Ever wondered why visual art is not as popular as music, movies, and literature? Introduction to visual arts always comes late in life. This has been a hindrance in promoting the beauty of visual art. But now there is ikonoTV, which aims to create art lovers using the power of TV broadcasting. The channel has been founded by Elizabeth Markevitch, who is a former specialist in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s. The channel, ikonoTV, is the world’s first HD station dedicated to broadcasting pieces of art. These won’t be any kind of TV shows or movies but will be photos of the actual painting. While broadcasting, the camera will sensually zoom over the various paintings. For better view and understanding, the camera will stay on each painting for approximately five minutes.
ikonoTV is a step towards making art accessible
The channel is accessible by SmartTV or Internet browser. It recently showed some stunning details of an Ingres-painted foot and light glistening atop a Monet pond. The streaming was a beautiful experience for art lovers and looked more like animated quality, as it only revealed certain parts of a painting. But the question is, how would ikonoTV make money? They have offered an exchange for museums. As the museums provide full broadcasting rights, the institutions get promotional material that is free of charge. If the artwork is copyrighted, Markevitch negotiates a contract directly with the artist.
“It started with a question: Why is art not as popular as music? Everyone has music in their pockets and you don’t have to be knowledgeable to collect it, rather it comes from having pleasure,” Markevitch said in a recent phone interview. This is what made her formulate the concept of ikonoTV as a means of breaking through the intimidation that high art can cause. It is basically MTV but for art. “People will get used to looking at art the same way they’ve become accustomed to listening to music,” Markevitch said.
Romanticizing art and promoting the love
To explain her point further, Markevitch made some beautiful points as she compared art to romantic attraction. “Art historians and critics are constantly telling us the story behind the work, which helps, but I can also look at a work without information and have my own personal relationship to that piece,” said Markevitch. “It’s like if you go to a party and immediately fall for someone you’re attracted to. You don’t know why, it’s just intuition. Afterwards, when you get to know the person better, maybe you’ll begin to understand why your gut brought you to this person. This is the same with art. You have to fall in love and be attracted to a work or type of art before you get to the knowledge,” she further added.
Last year, the ikonoTV app had over 400,000 downloads on SmartTVs. The app is quite popular in Saudi Arabia. This remains special due to country’s limited access to art, for cultural and religious reasons. Thus, ikonoTV is likely providing many viewers with their first exposure to art. “This is huge when you realize we’re talking about art here,” Markevitch concluded.
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