The Artidex is a physical archive and media discovery platform devoted to contemporary artists. Through Polaroid portraits, short form media, and podcast conversations, it preserves artists as people and introduces audiences to the creative voices shaping our culture.
WHAT IS THE ARTIDEX?
A TANGIBLE ARCHIVE
At the center of The Artidex is a binder of original, signed Polaroid portraits. Think like a rare baseball card collection. Each artist selects and signs one portrait from their Polaroid session to become their official numbered Entry. These portraits are placed together, in order, inside a single binder that can be held, viewed, and carried forward as a complete historical object.
The current binder will eventually be converted into a custom made archival bound book designed specifically for the collection. Every additional Polaroid taken during each session is also retained, cataloged, and preserved as part of the broader archive.
While digital platforms allow stories to travel farther than ever before, they are also inherently temporary. The physical archive gives each Entry a permanent home as an original artifact connected to a specific person, place, and moment in time.
At the same time, The Artidex is intentionally digital. Access to these stories should not depend on being able to view the binder in person. By sharing each Entry through short form media and podcast conversations across platforms, The Artidex extends the archive beyond its physical form and carries artists’ stories to audiences wherever they are.
Together, the physical and digital archives create an accessible, lasting record of the people, ideas, and creative practices shaping contemporary culture.
A PLATFORM FOR DISCOVERY
The Artidex is a place to learn more about the artists you know, and encounter the ones you have not discovered yet.
Some artists may already be familiar. Their entries offer a deeper understanding of the person behind the work. Others may be experienced here for the first time, before the wider culture knows their names.
The Artidex documents artists across disciplines, career stages, and levels of recognition. Each is approached with the same care and curiosity, creating a trusted destination for discovering the creative voices shaping culture now and those who may define what comes next. Learn more about the artists you know. Discover a new favorite.
AN EVER-EXPANDING CREATIVE NETWORK
Artidex artist Entries #009, #010, #018 and #004 together at Openaire at The Line Hotel Los Angeles for the founders birthday dinner
The Artidex is more than a collection of individual entries. It is a growing collective of artists shaped by connection, recommendation, and shared experience.
Artists often introduce us to other artists whose work they believe deserves to be seen. As the archive expands, disciplines intersect, audiences encounter new creative voices, and every participant brings their own community into the communities already represented within it.
Through their participation in The Artidex, artists have discovered one another, formed friendships, exchanged knowledge, shared resources, recommended one another for opportunities, and begun new collaborations. We actively look for ways to connect participants whose work, experiences, or ambitions may resonate.
NYC based Artidex Artists and supporters gathered at Entry #14 chef Jackie Carnesi’s Bar Susanne in Brooklyn NY
Entries #014, #013, #003, #004, #023, & #002 gathered at the NYC Artidex Artist Dinner
BUILDING A COMMUNITY
Gatherings, exhibitions, fundraising events, and collaborative projects create opportunities for relationships to continue beyond the original moment of documentation. Artists can discover one another’s work, exchange knowledge and resources, collaborate across disciplines, share audiences, recommend one another for opportunities, and become active participants in each other’s growth.
We believe support does not have to flow in only one direction or come exclusively from institutions. A meaningful creative community can also be built laterally, through artists showing up for other artists, sharing what they have access to, opening doors, making introductions, buying work, attending shows, collaborating, and amplifying voices they believe deserve to be heard.
The Artidex helps create the infrastructure for those connections while also working to expand artists’ audiences, create paid opportunities, and generate funding for grants and other forms of direct support.
The archive preserves each artist individually, but its greater potential exists in what can happen between them: a growing community of artists with the ability to support, amplify, and become more powerful alongside one another.
The Artidex was designed to reach artists rather than asking artists to rearrange their lives around the platform. Our portable production model uniquely allows us to travel directly to artists and create within their studios, homes, workplaces, and communities. Each session is shaped around the artist’s time, environment, comfort, and creative practice.
Participating artists receive approved short form media from their sessions at no cost to use across their own platforms and professional work. Podcast conversations are optional and provide additional space for artists to share their lives, ideas, and creative process in their own words.
The goal is to create work that is meaningful to the archive while also providing something genuinely valuable to the artist.
AN ARTIST CENTERED MEDIA ENGINE
The Artidex Foundation is the legally incorporated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization through which The Artidex operates. Through this nonprofit structure, donations and earned revenue preserve and expand the archive, fund its media production, and support participating artists through grants, paid opportunities, shared revenue, and other resources.
By sustaining the archive and reinvesting in the artists within it, The Artidex Foundation helps ensure that the platform’s growth creates meaningful opportunities for the people who give it purpose.
The Artidex preserves the record. The Artidex Foundation invests in the artists within it.