Art Basel announces Access, an Online Sales Platform

Access by Art Basel was created to raise awareness for and support meaningful donations to charities through primary artwork sales made in the Art Basel ecosystem. For each purchase request made on artworks in this sale, collectors will be required to pledge an additional contribution for charity, to go to their choice of The Miami Foundation or The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The donation is made in addition to the selling price of the artwork and begins at a minimum of 10% of the price of the artwork in the sale.

The first Access by Art Basel sale will open to the public from Monday, November 27, and requests can be submitted on artworks through Sunday, December 10. Visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach will be able to view the works included in the sale in-person at the fair from Wednesday, December 6. Works for exclusive sale on Access will be marked with a QR code in participating gallery booth.The Access by Art Basel sale will host over a dozen participating exhibitors at Art Basel Miami Beach 2023, including Pace Gallery and François Ghebaly with works by artists from their respective programs. Also included will be works by Hernan Bas at Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Katherine Bradford at kaufmann repetto, Wu Chi-Tsung at Sean Kelly, and Rafael Delacruz at Mitchel-Innes & Nash. Luhring Augustine will also enlist a work by Mark Handforth, alongside pieces by Jaider Esbell at Mendes Wood DM, Jenny Holzer at Sprüth Magers, Angel Otero at Hauser & Wirth, Kibong Rhee at Tina Kim, Maja Ruznic at Karma, and Chelsea Ryoko Wong at Jessica Silverman.

Access by Art Basel provides a secure, user-friendly platform whereby a customized charitable donation is embedded in each artwork sale. Through their personalized profile collectors will be able to browse artworks in the sale and place and track requests on available artworks. Collectors will also have the option to select their preferred charity and specify the amount they wish to contribute in donations. Final payment is processed directly on Access, and the gallery and the charity automatically receive their respective funds upon payment.

Proceeds from this sale will go to the collector's choice of either the ICRC or their option of one of three collective impact initiatives within The Miami Foundation: Arts Access Miami, LGBTQ+ Equity Fund, and Racial Equity Fund. Ahead of the launch of the sale, Art Basel has committed a lead contribution of USD 25,000 divided equally between The Miami Foundation and ICRC.

Noah Horowitz, CEO, Art Basel, said: 'The art community is deeply engaged in the world around it. We wanted to deliver a platform that meaningfully and effectively supports the causes that matter to our galleries and their artists, while allowing them to remain the beneficiaries of 100% of the sale on artworks. Access by Art Basel connects our clients to an expanded global audience of art patrons via an easy digital platform that simultaneously streamlines the process for collectors to buy with immediate and significant philanthropic impact.'

Bernadine Bröcker Wieder, CEO, Arcual, said: 'Access by Art Basel demonstrates what the Arcual team, comprising some of the most agile engineers and thinkers in the art and tech space, can build. The platform fully integrates philanthropic giving into art sales using our seamless payment-split technology. We are very excited to launch this product with Art Basel and look forward to delivering more impact-driven solutions for the art world.'