Agency
Cultbytes Curatorial & PR/Digital Agency
Anna Mikaela Ekstrand, Project Lead and Strategy; Nina Blumberg, Social Media Specialist; and Alexandra Israel, PR-Specialist. Photographed by Casey Kelbaugh at Valli Art Gallery.
We Are a Full-Service Agency
We offer communications, public relations services and innovative digital
strategy to build your brand, our clients include arts-related
not-for-profits, galleries, arts-tech companies, cultural
institutions, and corporations that want to utilize art to creatively strengthen branding.
Are you an artist? We will secure, project manage, and curate
your exhibitions and/or help you re-vamp sales and marketing strategies to connect with galleries and
collectors.
We also offer advisory and curatorial services to build,
maintain, or exhibit your personal or corporate collection.
Our Services
PR
Article placement (print and online)
Press releases (writing and/or distribution)
Newsletter (writing, distribution, list building)
Developing media and influencer partnerships
Crisis communication
Reputation management
Media and public speaking training
Press/Media/Influencer events (planning and execution)
Event Photography
Digital
Social media management
Designing and building websites and online stores
Digital marketing (Facebook, Instagram, Google, and more)
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Video and podcast production
Curatorial/Artist Studio Management
Pricing and Sales strategy
Collections management
Cataloging
Research
Condition Reports
Conservation
Grant writing
Developing institutional and gallery relations
Insurances
Production
Exhibition ideation and production
Ongoing and Past Clients Include
Pearl Lam Galleries
Robert Blumenthal Gallery
Valli Art Gallery
ATO Gallery
Barnebys
The Marks Project
Annalaura diLuggo
Méïr’s Studio
Stanley Casselman
Collector House Inc.
CPR*Curatorial Program For Research
UNIX Gallery
81 Leonard Gallery
House of Glue
The Bouvier Affair, among others.
Email us to discuss your next project.
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Artstagram__ x Cultbytes Influencer Events
Today social media presence is on a par with press coverage. Hosted by Nina Blumberg (Social Media Specialist and an Art Influencer) with assistance from Anna Mikaela Ekstrand (Project Lead) the ‘Artstagram__ x Cultbytes Influencer Event’ is a powerful marketing tool that will broadcast your activities through social media. The event package includes personal invitations to our extensive roster of influencers and micro-influencers, hosting the event, personal follow-up messages with guests, and re-posting of shared content across our Instagram platforms.
When 15 influencers post from the event your content will reach 250k+ accounts. Generally, the events are attended by 15-30 influencers.
Past Talks & Workshops
Plug Them In! Social Media and PR
commissioned by CPR
Workshop, 12-4PM for a group of 20 participants in July 2019 at Art Apple in Brooklyn, New York
Organized by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand and Alexandra Israel
In our technology-driven society and in the globalized art world, your online presence functions as an extension of your self. This workshop will help you properly plug-in to your audience and give you the tools to showcase the most suitable version yourself. Anna Mikaela Ekstrand and Alexandra Israel from Cultbytes Agency will guide you through social media and public relations strategies, give you the tools to expand and properly make use of your network. Together we will also discuss when to DIY and when to connect with an agency (even if you are on a tight budget), trolling, PR etiquette, and other tips on how to navigate the arts media sphere.
The workshop includes smaller group sessions to give you hands-on help with your website/Instagram/bio/PR strategy with a Cultbytes Agency team member or collaborator.
Get to Know Newark’s Thriving Arts Community
commissioned by CPR
Field Day for a group of 20 participants in July 2019 in Newark New Jersey.
Organized by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand
Full day, Newark New Jersey
We will visit established and emerging organizations and key players in the Newark art scene. The aim of the day is to get to know Newark’s thriving arts community: to learn how arts helped revitalize the area, but also how the city nurtures artists and arts organizations. We will connect with curators, organizations, and galleries in the area whose main function it is to support artists and culture to discuss their past/current activities and potential future partnerships.
Past Curatorial Projects
Is This Intimacy? Krinzinger Projekte
Curated by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand, Carlota Mir, Chiarina Chen, Katrina Longo, Lina Romanukha, Valeria Schiller.
Featured artists: Alfredo Ledesma Quintana, Anna Lerchbaumer, Anne-Clara Stahl, Bernadette Anzengruber, Darja Shatalova, Eva Rybářová, Laura Stoll, Maximiliane Leni Armann, Mona Radziabari, Paula Flores, Veronika Abigail Beringer.
25 October — 2 November 2019, KRINZINGER PROJEKTE, Schottenfeldgasse 45, 1070 Wien.
“Is This Intimacy?” aims to explore intimacy in our hypermediated present through its ambiguity and its diversity. The exhibition emerges from the exchanges, desires, and experiences of a group of millennial artists and curators from across the globe. “Is This Intimacy?” borrows its title from a meme that circulated heavily online in 2018, whose original image features the protagonist of a 1990s Japanese anime TV series, “The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird,” an android who mistakes a butterfly for a pigeon, asking himself ‘Is this a pigeon?’Transformed into a viral meme that turned the original question into a thousand others, (‘Is this a therapist?’ / ‘Is this a cure to my lifelong depression?’/ ‘Is this hell?’ ‘Is this my life?’ / ‘Is this a hacker?’) the image and its transformations illustrate a viral, current state of emotional confusion globally.
How will future art historians treat memes? Probably similar to letters and soapboxes of eras bygone. A subtle reference to the seminal 1956 exhibition “This Is Tomorrow,” which marked the beginning of late Western capitalism through its relationship to pop culture, “Is This Intimacy?” is an exercise in the translation of some of its key concerns and consequences into the era of global hyper-communication.
Press coverage: Cultbytes, Art Rabbit, Esther Art Newsletter.
Sara Erenthal: Backstory, The Storefront Project
Curated by Nina Blumberg
July 25-August 18, The Storefront Project, 70 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002.
“Backstory” deeply explores Sara Erenthal’s preoccupation with ‘upcycling’: the process of converting old or discarded materials into something useful and often beautiful. The majority of the works in the exhibition are created from old, thrifted paintings, upon which the artist paints her signature motif– a graphic silhouette of a woman’s form with wide eyes and red lips– thereby creating a new work entirely. Underpainting subjects include a Catholic pope, a Jewish rabbi, old-fashioned portraits of unidentified anonymous men or women, and still lives of flowers or plants, among others.
Press coverage: Street Art NYC, CBS, and Bedford+Bowery.
The Boring Company New York and SpaceX Gallery
Featuring work by Adrian Wilson, Meir Srebriansky, Rob Ventura, City Kitty, Brandon Sines, and Christian Padilla, among others. Curated by Adrian Wilson and Anna Mikaela Ekstrand
December 2018-January 2019, 106 Rivington, New York New York.
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Are Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk building a tunnel in New York? We’re not sure but there are some seriously elaborate blueprints on-site at 106 Rivington that connect the new LI Amazon HQ to the L-train through an underground tunnel. Overheard in the office: “Shove your packages where your package is.” What we do know, however, is that there is a second-floor gallery with a great group show.
A Night@ TheNiggaClaus: Tales Of Tales ..stop Looking @ My Pussy
Performances by Uniska Wahalo Kano, IamFrei, Alexander Romania, Melanie Tomsky, Kalan Sherrard, Red Washburn, and Kikiriki. Curated by Uniska Wahalo Kano and Anna Mikaela Ekstrand.
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Face your millennial funk at 106 Rivington, an ironic and artistic incubator where every hole leads to the tunnel built on explosive ideas. In lieu of a staff party, Boring New York Company will throw a performance art party curated by Uniska Wahalo Kano and Anna Mikaela Ekstrand.
Press coverage: Bowery Boogie, Gothamist, and Cultbytes.
Grebnellaw: Sperming the Planet NYC Edition
Performances by Grebnellaw featuring guest performers Leo Góngora, Uniska Wahala Kano, Alice Guyettes, and Ashok Pai.
Curated by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand. Supported by Cultbytes.
February 9th, 10pm at House of Yes and February 10th, 3pm, Oculus, World Trade Center, 2018.
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Between the realm of visual art, performance and music, Grebnellaw’s series “Sperming the Planet” features flashmobs and concerts. These creatures, Grebnellaw, come to earth from another dimension and act as a liberating force from social pressure and prejudice promoting gender confusion, environmentally conscious thinking, and subatómic interaction.
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WHO IS GREBNELLAW? Nosslo-Grebnellaw Aniluap is a visual artist, performer, and singer/songwriter based in Stockholm, Sweden.
GREBNELLAW has performed at New York (Guggenheim Museum, MoMA), San Francisco (SFMOMA, New Langton Arts), Buenos Aires (Teatro Jorge Luis Borges), Hong Kong (Hong Kong Studio Theatre), Paris (Fondation Cartier ‘Les Soirées Nomades’, Auditorium of the Louvre, Palais de Tokyo), Rome (The Coliseum, Rialtosantambrogio, Fanfulla 101, Forte Fanfulla, Circolo degli Artisti), London (Hysteria, Vogue Fabrics), Berlin (King Kong Club, Fab Lab, Kim Bar), Stockholm (Moderna Museet, Popaganda), Tokyo (Mejii Shrine), Shanghai (Bank Gallery). Grebnellaw has also designed costumes for the stage.
Before planting its seed in NYC, “Sperming the Planet” traveled to Quebec (L’Extraordinaire Fete de l’art 2018) and Hudson, NY.
Your Decolonizing Toolkit: An Evening of Performance Art, MAW
Performances by Dominique Duroseau, Shani Ha, Kanene Holder, David Antonio Cruz, Maria Hupfield, Esther Neff, and IV Castellanos.
Curated by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand and Ayana Evans. Supported by Cultbytes.
October 21st, 6-9pm, 2018 at MAW, 56 Henry Street, New York.
Decolonization is defined as the act of getting rid of colonization or freeing a country/people from being dependent on and oppressed by a more aggressive culture.
For this evening of performance art, seven artists will take on race, sexuality, and body politics to fuel “Your Decolonizing Toolkit.” You are invited to talk about race with Dominique Duroseau in her piece “A Rap on Race with Rice;” this literal work starkly contrasts Shani Ha’s textile sculptures that are an abstract investigation of social boundaries. To break conventions of silencing Kanene Holder will perform her word association piece based on current affairs and David Antonio Cruz will perform “The Piano Piece,” a celebrated piece that deals with his queer-Latino identity, on the street. The evening will culminate in actions of deconstructing as exhibited in the performance collaboration between Maria Hupfield, Esther Neff, and IV Castellanos-
In light of America’s current political situation, where complex issues of discrimination based on race and sexuality are being investigated decolonization of the mind is more important than ever before. Breaking from normal ways of looking, like scrolling through your social media feeds, our aim with the evening is to free your mind through interaction. Your take-home will be new points of view – tools – that may open up new possibilities to decolonize your everyday lives.
Press coverage: Cultbytes and Gallery Gurls.