Navigating.art

Protecting and expanding cultural heritage through digital publications

Navigating.art empowers teams with tools and educational resources to create and publish digital catalogues raisonnés and archives for a global audience.

Digital catalogues raisonnés safeguard cultural heritage and provide scholars and art enthusiasts with easy online access to our shared history. The Navigating.art educational publications and platform supports art researchers as they develop their research and serves readers as they discover the completed catalogues. On the platform, researchers can catalog artwork, record archival materials, and document publications in one location, making it possible to interlink information and create a richer network of knowledge. Standardization across the platform through consistent vocabularies and data requirements eases the recording process while creating such extensive publications. Linked evidence and standardization also increase transparency and the exchange of information between institutions. The result is a platform that empowers arts organizations to share artistic legacies with a global audience at no cost to readers. Making these legacies widely available encourages scholarly research into the work of our ancestors, fosters a sense of continuity through the transmission of cultural identities across generations, and inspires contemporary artists in their own endeavors.

In 2021, a group of art historians and developers recognized the potential of new technologies to ease the creation of digital catalogues raisonnés and archives for global audiences. Navigating.art has since applied digital strategies to meet the needs of institutions, increasing the availability of historical materials and lowering the barrier to comprehensive research. It became a nonprofit organization in 2024, supported by the Hasso Plattner Foundation’s Art and Culture focus area, bringing its legal status in line with its mission to protect and promote cultural heritage.

DIGITAL CATALOGUES RAISONNES PUBLISHED ON NAVIGATING.ART 

• Claude Monet: The Revised Catalogue Raisonné; The Pastels, ​​The Wildenstein Plattner Institute 
• Eva Hesse Drawings, Hauser & Wirth Institute 
• Franz Kline Paintings, 1950–1962, Hauser & Wirth Institute 
• Gauguin: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings 1891–1903, The Wildenstein Plattner Institute 
• Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus, The Wildenstein Plattner Institute 
• Akseli Gallen-Kallela catalogue raisonné project, Nordic Art Intelligence foundation
• The Digital Degas Catalogue Raisonné, OpAL Art Ltd