Hi Hashier - ah I understand your issue now. This indeed looks like a problem on our end. The call should not fail when you use an ID like this. However, if you provide an 'item_id' with the item, it should work. So, for example, change your json to something like this:
[{"item":{"item_id" : "1", "artist_id":"spotify-WW:artist:7dOBabd5O4CvKrg4iriHTM"}},
{"item":{"item_id" : "2", "artist_id":"spotify-WW:artist:53sIBaVjXQhfH89Vu6nEGh"}}]
and you'll get the behavior you want. The call will complete with a success and the artists that can be resolved will be. -- Paul