Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/86796
Paddle8 co-founders Alexander Gilkes and Aditya Julka. Just like in fashion, the art world is taking to the Web to dialogue with its clients. Net Gains Paddle8 co-founder Alexander Gilkes lets us in on the conversation. BY RACHEL WOLFF As the art world has slowly but surely embraced the necessity of a life online, a crop of ambitious young entrepreneurs have actively sought out the most effective and enduring ways in which galleries, auction houses and even non-profits can migrate to the Web. Launched officially in May 2011, Paddle8 has been one of the buzzier of such endeavors, starting initially as a hub for curated selling exhibitions. Now, Paddle8 is reworking its model, focusing more intently on the buyer experience. The idea is to provide a tool for galleries and collectors whereby the process of finding and buying art can happen in an open, streamlined and traceable way. Paddle8 (which can be joined by vetted request and invitation only) hosts online previews of art fairs, spotlights goings-on in galleries and museums, provides access to non-profit benefit auctions, and offers dealers a ready-made platform through which they can sell their work. It's a complex, multi-tentacled model, to be sure, but with dozens of high-powered partners (Gagosian Gallery, White Cube, Salon 94, the Armory Show and NADA Miami, among them), plus $4 million in newly invested venture capital funds and upwards of 100,000 page-views per day, it certainly seems to be working. The company' s SoHo offices have all the characteristics of any young, hip, energetic start-up: good address; pretty people; slick, minimalist design; rows instead of cubes and a healthy hum of activity. It shares its considerable loft-like space with Tender, the Web design company that crafted its site. The company will relocate later this year to a space of its own on the Lower East Side. Alexander Gilkes conceived of Paddle8 while working as the global marketing director (and Two works from the Flora portfolio, Enteromorpha Intestinalis, left, and Hydrangea Macrophylla, right, from the recent Paddle8 sale in collaboration with SHOWstudio Shop in London of Nick Knight's fine art photography. 76 BAL HARBOUR IMAGES COURTESY OF PADDLE8