One year of artplace on Substack

and a taste of what's to come

Apr 01, 2025

“Happy Monday! It’s officially spring…” were the opening words of our very first Substack post, exactly one year ago today on April 1, 2024. If you were one of the 11 people who received that first email, thank you for sticking with us.

So here we are again - Happy Tuesday! And yes, it’s officially spring.

As we transition into longer and (hopefully) warmer days, we’re taking a moment to reflect on our first year on Substack. We’re taking stock of what we’ve accomplished so far and what we’re planning for the future.

To start that story, we need to look back to lockdown 2020, when we first began posting on Instagram, before Substack was even on our radar.

At the time, we couldn’t shake the feeling that spamming our personal Instagram stories with art was either alienating or, judging by our DMs, downright confusing to our mostly non-art-loving friends. With galleries closed, global lockdowns in effect, and no one to chat about art with in person, an anonymous Instagram account became the perfect outlet for sharing whatever art-related thoughts were on our minds. That urge to post into the social media abis was first sparked by Lee Krasner’s biography. Her connection to the government’s support for artists during the Great Depression of the 1930s was a parallel to the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the need for government intervention felt both uncertain and impossible to ignore.

There was no real direction for our Instagram, no strategy, just a stream of art-related thoughts, and that remains true today. If you like unfiltered, sporadic art musings, you can still find us over there:

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A post shared by @artplace_____

Throughout the years, a desire to share longer-form content grew. Instagram’s ‘photo first, caption second’ setup wasn’t cutting it for the kind of storytelling we wanted to craft.

Enter: Substack. The perfect platform where we could mix text, links, and images to build narratives and fully illustrate an idea. Since our first post last April, we’ve aimed to post weekly, covering what has interested us most in the art world.

We started small, mainly drawing readers from Instagram. Then, hoping to cultivate interest within Substack’s internal community, we discovered the magic of Substack Notes. Posting daily notes grew our audience substantially. More importantly, we found ourselves surrounded by a rich, diverse, and talented community of artists, writers, and art lovers who engaged with the content.

The Substack Post

mentioned us in their The Weekender round-up, sharing Suzanne Valadon’s The Blue Room (1923), which also helped to drive some traffic, and as we gained traction, more and more of you shared and recommended our page to your friends and subscribers.

Thank you to everyone currently recommending our page; it is very much appreciated:

Studio Notes by Mariana Baião Santos, NOTHING SERIOUS, A Baffling Memory, flowing thoughts, brain space., The Roses, The Art Archivist, Brent Dempsey, Flannery’s Substack, Lalau’s Substack, MobHistory, Anne’s Substack

We currently publish weekly to a list of over 7,500 subscribers, with readers in 136 countries. The network effect on here is truly valuable and we want to thank everyone that has helped us grow so far.

This support has driven us to stay consistent, hone our tastes and reflect on what type of content we want to produce and be known for. Whilst finding our voice, we’ve covered many aspects of the global art world, and in an attempt to define our identity, we’ve categorised some of our past posts into the following themes:

Spotlighting Artists

Art Fairs

Cultural Commentary

Art History & Iconic Works

Opportunities for Artists

Industry advice

At its core, artplace has always been about making the art world feel accessible

—because it should be.

So, what’s next?

Until now, every artplace post has been available for free and our weekly posts will always remain as such. We have never turned on a paid subscriber offering as we want this option to truly provide added value to those who chose to join us on that journey.

We’ve been thinking long and hard about how to push things further. How can we genuinely provide more value to those who support what we do?

Today, we’re announcing an upcoming series for paid subscribers, with full details to come next week. We won’t give too much away just yet, but let’s just say: the most valuable resource in the art world is people, and this new series will centre around those shaping it today.

Paid subscriptions aren’t active just yet, but if you’d like to support us, you can pledge now and these pledges will automatically convert into subscriptions once we launch. We can’t wait to share more soon.

For now, we just want to say thank you. Thank you for reading, for engaging, for being part of our growing community. We started with 11 subscribers and we’re coming up to 8k strong, a group of people connected by a shared passion for art.

We’re so excited to keep growing, learning, and creating together.

See you next week for all the details on what’s coming next!

artplace

We’d love your feedback! What content do you enjoy most, and what should we focus on more in the future?

artplace

One year of artplace on Substack

and a taste of what's to come

So, what’s next?

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