Every year, CyberLab Karlsruhe, the IT accelerator of the state of Baden-Württemberg, presents the CyberChampions Award to the most innovative IT startups that were able to convince with their promising business model and their personalities. karlsruhe.digital visited the 2023 winners and portrayed them for our blog. We start with Awwt, the winning startup in the diversity category.
The fair trade art platform Awwt breaks with classic patterns of the art scene and puts the artists in the foreground. We spoke to Runan Dohrmann-Zhang, who founded the platform together with Henning Dohrmann-Zhang.
Awwt’s vision is to address the big problem in the art world: the exclusivity and restricted access of traditional galleries. These galleries only represent a small selection of artists and rely on an already established network to achieve success. Runan explains: “It is a few agglomerated gatekeepers who dictate global tastes. It’s extremely difficult for aspiring artists without a network to break through these barriers.”
This problem becomes particularly clear when someone belongs to an underrepresented group and lives in regions with limited art infrastructure. Runan, who worked in the white male-dominated London art world, has experienced these challenges firsthand.
Awwt is therefore committed to a power shift back to the artists by providing them with sales opportunities, attractive conditions and urgently needed resources. Because this is exactly what is missing from many existing sales platforms. They do not bring artists enough attention and do not support them in building their artistic existence.
Awwt: From vision to reality
The inspiration to found Awwt came to the founders during a cross-country trip from Germany to Japan. Runan, who had worked for art dealers and the Christie’s auction house in London, and her co-founder Henning, a former engineer at Mercedes-Benz, decided to combine their passions for art and technology. Henning, who said he was more interested in Giant racing bikes or Leica cameras at the time and had no access to the art world, found it through Runan.
With Awwt, the two wanted to create something that would suit both their generation and future generations. The platform sets itself apart from conventional galleries through the use of state-of-the-art technologies. “We use advanced algorithms to recognize the visual tastes of our users. This allows us to find the perfect piece of art,” explains Runan. “You can think of it a bit like Spotify for art. Ultimately, this is what sets us apart from many other sales platforms where there are hardly any quality controls and individual works of art are simply lost in the sheer mass.”
Runan and Henning Dohrmann-Zhang founded Awwt.
Awwt is well received in the art scene
When it comes to the artists, Awwt takes a radically different approach. The challenges for artists in traditional galleries are diverse: high commissions of up to 50 percent of the sales value, the demand for exclusivity and thus a dependence on the gallery, which usually works on a very local basis. Awwt breaks with all of these conventions: “We offer attractive conditions for artists. They keep the majority of the sales proceeds and are not subject to any exclusive contracts,” emphasizes Runan. “We even go one step further by covering logistics and cancellation costs for the artists.”
All of this has met with an overwhelmingly positive response from artists. “We now work with over 60 artists and counting,” says Runan. The artists appreciate Awwt’s patience and support, especially the regular and open communication and the personal relationships that are built. “It is particularly motivating that we already have evangelists who promote us in their environment and recommend us to others. Some artists have already been able to sell their first works – even though we are currently still in a testing phase.”
Daniel Bonaudo-Ewinger (*1986 in Kandel) studied fine art/painting at the Weissensee Art Academy in Berlin and graduated in 2021 with the title of master student. Bonaudo-Ewinger lives and works in the southern Palatinate. Photo: Oliver Wolff
“For me personally, the visibility and reach in the digital space through Awwt is enormously valuable,” reports Daniel Bonaudo-Ewinger, a young artist from Kandel. As the first in his family to graduate from high school and study, he is not only an educational achiever, but also has to establish himself without them in an art world that is all about relationships. In his final thesis as a master student at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, he also dealt with this challenge on a theoretical level and presented “Habitus”, a work whose content refers to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social origin.
He emphasizes how the playful operation of the platform simplifies access to painting and offers art lovers a new experience. Daniel particularly appreciates the transparent, uncomplicated collaboration with Awwt, which respectfully supports his artistic independence. “The platform can revolutionize the art market by making art more democratic and open,” adds the 37-year-old.
Awwt wants to reach everyone
Another important aspect that is part of Awwt’s philosophy is diversity. Winning the CyberChampions Award 2023 in the area of diversity underlines this. “We owe the CyberChampions Diversity Award 2023 to our artists. We are incredibly proud to have so many professional, Germany-based artists on board who come from 15 ethnic groups, the majority of whom are female or from BIPoC communities.”
The founders of Awwt also use their experiences from living and working in different countries to ensure that the platform not only appeals to people in Germany, but all over the world. “Our goal is to make art accessible to a wider audience – not just an elite group,” Runan tells us. Their goal is to tear down walls and borders. For this reason, they train the algorithm underlying Awwt with a gender-diverse and broad demographic spectrum of users from around the world. In this way, they ensure that their AI actually reflects the world we live in and is not subject to any bias.
Awwt has big plans for the future: “Our mission is to offer the smartest art buying experience while uniting the best artists in our fair trade ecosystem,” says Runan. She plans to initially establish the platform in Germany and the EU and then expand it to the UK and Chinese markets. Runan observes a shift in the art world where artists have increasingly more options and believes technology plays a key role in this change.
This article was published in cooperation with karlsruhe.digital.