A man stands near an artwork by street artist Banksy prior to an Artcurial French auction house sale at in Paris on October 18, 2018. (Photo by Philippe LOPEZ / AFP)
Over the past nine years, Instagram has been changing the way we consume art, sometimes even propelling emerging artists to fame.
The image-sharing app, where the hashtag #art appears on more than 526 million posts, also allows outsiders to get an inside-look into prominent art institutions.
While recent studies have been pointing out the lack of diversity in major museum collections, some art-related Instagram accounts try to mend this imbalance, highlighting the work of non-male and non-white artists.
Here are a selection of five of accounts offering a unique and distinct vision into the art world:
The Swiss curator, who is also the artistic director of London-based Serpentine Galleries, boasts a sizable 270k following.
Obrist famously staged his first exhibition, entitled The Kitchen Show, in his kitchen, while he was a student of political economics at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
His account features photographs of handwritten doodles from his friends, including New York-based pop artist Sarah Morris, British artist Duggie Fields, American filmmaker David Lynch, and Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuña.
The anonymous British artist has an unpredictable Instagram account, where his 6.3 million followers discover his latest street art projects.
New artworks appear unannounced like his recent collaboration with British rapper Stormzy, for whom he designed a customised stab-proof vest ahead of his set at Glastonbury festival.
Although diverse in nature, Banksy’s artworks tackle timely socio-political themes, including consumerism, climate change and police brutality.
Higgie, who is a writer and co-editor of Frieze Magazine, dedicates her Instagram to women in the arts. Each day, she uploads an artwork by a female artist with a caption outlining her significance in art history across the ages.
Posts have been dedicated to the oeuvre of American writer and journalist Janet Flanner, Ecuadorian painter Araceli Gilbert de Blomberg, and Flemish artist Caterina van Hemessen.
Design critic for The New York Times Alice Rawsthorn describes her Instagram account as her “daily diary on design”, which is followed by 58.7k people.
Each week, she picks a different topic and illustrates it with an image accompanied with a detailed caption.
Rawsthorn sometimes focuses on prominent architects and designers from across the world, such as Marcel Breuer, Charlie Rennie Mackintosh, and Louise Brigham.
Artist and writer Danielle Krysa created her website The Jealous Curator in 2009, to highlight artworks by fellow contemporary artists that “made [her] jealous”.
Her Instagram account, which is followed by some 193k people, is an extension of the website, featuring a new international artist each day.
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