The Saatchi Gallery
However many people come through the doors of the brand spanking new today I can guarantee that it won't be as many as are estimated to have visited their website. The site is the top ranked art gallery website by the online statistics company , and they aren't backwards about broadcasting the fact - the Saatchi Online homepage currently shouts "HITS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS: 72,264,758. RANK TODAY IN THE WORLD'S TOP 50.000 WEBSITES: 224". Alexa is a controversial way of ranking websites as it measures the activity of users who have installed the Alexa Toolbar, and there's no guarantee that they are representative of internet users as a whole, but there's no denying how impressive the figures are.
Also, despite my caveat, it's possible to draw some interesting conclusions by comparing like with like, and what really stands out for me is where users seem to be coming from - UK users aren't even in the top 25 countries, nor are those from the US. Here's a rundown of the top 10:
Saatchi-gallery.co.uk users come from :
India 10.0%
Japan 9.0%
Egypt 7.8%
Indonesia 5.4%
Mexico 5.3%
Brazil 4.7%
Thailand 4.1%
China 4.0%
South Korea 3.9%
Pakistan 3.4%
This isn't the case if you look at figures for (one third from the UK) or the (the same).
So what is going on? All three galleries have very good websites, providing plenty of information about their exhibitions and enabling people to look at pictures online and interact with exhibitions. I mentioned Tate's recently, but they have also been filming material for their - interviews, talks and behind-the-scenes tours. All shot to quite a high standard. is a very different proposition - it feels a much more rough and ready, and includes a lot more 'event' material from art openings. Saatchi's unique selling point appears to be its global focus and encouragement of user generated content.
They have a regularly updated , with posts from around the world, but the most activity seems to be around the places where artists can create their own profiles, sell work online and submit their work to - a weekly competition in which users vote for their favourite artwork by a member of the community. The winner gets a cash prize and will now also have their work displayed in the physical Saatchi Gallery. If you're not an artist you can still , which are also published according to public vote (without the incentive of a financial prize) and there is an to upload their students' work and take part in a prize. As a quick test I did a search for my old school, which didn't feature, but my brother's school had uploaded some art works.
Significantly, in 2007 Saatchi Online launched a dedicated - specifically designed with Chinese users in mind rather than simply being a translated version of the standard website. It's a sign of massive ambition, and I'd be interested to know what you think of the scale of what the Saatchi Gallery is trying to achieve. I think it's exciting, but do you agree?
Back in the physical world, Simon - who looks after visual arts for The Culture Show - went to the opening night and said the following:
" is filled with large-scale, attention-grabbing pieces, from Shen Shaomin's striking skeletons of mythical creatures to Zhang Dali's hanging casts of immigrant workers. For me though it was Cuban Sugar, a fragmented painting by Li Songsong, that drew my attention away from the crowds, evoking the subtly shifting moods and competing agendas at play in a Chinese trade meeting with Cuba."
A selection of images from the exhibition set to music
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