Confined to our homes, we can take a free digital stroll through Europe to admire these marvellous artworks

1. Louvre, Paris

Many of us aspire to see the collection in this famous museum. But while travel seems far, virtual reality is close. Louvre Museum unveiled an online gallery, featuring nearly 500,000 works from its prestiigous collections. The ‘Louvre Collections’ are a delight with a virtual tour of artifacts, jewellery, furniture, textiles, paintings and sculptures. You can also explore the palace, gardens and take the visitor trails.

2. Galerie Templon, Paris & Brussels

Founded in 1966 by Daniel Templon, the gallery gained recognition by exhibiting conceptual and minimal artists such as Martin Barré, Christian Boltanski, Donald Judd, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra. In the 1970s-80s, Daniel Templon introduced many important American artists to the French public: Dan Flavin, Ellsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and soon became one of the references in contemporary art in France.

Galerie Templon promotes a dialogue between established artists, international mid-career artists, and the experiences of younger artists. It has two exhibition spaces in Paris (30 rue Beaubourg and 28 rue du Grenier Saint-Lazare) and one in Brussels, Belgium.  

To overcome the early closure of our exhibitions in March 2020, we launched an online viewing room. Online exhibitions and viewing rooms allow us to maintain a fluid dialogue with our audience and clients, and to promote our artists, allowing us to even make some sales through these alternative means. However, aesthetic emotion is rooted in a physical confrontation with the art world. Moreover, it is the driving force behind art collectors. They choose works that they would like to live and share physical space with.

We have been participating in ART DUBAI since 2013. And it was our first physical art fair of 2021 too. We saw many of our usual middle-eastern collectors, all very happy to look at art for real and have in person conversations. Although there were less galleries and less international collectors in 2021, the show was well attended. We sold pieces by Ivan Navarro (price range $28-100K), Jitish Kallat ($6,000-$50,000) and Omar Ba ($ 50,000 – $ 70, 000).

The important change was the new location in the financial distric of Dubait. While having an art exhibition under a tent may sound less glamorous and festive than the hotel ballrooms on the beach, it proved to be an easy and practical crossroads for local buyers, expats, businessmen, international visitors. Over the years we have seen Dubai evolve. The market has become more sophisticated and it keeps attracting people from the entire region, from Lebanon to India.

3. Art Basel, Online Viewing Rooms, Switzerland

Since its inception in the 1970s, international art fair Art Basel has been integrating new practices and setting benchmarks in the art world. Created by Basel gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt, the inaugural edition had 90 galleries and 30 publishers from 10 countries. It was attended by 16,000 visitors.

In the 1980s, the art fair celebrated 150 years of photography–16 galleries from the International Association of Photography Art Dealers presented photographs. In the 1990s, the art film sector came to the fair.

In the 2000s, the Art Unlimited platform was introduced. It transcended the concept of the classic exhibition booth with an open-plan environment that hosts all types of ambitious contemporary media. Art Basel debuted in Miami Beach with 160 galleries from 23 countries and attracted 30,000 visitors. It launched Art Basel Conversations. In 2010, Art Basel presented its inaugural show in Hong Kong which attracted over 60,000 visitors.

And now, there will be Online Viewing Rooms to connect galleries with the global network of collectors and art enthusiasts.

4. Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The Uffizi Gallery is a complex comprising three museums–Uffizi, Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. They house gorgeous collections of art, precious artisan-made objects, books and plants belonging to the Medici, Habsburg-Lorraine and Savoy families. These date from Antiquity to the 20th century. Since the Renaissance, these three museum sites have been interconnected through the Vasari Corridor.

The palace was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici in the mid-16th century. The architect was Giorgio Vasari. The administrative section was ‘Uffizi’ (offices) for Florence’s tribunals, guilds, corporations and courts. The complex housed the art collection of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany for 200 years. In 1769, Grand Duke of Tuscany Peter Leopold opened it as a museum.

5. The National Museum in Krakow, Kraków, Poland

On 7 October 1879, the Krakow City Council passed the resolution to establish The National Museum in Krakow. It was the first national museum institution when the Polish people were deprived of their own statehood and country. Until the end of World War I. it was the only large museum accessible to the public.

The museum houses around 7,80,000 objects. Of these, over 3,00,000 belong to the collection of the Princes Czartoryski Museum and Library. The oldest exhibits date from prehistoric times. The core of the collection is Polish art (painting, sculpture, drawing, decorative art), numerous western European works, a collection of religious art related to the Orthodox Church, and valuable collection of oriental art, mainly from Japan. There are library collections such as old prints, manuscripts and cartography, numismatics and historical photographs. The Studio of the Iconography of Krakow with its collection of historical views and photographs of the city is a fascinating collection.

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P.S: All photographs are screenshots from museum and gallery sites, except Galerie Templon which were sourced from them.