LONDON.- The online platform ART+, host to the first BiennaleOnline exhibition that opens 26 April 2013, unveils the most promising emerging artists chosen by 30 world-leading curators. A streamed selection of 180 artists including rising stars from across the globe, will be released on Monday, 25 March 2013.

Artistic director Jan Hoet (previously artistic director of Documenta IX, founder of SMAK in Ghent, and artistic director of MARTa Herford) has assembled the central exhibition. Hoet also coined the title of the first edition of BiennaleOnline, ‘Reflection & Imagination’. “Great contemporary art is the sum of reflection and imagination,” says Hoet. “The artist adds his or her personal vision to history and the memory of history. I hope this combination of factors will be present in every single work in this biennale. In this way we’ll come to a new world and new art.”

The online platform ART+ offers admission tickets to the BiennaleOnline exhibition and allows members to create their own online portfolio’s (binders), sourcing works from the BiennaleOnline exhibition. ‘Reflection and Imagination’ opens to the public on 26 April 2013 and will remain accessible online in perpetuity with bi-annual updates of new works of art from the selected artists.

The team consists of leading international curators who are affiliated with prestigious museums such as the Guggenheim Museum and the Jewish Museum in New York City, United States; Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France; the Serpentine Gallery in London, United Kingdom; Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, Sweden; Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland; SMAK in Ghent, Belgium; Leeum - Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan; the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Canada; the MAC in Hornu, Belgium and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, Canada.

The 30 leading curators selected five artists each, with a minimum of two from their own country. The number of works per artist was unlimited and the curators chose at least one piece from each of the following categories: photography, new media, installation, performance, and traditional media (painting, drawing, sculpture).

Curators include: Jan Hoet (Belgium), Rodrigo Alonso (Argentina), Laurent Busine (Belgium), Lara Boubnova (Bulgaria), Adriano Pedrosa (Brazil), Josée Drouin – Risebois (Canada), Gerardo Mosquera (Cuba), Rebecca Lamarche-‐Vadel (France), Martin Germann (Germany), Katerina Gregos (Greece), Chang Tsong –Zung (Hong Kong), Vincenzo de Bellis (Italy), Ranjit Hoskote (India), Gideon Ofrat (Israel), Javier Hontoria (Spain), Yuko Hasegawa (Japan), HyunsunTae (South Korea), Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico), Elena Sorokina (Russia), Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (Slovenia), Lorenzo Benedetti (Netherlands), Joanna Mytkowska (Poland), Daniel Birnbaum (Sweden), Giovanni Carmine (Switzerland), Manray Hsu (Taiwan), Fulya Erdemci (Turkey), Catherine David (UAE), Hans Ulrich Obrist (UK), Nancy Spector (USAEast), Jens Hoffmann (USAWest).

The participating artists will be granted 30% of Preview and Passholder ticket sales to the exhibition and the site offers some special editions from the participating artists in the ART+ online Shop, either works on paper or in digital format. The ART+ website is optimised offering the same experience for all device users.

“ART+’s primary goal is to respond to what art enthusiasts want in a mobile connected world, and to encourage new people to enter the art world, particularly those who don't frequently go to museums or galleries on a regular basis,” adds David Dehaeck (CEO) and Nathalie Haveman (COO).