UBU by Pol Kurucz
There’s a revamped art-streaming app called Loupe, and New York Magazine recently featured a preview of it, claiming “This App Is Like Spotify for Art Lovers.” Former music producer Dot Bustelo is the founder, and she along with her managing partner Karrie Bran have updated the global app, which NY Mag reports “is currently the most downloaded lifestyle app on Apple TV in 40 countries,” as it delivers “an ongoing loop of artwork by up-and-coming contemporary photographers and visual artists… Art and photography are organized into channels by color or theme — such as fashion-focused, abstract, hyperreal — to create ‘moods’ for the viewer.”
The experience of surfing Loupe and picking a theme — “Place I’ve Never Been,” “Living Creatures,” “Whimsical” — feels like the almost inevitable aesthetic mashup of pre-programmed Apple screen savers, Instagram art, DeviantArt, National Geographic, a Target TV commercial, and mostly digestible art-fair fare. Each image gets the Ken Burns style pan effect, and of course everything is for sale. You don’t need a subscription to start streaming. Says Bustelo: “It’s giving people who are streaming a way to get introduced to new art while they might even still be at home.”
