Starting May 10th, you can get your very own hands on a domain name branded exclusively for artists and creative professionals. Aimed at those wishing to instantly, and easily, identify themselves within the international arts community and on the web, .ART is much more than just a new extension.
It is dubbed as a top-level domain name specific to a select audience, and a way to organize and strengthen the professional art world online. For many, it will serve as an exhibition space, and also provide a support network to those involved in the community. It’s also as short as .COM and just as easy to remember.
And as it turns out, this idea of founder Ulvi Kasimov’s has already proven to be hugely popular, with the amount of name requests having temporarily shut down the website until it’s workload capacity was increased. Hundreds of addresses have already been sold around the world, with several famous institutions already making the switch. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is among one of the first to change their address (to stedelijk.art), and the Marina Abramovic Institute can now be found online at mai.art. Hauser & Wirth, the Louvre, Sotheby’s, Guggenheim, and Tate are among those soon to launch their new .ART sites and e-flux have jumped on board to help promote the new digital address and plan their launch.
But .ART is not only limited to those in the gallery world, or even the applied or fine art professions for that matter. If you are working in literature, film, music or even education, registering with .ART will automatically give your website a target audience, helping showcase your work more effectively to those you want to see it.
Because this domain is a new release, it means thousands of addresses will become available that hadn’t existed before, resulting in more original and creative urls. After May 10th, specific names will be able to be purchased at a one-off premium price that varies depending on the popularity and length of the word chosen, and will get more expensive as demand increases. The minimum registration time is one year and you will automatically have the option to renew every year through the site.
If you already have a domain name for your website, you can still purchase a .ART version and redirect it to your existing website, with the added benefit of opening up your site to more traffic. And because “art” is a heavily searched term already, having it as a domain name will promote your site in search results.
You can find out more about how to acquire an address at art.art, but you’ll want to do it quickly before your first option disappears. You can also search here to check that your chosen name or word is still available.