© 2015 Another Ballroom, Copenhagen Denmark

Be Creative Think Global

By Johannes Holt Iversen, Visual Artist & Owner of HOLT-IVERSEN

Imagine a contemporary art system, that are not bound by any fixed physical location nor the traditional boundaries of the white cube. It would be a system where the artist are the centered concern, where you can find your favourite works among various art dealers worldwide. Exhibitions would be travelling the world, but you could visit the ever evolving virtual space of the artist from wherever you like.

You would be able to browse through various works of art, watch how they are interacting in a space and read background information. You can watch current and previous exhibitions and if something catches your eye, you can reserve a meeting or simply buy the artwork up front. Questions can be raised directly to the artist instead of going through a gallerist or third-party representative.

© 2018 Femte til Venstre, Aarhus Denmark

This idea mentioned above was what initiated the platform HOLT-IVERSEN; as a visual artist I was always fighting with the old systems of selling art, first to get acknowledged as an artist, later to be taken in by galleries and lastly to work with museums. All did these elite circles rely on artists to work for nothing. All did they accept status quo, that the art scene were a fixed size of people with limited seats on the front row.

When I decided to pursue the life of an artist I decided to live of my work from the first day. With this decision I attended the art academy in Amsterdam, Gerrit Rietveld Academie and financed it entirely by selling paintings and works through online auctions and gallery sales. There were good times and there were tough times, but what I learned the most was that the old systems will either collabs or adapt.

It gave me a head start on what might happen to the art world; artist would run gallery-like structured constellations, whereas the traditional galleries would hire in artists on limiting contracts, as well as the museums merely would function as promotional platforms and research centres. So why not collect all the information an independent artist creates, instead of having it all spread out! One platform to access all works of art by an artist available worldwide! One platform to reserve and purchase art works of the artist, despite where the gallery or location of the art work currently was.

In the early 2017 I began to sketch out the idea that turned into HOLT-IVERSEN. With a collection of smaller art dealers and galleries spread out in Europe, there were works residing in Oslo, Amsterdam, Paris and Copenhagen. Now all made available online, all with the purpose to make an easier overview for art collectors worldwide.

I hope you will enjoy accessing this platform from time to time and discover monthly new works available throughout the world,
now made available online for everybody to discover!

Previous exhibitions and gallery activities

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Paris 2019
Hague 2019
Paris 2018

Commissions and office rentals

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2019