A few of you have kindly and directly told us that we still need to explain, in simple words, what ARTEX is and why an artist should join. So we wrote this post to try to do exactly that.
Post a comment, reach out us directly, your feedback will help us improve the message, the product, and ultimately shape where ARTEX goes next.
What is ARTEX?
ARTEX is a home for your work.
You make art the way you already make it. Paint, code, camera, clay, whatever you use. Then you put it on ARTEX, and it stays there, with your name on it, for as long as you want.
That is the whole idea. A place where your work lives, where people who run art programs can find you, and where you get paid when your work is shown or sold.
We built it at CODAME after fifteen years of running festivals, print clubs, and hackathons with artists. We kept seeing the same problem, and we finally decided to fix it.
What problem?
Every opportunity starts from zero.
You get into a show. The show ends. You start over. You answer an open call. You get picked, or you don’t. The next call has no idea who you are. Ten years of work, and every door you knock on is a stranger’s door.
ARTEX remembers you. Your page stays up. The curator who found you for one program can find you again for the next one. The collector who bought one piece can follow what you make next. Nothing resets.
Why should I join?
Three plain reasons.
You get found. Curators, galleries, festivals, nonprofits, collectors, and venues all come to ARTEX looking for artists, and when they look, they see everyone here. Every new organization that joins is a new group of people who can find your work. You do nothing extra. You are already there.
You get paid. When a venue shows your work on their walls, 70 percent of what they pay comes to you. When someone buys directly from you, you keep 90 percent. These numbers are written down and they do not change on you.
You keep everything. Your copyright is yours, all of it, always. Nobody trains AI on your work unless you say so in writing. That is in the agreement you sign, not a promise on a web page.
Who else is here, and why does it matter to me?
Because the other people on ARTEX are how your work gets seen and paid for.
Organizations and curators run the programs. A festival, a gallery, an arts nonprofit, an independent curator putting a show together. Each one that joins brings its own audience and its own collectors, and each one looks at the artists on ARTEX when they choose who to show.
Venues show the work. An office lobby, a hotel, a public space. Each one is a wall where real art plays for real people, and the artist gets paid while it plays.
Collectors find and support you. Not just the artists one gallery decided to represent. Anyone on ARTEX.
More organizations, more places your work can be found. More venues, more places it can be shown and earn. More collectors, more people who can support you. You put your work up once. Everything else grows around it.
What does it cost me?
Nothing to join. Nothing to publish. Nothing to be found.
There is one optional thing called Studio, for $12 a month. It lets you take a finished piece and give it a living quality, so when it plays on a venue wall it shifts with the light in the room, or the sound, or the time of day. It does not replace any tool you already use. Your work gets found and shown without it.
Who is this for?
You, if you make things. Painter, photographer, coder, sculptor, animator, musician, writer, dancer, someone who does not have a word for what they do yet. Artist is a mindset before it is a job title.
This is one round of answers.
Let’s do the rest together. What is still unclear? What would make this worth your time? What is the one thing that would make you trust it enough to try?
Leave it in the comments. We will answer every single one.
And if you already know enough: join here. It takes a minute and costs nothing.
