By Margaret Carrigan: Galleries across the globe are quickly scaling up their virtual offerings as the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic keeps their physical storefronts shuttered. For the big blue-chip dealers, this more often than not means launching digital platforms that have already long been in development.

Hauser & Wirth is the latest mega-gallery to unveil a virtual arm of its enterprise in the form of ArtLab, a new international initiative dedicated to developing projects at the crossroads of art and technology. Its first major development is a custom-built virtual reality (VR) modelling tool called HWVR, which will be used to present the gallery’s debut VR-based exhibition at the end of April. The show will also offer a virtually rendered preview of the gallery’s Menorcan outpost, which was announced last year and is slated to open as an artist residency and added exhibition space in 2021.

“The core ArtLab group is existing Hauser & Wirth team members who had untapped skills and who intimately understood working with artists,” Wirth tells The Art Newspaper. “We built upon this by drawing upon highly skilled experts and consultancy as needed. We have now implemented training so that we can expand the knowledge base within the gallery.”

Source: The Art Newspaper