Article: "All the World’s a Gallery"
"No longer just for pop-music hopefuls, social media has become a way for big-name artists to prop up fresh talent.
The internet has for years allowed aspiring stars a way to circumvent the industry machine in order to hit it big (cases in point: Justin Bieber, Kate Upton). Now, that phenomenon is spreading to the otherwise insular art world, as new talents who post their work on Twitter and Instagram are attracting the attention — and business — of successful artists with influential followings of their own. The Canadian artist BP Laval began putting up one erotic drawing a day on Twitter this past spring “to create a structure to work within”; one morning, he woke up to a message from Richard Prince asking if any were for sale. Since then, Prince has retweeted the illustrations to his nearly 12,000 followers and showcased Laval’s work at the New York Art Book Fair stand of his gallery and publishing imprint, Fulton Ryder. For the Irish painterGenieve Figgis, having Prince as a Twitter follower led to Fulton Ryder publishing her first book, “Making Love With the Devil,” and to representation with Half Gallery in New York. And Andrew Pope, a New York-based artist, found an advocate in Raymond Pettibon, who has sung Pope’s praises (and prompted numerous sales) to his audience of more than 13,000 fans. The two went on to collaborate on a limited-edition zine, “Inside Outside Baseball.” While social media can help bridge geographic distance, it also offers access to key players in a world notoriously difficult for outsiders to penetrate. “I’m a guy with a pen, paper and an iPhone,” Laval says. “This is a story of social media cutting across boundaries.”"