and your team a very happy new year from all of us at Artsy—here’s to an excellent 2022!
I’d also like to thank you for partnering with us and helping create a more open art industry. As you may know, Artsy’s mission is to expand the art market to support more art and artists in the world, and every single one of our partners directly contributes to that mission. We couldn’t do it without you.
At Artsy, the last year was full of firsts, milestones, and records as we continued our work to grow the art market. Here are some of my favorite highlights from the past twelve months.
Artsy in 2021, by the numbers
If one word could sum up the art industry in 2021, it’s “hybrid.” As the physical art world reopened, collectors showed us how integrated the once-discrete online and offline art collecting processes have become—with art lovers coming to Artsy all year long to browse and purchase works, or to follow artists they discovered at a gallery or fair.
We welcomed over 350,000 new users to Artsy in 2021 and now have more than 2.3 million unique visitors from over 190 countries to our website and apps each month. Artsy’s social media presence also grew this past year, with our social accounts reaching a combined following of over 4.5 million—the most for any art business.
We partnered with over 3,500 galleries and nearly 70 fairs this year. These partners benefited from the growth in Artsy users, with artwork pageviews up 20% on average and Buy Now and Make Offer orders up over 200% relative to 2020. Additionally, 75% of works on Artsy now have public pricing—showing just how far our industry has come in meeting collector demand for transparency and ease-of-purchase.
In addition to driving more sales for our partners, Artsy raised over $16.5 million in funds to support nonprofits. This includes a work by Julie Mehretu sold on Artsy for $6.5 million to benefit the Art for Justice Fund. The result broke the artist’s auction record and set a new benchmark for any online art marketplace.
A big year for new launches
The results I just highlighted wouldn’t have been possible without the product updates, marketing campaigns, and other initiatives that our team has been working on to improve the Artsy experience for both our partners and collectors. Here are some of the bigger projects we launched in 2021.
-
Artsy for Android and iOS: With the debut of our first-ever Android app in the Google Play Store this May, and improvements to our iOS app, Artsy app installs grew by 50% in 2021.
-
Artsy Shipping: The smarter, simpler way to ship Buy Now and Make Offer artworks to collectors launched in the U.S. this fall, with more regions to follow.
-
Fairs Refresh: A new design brought personalized artwork rails, filtering options, and slots for curated collections to all fair pages on Artsy.
-
Secure Checkout: We added a suite of updates—Make Offer in Inquiries, Seller Protection, and automatic tax integration for sales to U.S.-based collectors. I’m excited to share that we’ll be expanding these tools globally in 2022.
-
The Artsy Vanguard 2021: The fourth edition of our annual list launched during Miami Art Week with its first-ever exhibition, featuring works for sale by the 20 featured artists.
-
Trove Exhibition: Also in Miami, we partnered with AmEx to exhibit works from Trove—our weekly selection of works by emerging and sought-after artists.
Diversity, equality, and inclusion
Finally, I’d like to update you on our progress towards addressing systemic racism in the art industry. In 2020, we made a public commitment to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within our company and our industry, and have been making persistent progress towards our goals.
In 2021, we focused our efforts on creating critical exposure for artists and gallery owners of color. We’re growing the presence of underrepresented artists on our platform by adapting our algorithms to address historical imbalances and prejudice in the art market and in our world. This includes increasing the diversity of recommended artists in our user onboarding and engaging our collectors and art lovers with multi-layered campaigns for Pride Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, AAPI Heritage Month, and more.
Our efforts to make the art world fairer and more inclusive wouldn’t be possible without a diverse and inclusive employee population. In the past 12 months, we’ve consistently ensured that 40–50% of candidates at the interview stage are from racially diverse backgrounds, significantly increasing the overall diversity of the broader team.
Looking ahead to 2022
As we settle into the new year, I feel extremely optimistic about the continued growth of our marketplace, and I can’t wait to share more news with you in the coming months.
Thank you again for partnering with Artsy in 2021—and here’s to even more success in 2022.
Warmly,
Dustyn Kim
Chief Revenue Officer, Artsy
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.