Painting professor Denise Falk’s painting “Grace,” sold by ArtLink, now hangs in the Plaza Hotel in New York City.Photo courtesy ArtLink

Most fine artists, especially students, are looking for their big break. Last week Tal Danai, creator of ArtLink, came to SCAD to review work of students in the photography, painting and sculpture departments.

ArtLink is an art firm corporation that tries to help young artists sell their work. Danai looks all over the world for saleable art that may catch his eye. Danai might be SCAD students’ new best friend. He sat down to answer a few questions about his job and what he looked for while he was in Savannah.

District: In your own words, what is ArtLink?
TD: Art Link was launched 14 years ago with the less-than-modest aim of forming the world’s first market place for emerging artists, on one hand, and packaging contemporary art as cultural consumer product on the other hand. And we believe by doing those two things we’ll enable young artists to actually live off of what they chose to do in life, rather than wait tables, and will enable people to live with art that’s made in their lifetime without mortgaging their cars and houses for it.

District: “What are some of the other notable schools that you work with?”
TD: “If I start from the East Coast, it would be SVA, NYU, Pratt and Parsons. Then Maryland and Baltimore. RISD, Chicago Institute and Boston. The list goes on. There are about 20 in the US that I would consider very very good schools and yes we cover them all.”

District: What are you looking for from the artists who submit their work?
TD: When we see artists in 44 countries and 150 art academies continuously, what happens is that a work, somewhere out there, jumps up. And if it jumps up we stop, we look at it again and we try to understand; why did this one jump? And if we can make sense of why it jumped up, then we call it good.

And I can tell you from my experience, that the best work that I have seen are the works that the artists have dug the deepest to get to the most personal statement that they may have found and it is the most universal.

“Dixie,” another painting by Falk sold by ArtLink, also hangs in the PlazaPhoto courtesy ArtLink

District: What can you tell me about Ar2Go?
TD: It is where you purchase art (reproductions by the artists). That was the new thing about Ar2Go; the fact that we said that we don’t need your name to sell your art. We’ll sell it because we are trusted as a good source of emerging art. The other side of it was that the market that we so much wanted to develop was set already and the prices started coming up.

District: You have recently taken a break. What are some of the changes you have made since returning?
TD: We started the Ar2Go program and we moved into another commercial venue, which is our main commercial venue today. And that is managing the art side of major architectural projects with an expertise in hotels. It allows us to bring in enough funds to also hold continuous exhibitions and do other things for young artists. Perfect setup.

District: What do you want to accomplish now that you have come back?
TD: There are so many plans and programs that we have in our drawers that I don’t think I am going to see all of them. We tend to use our dreams as blueprints. What I expect us to be able to deliver is a steady continuous platform that has a different number of venues for the presentation and sales of works done by emerging artists.

Tal Danai is constantly looking to improve the emerging artist market. ArtLink has opportunities available for current unknown artists to take advantage of while in school, and once they graduate. For more information please visit their Web site.

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