The Art Coefficient is a single figure that summarises an artist's standing,
worked out from what is actually recorded about their career rather than from
opinion. It is the number the platform is named after, and it is the thing most
artists come to ARTup to see.
Artists, above all. It is also read by the people who deal with artists: a
gallery deciding whether to show someone, a collector deciding whether to buy,
a curator building a group show.
Your recorded career. Where you studied. Where your work has been shown, and
whether that was a solo show, a two-person show, or a group exhibition. What has
been written about you and where. Prizes you have won. Works taken into public
collections. Results when your work has come up at auction.
The platform also works out a reputation for each account, but your reputation
does not currently change your Art Coefficient.
Two things follow from what goes in, and they are worth being clear about.
The score reflects what is entered and supported, not everything you have
ever done. An exhibition nobody recorded does not count, however important it
was. This is the single biggest thing artists can act on: a fuller, better
evidenced record is a truer score.
The score is about the artist, not a price tag on any one work. It does not
tell a buyer what a particular canvas is worth.
See where you stand, and watch it move. Your value is recalculated as your
record grows, so adding a show or a publication changes it.
Get an estimate before committing. There is a free way to see roughly where
you would sit before you commit to anything.
Get a certificate of your value. When you need the figure to carry weight
outside the platform, you can have it certified for 5,00 EUR (the price is set
by the platform). Certification needs an Art Coefficient to exist: if there is
none yet, you are told so and your payment is not used up, so you can certify
again with the same payment once your score is available.
A certificate is frozen. The value on the certificate is the value at the
moment you paid. Changes you make to your record afterwards do not alter a
certificate that has been issued. Your live score keeps moving, but the
certificate stays as it was. To get a certificate with your updated value,
certify again with a new payment. The new certificate then replaces the old
one as your current certificate.
Let people find you from the certificate. The certificate carries a QR code
that leads to your public artist page. Each time someone scans it, the scan is
counted, and you are told that your code has been scanned. The verification of
a certificate shows the same frozen value that is printed on it, so the
certificate and its check always agree.
Records in dispute do not count. A record that is in an open contradiction
does not count towards your scores until the contradiction is fixed. While a dispute with another user is open,
both records involved are left out until it is resolved. Validating your own
record yourself does not add to your scores. See "Your Record, Mentions and Referrals".
Sometimes there is simply not enough recorded to produce a figure at all, and
the platform will say so rather than invent one. Sometimes a figure exists but
rests on very little, and you will be told that too. A score standing on a
handful of entries is not the same as one standing on many, and ARTup does not
pretend otherwise.
A defensible summary of your career that someone else can look at, and a clear
sense of what would improve it. The work you put into recording your history is
the work that moves the number.