“Through expression, we meet ourselves”
- Rick Rubin
Art is not a luxury. Art teaches us to feel. Art teaches us to think. Art makes you feel loved. Art makes you feel less alone. Art supports you through the end of a relationship or a passing of a loved one. Art shows you a different perspective. Art is a necessity. Art is a force for good. And the more art, the better.
Technology and the arts are symbiotic. From the printing press to the arrival of photography to digital tools like Photoshop, technology has consistently unlocked new art forms and movements, democratizing creativity along the way. Most recently, the advent of the social web gave artists a global platform, kickstarting a whole new generation of digital-first creatives. But these platforms came with caveats—creators face a gap between likes and real income, attention-optimized algorithms perpetuate harmful incentives, and platforms wield disproportionate power over creators.
With much fanfare, Web3 introduced a new paradigm: digital ownership. Since 2021 (when Gallery first launched) we have witnessed a historic revolution in art. Countless artists sold work for the first time in their lives, hundreds of thousands of people became first-time art collectors, and over $40 billion in value has been generated for creative works—all through the internet. In parallel, incredible technological progress has been made by our collaborators in the ecosystem. We now have a host of creative minting tools, can facilitate seamless transactions, and have caught the attention of institutions and galleries.
Yet despite this, crypto-based art is still niche. Many artists struggle to make sales, collectors lack ways to discover, and all participants across the globe can still fit into one big building.
The same social platforms that sparked the start of this revolution, today hold us back. We still share screenshots and jpegs. Artists struggle for engagement daily. Discovery is beholden to an algorithm built for attention. The technology is ready but the ways in which we interact and connect are still disappointingly similar to how they were over a decade ago.
If our gathering spaces don’t evolve with our creative infrastructure, we are stuck. Alongside many others, we seek to change this. With that, we unveil the next chapter of Gallery.
Introducing Gallery: The Social App for Art
This release marks the evolution of Gallery into a full social app built to share art.
Digital objects, or NFTs, go far beyond simply representing a single image or video. Digital objects are imbued with context — a name, collection, description, date, traits, the actual media. Collecting these objects reflects a deeper, more personal act than ever before. More importantly, these objects have built-in social graphs. The collector now has a relationship with the creator represented onchain, along with all the other collectors of the work.
In essence, digital objects represent a new medium of expression. And Gallery is the social app built natively for this medium. We have taken care to examine every detail from first principles to best represent how works should be shared, displayed, viewed, and interacted with. Here’s how our new app works:
You can post work you have either created or collected to our new feed. Here, they are displayed as the objects they are, not a jpeg. As you view the object, you can dive into the details to explore more. Soon, you will even be able to mint the object directly in-app. For artists, this means a new, authentic way to share your work with a specific audience of collectors.
Our feed algorithmically curates to your taste. Unlike a web2 feed, we focus on the things that you own or create, rather than simply follows and engagement. We don’t want your attention—we want to help you find art that you enjoy. Notably, as an artist you don’t have to come and “rebuild your audience.” By sharing on Gallery, you’re sharing directly to your collector base and community.
Our new collection pages on Gallery focus on community and context, not price. There are too many great projects with rich context between Twitter and Discord that are forgotten weeks after mint. By sharing on Gallery, all posts are archived on their respective collection pages so the story is never lost.
And you can do all this from your phone. We’re available on Testflight for iOS and soon will be available for everyone on the App Store and Android.
What’s Next
After a couple months of closed testing, we have just crossed 1K posts and are now releasing this product in Open Beta for everyone to try. We have a packed roadmap ahead that includes replies, mentions, discovery features, and more, and we are constantly updating and refining.
We believe art can change the world and we are on the precipice of a bright new future — help us create it. Download the Testflight here or sign up now at gallery.so and build with us from the ground up.
To help you get started, sign up, mint this blog post, and share it in a post introducing yourself.
We can’t wait to see what you create.
See you on Gallery,
Ps, Thank you to our early testers for contributing and sharing thoughtful feedback. Special thanks to motzko, duaneking, visualbuffets, mitchell, derekedws, cutbank, burgoon, alec, almar, kylodzi, oaklordone, jordanlyall, mchx, dark0, zaphodok, pixelpete, emodi, Figure31, RezaMilani, alexgedevani, pk, hamsun, qaulv