Conversations | How to Reach New Collectors

welcome to conversations at Art Basel Miami Beach I am ed Winkelmann and we are very delighted today to have a very wide range of points of view on a topic that I think most people at Art Basel are interested in at least most of the gallerist which is how to reach new collectors we're very lucky to have Andrew Goldstein the editor in chief at art net news who will guide us through this topic and we'll introduce our panelists in a moment but please join me in giving them all a very warm welcome so good morning and good afternoon everybody as IDI said I'm Andrew Goldstein I'm the editor in chief of art net news and the host of the art angle podcast and today I am delighted to be here with this very distinguished panel to discuss the topic of how galleries can cultivate new collectors and now this might seem like a slightly niche topic but it's actually incredibly important for anybody who cares about art and here's why as we all know it's the smaller and more mid-sized galleries that actually do the hard spade work of discovering new artists and then making the financial risks in order to nurture them through their early years of success it's only really at the later stages of an artist's career where there are you know or their their archive of success that the bigger global galleries swoop in and steal the artists reaping the rewards of all the smaller galleries financial investment so at the same time that global forces that have been enabling these bigger galleries to expand internationally and have footprints all over the world at the same time these forces are making it harder and harder for the smaller galleries to compete because not only do they have to manage and run a gallery in their hometown they also now have to be moving constantly in these Internet peregrinations to go from Art Fair to Art Fair in the hunt for new buyers and according as we know from The Art Basel UBS art market report from this June finding new buyers is actually the number one most pressing challenge for any new smaller mid-sized gallery as a matter of fact it's these smaller galleries the smallest galleries in the art ecosystem that are struggling the most right now they're the ones who are impacted in the most negative way by the kind of global spread of the art market while the people who are at the top are benefitting by far the most so what this means is that it's incredibly important to figure out a way for these smaller galleries to overcome this challenge and find new buyers because this is where the new art comes from if you if you if the smaller galleries are struggling that just means that there is less of a pipeline of great new art to be coming into into the art ecosystem so to discuss this topic and try to come up with some actionable solutions ideally I am joined today by Anita's a website Anita's a blued ovitch who is the dream collector for many young galleries when Anita appears in the galleries doorstep that is a huge thing for a gallery and Anita has been championing some of the most experimental young galleries around the world to build the Zap ludovic collection which is in London I'm also joined by Lisa Schiff who as one of New York City's top art advisors has been connecting many new collectors to emerging and experimental galleries all up and down the the chain and then we actually have one dealer who has been brave enough to come here and and talk about this situation and that is Amira Alvarado from Bogota's Instituto division and I'm very happy to begin the discussion with Amira because I think you might have a unique perspective into this so before we talk about the importance of of new collectors can you tell us a little bit about the importance of your gallery why don't you tell us what what have you brought to the survey section this year good afternoon and thank you for inviting me this year we decided to do to shift what we were showing we usually our gallery was founded in 2014 and we started doing our basso Miami that same year and we always been at the Nova section so my gallery has two programs one is a young mid-career Latin American and the other program is a research based program with practices from the 60s and 70s some early 80s of artists that for many reasons left the arson or are not recognized today and they are very important to understand not only the contemporary practices in Latin America but to understand that Latin America had very avant-garde thought since the 50s and 60s and 40s and so for this year we were thinking that it will be important to showcase that part of our program that sometimes it's complex to bring to our fairs because either shipping is too expensive or just the material is not available or it's a little too edgy and for example we're when we were thinking about doing it we decided to do miguel angel Cardenas was fantastic fantastic artists he was born in a very very small town in Colombia in the mid 30s and early in his life he wins a scholarship to go to Europe to study painting and what he really wanted to do was leave Colombia because he was gay and of course the the society was very very conservative so he was not he didn't fit at all so he had to go and um and it makes it becomes very very important for him because he thought that as soon as he arrived to Europe things were gonna be easy and he was gonna be accepted and life will be a dream and of course it wasn't like that and he understood and that change his practice fundamentally the interesting thing is that he got to do he became like he started doing performance happenings video he was one of the founders of the video program at the Rights Academy he was part of the seminal show the nouvelle realism in hey in 64 actually part of the pieces that we have here are from that show so this kind of radical thought was not understood and was not even seen as Latin American so those things are important for us to in a place like Miami particularly when you have a big crowd of Latin America but also collectors from the US and Europe coming in so there's one thing that you told me that I thought was very moving and is really kind of significant about the importance of galleries like yours which is that this artist was despairing about his whole career being forgotten when he came in contact with the gallery he was in an advanced stage of Parkinson's he had been requesting to be put on the list for euthanasia in the Netherlands and after coming in contact with the gallery he got his first show and it was during this first show that the government gave him the permission to to die through euthanasia and so it's an extraordinary kind of thing too for a gallery to be able to make this kind of vision visible at a time when it could have been lost so while you're in while your gallery is called the instituto de division which sounds a little bit like a museum it's not it is very much a commercial gallery and so why don't you tell us about how important is it for you to find new collectors new patrons to help keep the lights off well it's vital it's fundamental the gallery it is it is a commercial gallery and it's true it sounds a little tricky with the with the name but but for us it's a challenge especially in a market like Colombia with the kind of gallery that we run because we are three female partners we all come from an Academical background so everything that we put up sometimes can be a little too challenging for for our market and the kind of artist that we have so we still need to be like out in the run so it is always very important because sometimes the one client will be like a patron of yours forever and then you need way more so it's always it's always like a challenge you told me that you about 10 to 15 collectors who are continual collectors and that the rest of them are actually people who do business ones do business twice they appear they reappear but you constantly have to be replenishing the supply of buyers who are engaging with the gallery so and most of these are not actually in Bogota if I'm correct so why I mean you even told me that the gallery has scaled back the shows that it does two three per year because the clientele for your program is not actually in the city you find it all over the world so how do you find these new buyers how do you go out there into the world and actually track down new collectors reprogramme well the main of course the main conduct its are our fairs clearly which which are very challenging because depending of the Art Fair the economical risks are very high so but then if you don't go you don't get to meet good clients and my best very best clients I have met in art fairs and there's people have been supporting us constantly that understand the importance of our job of our dedication of the artist and and yesterday we were having this very interesting conversation on how like it is an ecosystem we're all are relevant in different ways and we all need each other you know there's no there's no are seen without artists there's no are seen without collectors there's no earthing seeing without galleries or institutions so we all need to like work together so and for us that means going outside and the art to do the art fairs so Anita as somebody who's patronage has been vital for dozens of younger galleries why where the collector so hard to find where were you guys hiding well I know back in 2005 we felt it was really important to support young collectors and we found a way by supporting a small faire called Zoo Art Fair I don't know if you can remember it you might do and it supported so many young galleries and we did this for two or three years till they were on their feet and then they didn't need our help anymore and then of course after that we went in to support Sunday Art Fair which is still going strong and it's always important to support the younger art fairs I remember so many years ago I don't know if any of you other collectors did this but when I was a bit younger we would like visit like 20 art fairs and three days in Miami well there was so many Art Fair we couldn't stop we would just go to hotel rooms and to old butter down old buildings anywhere where there was art we would find it it was quite in old containers they had art fairs as well in Miami they don't have them like that so much now but it was a lot of fun so in that way we've always supported the galleries by supporting the younger galleries and are always been there for them and helping them to evolve be they're the ones who are also supporting the artist so in that way as we are supporting the galleries we are also supporting the artists and it's about the artists and that's what's important to us so you're very energetic and going out there and actively looking for art what are what are some ways that a gallery should approach you well is this there's all sorts of different ways but I think the best way for a gallery to support me and I imagine that you must be one of those wonderful galleries that actually there is like society Daniel will house in the audience I saw him there they it's not just about walking into a gallery for half an hour and being bored it's about conversation discourse and and and I like to be educated and we discover so much and it becomes so interesting and this is the approach that we like also of course we understand that there is a little bit of schmoozing and a few little games that's absolutely fine but this is what we like most and so what's the wrong way to approach you the wrong way is just the aggressive approach and to say oh this is really this is really hot everyone else has bought this or the rebels have just bought this piece you know you know there was one art artist in order and here showing here also in the fair and I as she asked a big collector and I said what's so great about this artist why are you all going mad for him and they said well they paint his face with the finger and and I'm like okay but I don't like it I mean you told me it's bad you told me another thing that you don't like is that when a gallery seems to be asking its artists to churn out lots of work and that you you you like to be engaged by galleries that have a little bit more of a organic kind of sustainable they're artists yeah I'm very much against production and I know that these poor galleries are under a lot of pressure and the artists are under a lot of pressure because they have to they go to art fair to art fair and they have to show their work but to to produce too many works and under you know and the work becomes not as good not as intense it's not the quality that I would be looking for it undermines the artist to produce too much work and I find the production line method very off-putting I mean so you have you have a lot of time and the resources necessary to do collecting fairly as a as a full-time job in a sense you devote a lot of your of your time yes so my collecting for us is a is a full-time is a full-time work it's 24/7 I wake up dreaming about it and the fairs are very important to us but also there are there's other ways that we we love to support the artists we have an exhibition space called sublet ovitch collection in in London and kentish town we have also we support through residency's it's very important to always be supporting the artists themselves we like the artists to be alive not dead because we actually like to work with the artists that's very important to us I like to also inform and share I love to share and so to my team so I've been writing an art diary for the past 12 years and we have 30,000 readers a year and it's been quite successful and it's very quiet it's on the table Dovid collection a website and it's been there and it's free advice for any collector we had a problem because we've always collected digital work intensely and we felt that there was a really a space where digital art was not recognized to its fullest and we felt that we would wanted to help so we created I was a founder of darter Editions with David Agron and we created a platform where we've been able to show digital art sell digital art subscribe digital art and it's been a really great experience and 450 works have been commissioned by ourselves and also they share royalties so it's really been a successful platform and so that's been really great and yep so not every collector who comes to art basel has the time to put so much of their own effort into the sourcing tracking down and finding of a new art and this of course is where art advisers like Lisa come into play so Lisa when when you are working with you're really kind of illustrious roster of clients they work with how do you decide which galleries to direct them to actually can I start with a different comment I just wanted to say I think part of the question is more not how do you find collectors but how do you develop confident collectors like Anita and I don't think my job as an artic Biser is about time I think it's about helping people understand the terrain and I think there's a bifurcation and you actually flip back and forth between the word buyer and collector I think there's a big problem right now where the mega galleries and by the way it is a precious ecosystem and we all need each other so I love them but what's happened is there's a real focus on the artist as as there should be but it used to be that a gallery would have half of their attention they're artists and half on their collectors and now at the larger end all of your attention and probably at the smaller end too but I'm not a gallery so I don't know but all of your attention is on your artists making sure you don't lose them making sure they're happy they're turning into celebrities as they should be they've always been the talent we sit and talk about the art market all day we don't talk about the artists or the art sometimes but what's happening is because you get such a huge kind of corporation where the attention is no longer on the collector but it's on the artist it turns into a bottom-line situation where you have a sales force who is now selling to you as a collector and not advising you or placing work with you and so there's a new breed of buyers being developed which I don't think is a healthy situation and I think the healthy situation is to develop more confident collectors who understand that they don't have to buy with their ears or follow the masses but they have to believe in their gut and their heart and what they love and that they also I think that for me I feel like the collectors and the artists really hold all the cards if you can really believe in what you're doing and not listen to auction estimates and comps and just buy from the gut which Anita is doing then you're in a great shape but to develop that is hard and as an advisor I'm not looking for people who need me because they don't have enough time I I actually typically start with people who have never collected before and always they say I'm not a collector or not a collector but I'm like give me a year and most of them develop the bug but I really see my job as not telling them what I like what they should buy but just trying to get them to believe in what they can see and all I can do is be someone there to protect them from being sold to I want to be there to help them make the decision themselves it's not me and so I want them to turn into great collectors because the survival of the art market that matters to me is based on more Anita's so I really work hard as an advisor to try to turn my collectors and clients into Indy does and that doesn't mean they don't need me anymore I need I'm available for hire no I'm just kidding it's just it's more you know it's like a partnership but I've really learned and it took a long time in the beginning I didn't understand what the hell I was doing but it is really important to push my clients forward unless they're very private and want to be back but to bring them into the art world to be okay if galleries are calling them directly like it there's there's no conflict there I don't own them it's not my money I'm just a sounding board and I'm trying to make sense of things so when you deal with a new collector who may or potentially a nascent collector who doesn't have that much experience in art or the art world at all do you introduce them to artists to galleries do you have what what lens do you kind of lead them through our gallery is important in this nurturing phase of a new collector or is it mainly about the art you find the galleries incredibly important not I might this might not be the right thing to say but for me I have three tenants that I always tell my clients the first is it's the work has to be visually and or conceptually compelling to you number one number two it has to be historically relevant it's got to be participating in a conversation about the world at large or about art historical conversation or formal conversation and number three it needs to be strategically placed now that is the kind of lowest on the totem pole but the truth is I can take you into an artist studio before they have a gallery and try to get you deals but I cannot do the job that she can do of nurturing this artist into where he needs to go it's a ha I have to say the gallery's job is the worst job on earth it's the hardest job being an adviser is so easy compared to being a gallery I could never do the job that a gallery does and that's why I'm an advisor but I also don't want to I don't I'm happy to go into artists studios and I love discovering new artists but I I do think art is expensive and again this isn't necessarily about I want to differentiate between investment and speculation we have a lot of clients who $20,000 is a lot of money I it's a high-risk number from like an investment and by this I'm talking about your help value not your transacted value but I want to make sure that the artists that they're buying are going to get into museums they're going to be nurtured they're gonna have the kind of support they need so it is very important to me the galleries I talk to so am i right you have recently moved to Los Angeles where you are we were talking about how many of your collectors are outside of Bogota here you are actually prospecting for them in Los Angeles based in in the United States so you've told me that while you're there art advisors have become an increasingly important kind of client for you so how do you engage art advisors out there how what do you have new tactics for trying to enter into these art advisor kind of pools no unfortunately I do not have any new tactics I wish I did no I think it's just I need that set it to it's about relationships like you wanna this is like the whole world it's a Dodger world and you want to find people that you wanna build a relationship with because for us and and I want to comment on what Lisa was saying for galleries like for my kind of gallery that collector is as important as the artist and I cannot only tend my artists because then I cannot sell their work and I'm actually the way that we sell and what makes our Galleria success or how I have successful connections with my clients is because we engage with them because we can sit down and talk about the art and talk about like the progress of the artist I have I can sit down with curators and discuss and really help what you were saying like pushed the artists what it should be because it's not only about making sales it's like where do you place the artwork of course and so now basically it's just PR you know like going to the events introducing yourself I think it's like 101 kind of situation that can be very challenging but I think when you find the right people then you can build towards that and that will open you other doors because there's like on the snow like a snowball they were like oh they will introduce you to these so you should know you should meet this person so it's kind of like a one-to-one relationship and you were telling me that part of the reason that the art advisors are so important in LA is that there are so many new collectors who are coming into the field from the film world from you know the technology world who need some help in these beginning stages so so Lisa do you have any advice for Amira in terms of how to kind of cultivate these new collectors who are working with art advisers and how to start to surface her program in a way that they can engage with it yeah I mean I think and excuse my language but there's lots of art advisers and there's lots of collectors out there but you have to find it you have to find the ones you trust and it you know it's like you find these relationships with people you like I feel great I trust this person I don't feel like I'm being shoved their stuff down my throat I think it's really important to find advisors who aren't clinging on to their clients in a way that they own them it's and you know I think that I think a lot of new advisors don't know it takes I've been doing this for a long time so I've made every mistake you could possibly make so I've come around to understanding how things should be but you know I think educating my clients engaging them when they get to know the gallery and when they get to know the artists then they really get attached so like taking us to your artists studios that's been like amazing and you know it just makes it more personal we also as advisors try to at least we do try to get our new collectors to get involved in nonprofits at the low level because that's a really it's not too expensive to get involved and the nonprofit's are the ground zero of of the art platform right and so watching what the curators are putting in there is a great way to learn about new art so we want to get them engaged in the institutional side we just want them to understand the ecosystem because you know you have a new buyer that comes in let's say he comes in thinking he's gonna be collector he buys something it goes up in value I'm so smart oh my god I'm taking it to auction I just made three hundred thousand dollars and suddenly I'm going down this wrong path and I've watched it we've all watched it to happen many times and it's even to people who don't need the money it's just a suddenly you're like I'm so smart I know what I'm doing but the art world you cannot just take you can't just take you have to give back you have to care about the ecosystem you have to participate in the nonprofit's you have to nurture the young galleries I'm pretty much broke but I buy from the young galleries to thank God oh wait payment plans are amazing payment plan survived my clients know yes so just in case you've never asked for one a lot of galleries are actually really open to it so you know I think I think just finding the right people you trust and also like Daniel he's such a pain in the ass he text messages me all the time but I love it because he'll out of the blue as Valarie he knows i'm not paying attention he knows I'm busy he knows not to email me and he'll send me a text and it's something I should look at and I love that he does that and so like that kind of aggressive it's not aggressive like by he's just like I know you're not paying attention I need you to pay attention so we um we've been talking about some the difference between collectors and buyers how there are some people who buy art with a purely financial kind of goal in mind of flipping it or turning around so Oh Myra do you I mean we're talking about seeking out new collectors to bring into the program do you ever have to vet collectors and start to is this something that is part of your program or is it mainly about bringing in the new business and and I'm kind of thinking about the numbers of collectors I don't understand the question to vet that collect that like - are there some collectors that you think are going to be flipping the artworks that you don't deal with or that you know well my the kind of program that we have it's very hard that that kind of buyer will come or the kind of collector will come and try to flip my artists because it's it requires time no you have to sit down with the piece and like it and and I'm not saying that I have I have artists that I know and I'm sure they're gonna be big and and I work for them like this is it I know I like I bet on them but they are the collectors that I have are not like that I sometimes wear that had happened is that I have had artists that said these piece is too political I I do not want somebody that is like from X kind of side of the political strata to own my work and you understand so that's kind of the the vetting that that I have to do so right now just like getting as much new clients and being able to establish in that in one point if I meet 20 people I may get to collectors the end Wow really is that the and what happens to the other 18 no they're just like they will buy something from you perhaps they won't buy but then you find one person that like from one our fair you'll find one person that will buy from your gallery forever and that's worth it and that's people that like sit down with you and I'm like we're gonna do business always and that you're like okay so he mentioned the political considerations and this is a highly political moment where there are a lot of artists who are starting to you know speak out and take stances about the sourcing of patronage and it's gotten to the point where sometimes maybe these these dances are very principled and and and and authentic and important sometimes maybe the the information may not be as as clear and I say this because you know Anita you have been such a spectacular patron to the artists of London and yet there are some who still take umbrage to the fact that long time ago your family was involved in the arms trade over 20 years ago I believe and I wonder this kind of political dimension how is that complicating this possibly the possibility of bridging collectors and artists well the way it comes across to myself is it's really really sad because it happens with a lot of younger artists and the younger artists of today many of them really are not well informed enough and they don't do enough research and they really do not want conversation and we're always open to any conversation with these artists they are in a sense a little bit of a troublemakers but for us we find this a great negativity me and my team and we haven't got time for this because we really need to be supporting the artists that younger artists and there's men many many many artists out there that need our help so we don't take much time pondering on this but we're always open to conversation and so you know that's how it really is we just want to get on with our practice and we want to expand the practice of the artists and we want the artists to express their feelings and their political ideologies in the art rather than and and all the nuances and the gray areas in the art but not so much in the conversation or vocally vocalizing themselves and I think it's so interesting that there is it's sometimes it seems like there's a dialogue because people go on social media and they say things or they protest but oftentimes there isn't actually a dialogue because this that the sides are kind of talking past each other or just saying something and then not waiting for a response I think that it's a it's a fascinating topic you were telling me about one collector or I'm sorry one artist that you have in your program who didn't want to sell to a specific collector because of I think a political how how a political you know tie that the collector had how much of a conversation is this with your artists in your gallery um to be on that was like a very very specific piece which is from his practice that was actually directly tied to that collector so yeah it was like a political moment and it was it made a lot of sense because you have to be smart and you cannot just sell anything to end like to anybody you know like you you gotta know where the piece goes it has to go to the right hands too and that was like the reason but we have I think our artists trust know that we're doing the right thing and I I agree there has to be a conversation and you cannot be naive in that matter and just like go against everything and understand like the complexity of these of these situations and these issues and we cannot just destroy all the funding because we don't like certain things that it's totally respectful and I I mean in in several points I I am with the artisan I understand but I think there's got to be a better way to engage in those conversations than just like let's burn the place down yeah that's the one thing that it seems that there is an absence of this kind of dialogue and that is something that I think should ideally be changed next year especially considering that the real political sphere is so intensely divided and it seems like an intractable mess but the art community doesn't have to be the same way I mean you would imagine that people can find some I mean Lisa what do you have any perspective on this I guess it's not really exactly your wheelhouse well I mean I have clients on the board of the Whitney and there was a big issue recently that was that was really unfortunate and sad and in all honesty I don't know enough about the nuances but I felt like we're losing some major patrons in the arts and I think that's you know that's a big problem like you don't get patrons like that all the time and so you're gonna lose a lot of people now again I'm not going to get into the politics but I think it's a tricky issue and I think the their things are very nuanced and we tend to jump on the bandwagon too fast and tear Teeple people down duyan appeal for example again I don't know really right or wrong on any of these things but it just seems like a very a very quick rapid move and probably there's a lot of nuances to everybody's situation mm-hmm so so - to get back to the topic of finding the new collectors you go to a lot of art fairs constantly all over the world I would imagine what other avenues are you using in order to to find new galleries find to get out there and be able to make these connections oh my god I mean the best thing the best advice I could give anybody is talk to everyone understand everyone you're talking to has an agenda so don't take it all literally but I love talking to artists about who they're looking at I love talking to collectors like Anita I mean I think I fell in love with this artist that Valerie and Napoleon I'm butchering her name i sat on a talk with her and I said what's the last thing you bought and she said go look at this artist and now I collect that artist so you know you you just have to ask people you I sit down with the galleries and I actually like I just took some new collectors through and I go slow because I want to explain to them who the gallery is where they are their whole program and you just get much more out of it but there's nothing better than you know if I can get my clients attention off of an Art Fair just sit down with me either take a trip to Berlin off of any activity or just stay with me in New York for the day and just go to a few galleries sit down and talk and learn their whole program and if they can't come with me I do it a lot I also surround myself with people far younger than me because I have no idea what's going on I'm stuck in disco they are keeping me abreast of new galleries I'm like wait what I've never heard of that gallery so I feel like you know I got to keep up with with the new so I'm trying to make sure I I have lots of youngsters around me and Oh Myra what about you when it comes to finding new collectors do you use any kinds of avenues outside of the art fairs maybe technological or any kind of strategies that that you found have been successful yeah we do of course like we're very active on social media we partnered up with artsy so that's a good platform for us and we do a lot of like we like create events so now we're doing like we have a new group of collectors back home and we're very excited about it because you need to have collectors for the galleries and there's a whole new young group of collectors and we're just like doing Siri for studio visits and then we go for launch or do the lunch at the studio and then you get to know the people people take time to listen to the artists to meet the artists in in the program that that we have that are alive and so it's it's good those are the kind of things that are that we're just trying to come up like a studio visits are always such a wonderful experience for everybody because you get to sometimes your artists don't hear don't don't have access to hear you talk about their work so that's the moment when we all like sit together and have a chat about the piece and a specific practice so it's so those are very interesting kind of events that we're trying to do and this are kind of the strategies and I'm doing in Los Angeles - I don't have a space I just wanted to comment on that one thing I used to do before I had a child and I had more time but that was really helpful because you know as an artifice or have to constantly educate myself too so I can educate my collectors but what I loved doing and I wish I could do more of it is I would get involved with different institutions and travel with them and there's nothing better than having like a curator and a museum director take you to you know China and get you into not just artists studios but private collections and you're getting a you're really getting a learning opportunity there and I did so much of that India Brazil never went to Columbia though and I highly recommend doing that if you have the means and time to do it I mean you mentioned artsy and here I'm contractually obligated to say that artnet also has a gallery network but but it's I I have a serious point to make about this which is that art Nets gallery network was one of the first of its kind I think it was the first of its kind on the internet and in fact it was most gallery's first websites which is really interesting because we the whole online kind of art apparatus is is still so nascent it's very hard to plug our net again our net is thirty years old but it seems that the this whole tactic of bringing the art market in the art world online is just nowhere near where it is eventually going to be where it should be and and also I mean when we talk about global travel going to all these art fairs there is a I think a slight tinge of the conscience to think about the carbon footprint obviously which is something that I mean I literally just recorded a podcast on this the other day which is a big topic that I think we're going to be contending with more and more especially you know coming I think next year probably as the election looms but the question is what do you think would be the ideal kind of technical technological interface that could help connect collectors with dealers and allow art advisers to make these connections and it just doesn't seem like there's something that really exists like that right now oh come on yes I get deemed direct messaged on Instagram all the time and I don't mind at all actually it's funny it's more artists DMing me but and I just tell them it's not what I do I don't work in that but they're like will you look at my art so I'm assuming they're doing the same thing to collectors but I do think that Instagram and I like more and more when I start with a new I just started with a new client and he's been on the Instagram which can be really dangerous cuz I'm like oh boy okay so I've got a real and back-end but without I don't want to take away his confidence and I and he's finding things he likes on his own so I'm trying to navigate that I'm not sure how I'm gonna navigate it yet because I don't want to you know but it's again important to me that its first of all things can look really good on Instagram you can actually make art to look good on Instagram but I also really it matters to me the conversation it's part of what gallery it's participating in so but I do think I just thought found it interesting that this gentleman who's like in the finance world is spending so much time on Instagram so it's got to be good for galleries to be you know because you can do like business on Instagram where they can contact you and you can buy from the gallery through Instagram not to take away from art net at all 30 years old but yeah I think you're right I mean there's probably a new art net Instagram social media thing coming out soon or something well Anita your program is very future-oriented and a lot of the I mean you work with data editions which is very future-oriented you have your own blog of collecting advice what kinds of technological I mean how does technology help you find new galleries and new artists that you want to work with well the way it's evolved is when we start it I don't think anyone even had a website I'm going to say two gallery have you do you have a website they're saying what's that you know how it all started and I used to use magazines and that was my way you know Art Forum was an amazing tool for me art review when that came out and all these things but then of course technology started moved in and then there became Facebook which wasn't very a useful tool but the biggest tool for me personally is Instagram because I know that that what will happen is is that a gallery they know I'm watching every day and they might just like show it on the Instagram that day and then I have a view of it visually and I might inquire about that work and that's happened a few times and it sounds a little bit naive and a strange way around things but that does happen direct messaging as you say and I am is a very important tool as well through Facebook through through Instagram also I think also you know as a reaction to all this digital as well it's nice I think I'm also going back to the analog as well I'm you know we produce books that we've produced about 40 books so far that we hope that people use for research and I'm and we have a library that is open an art library that is open to all the students etc and I I myself go back now to books and magazines and the analog way as well as the digital way I'm looking at every possible way I can soak up in information so I think before opening the question up to the audience i I just like to ask Emira how many new collectors have you met on Instagram I actually sold donates a gram yeah yeah I had a client who inquired by a piece that we post and my one of the members of my team that actually handles Instagram she's like oh my god somebody asked me about this and I was like okay go ahead do the sale and and she and she actually did it and then the client it was somebody that was in Colombia and then they came and they wanted to see the piece of life and they saw it and they're happy and now they're buy more stuff well my Ernie that the the most effective ecommerce site for art is Instagram okay any questions from the audience just want to say thank you guys so much this was a great conversation my name is London Balboa and I'm the founder of art hub that's arte HUP and we are my co-founder and I wear Home Depot back we received a seed investment to build an online e-commerce platform first finding our collectors and emerging artists we're based out of Atlanta Georgia and I just want to get your opinions about you guys elaborated on a lot of different things that are just validating what we're doing and I just want to get your opinions on you know the future of e-commerce and art and and how you think that is going to continue to drive art sells in the next 10 to 20 years I mean I think we're just at the beginning I think more and more people will buy online you can even go into a major auction now and the amount of online bidding is pretty remarkable I think more more collectors are spending a lot of time online not just on Instagram but reading art news reading top-ten lists reading this really not trying to educate themselves and I think as long as you can supplement the digital world with the physical world you know I mean it's easy it's easy for me and and this might be a terrible thing to say but it's easy for me to buy something if it's an artist I know really well physically and I'm only seeing it digitally I have I have bought that it's a bit dangerous but so I think probably more and more and I think as long as you can educate I mean it's great to hear that you're in Atlanta you said I mean you know we're in New York London LA but I think you know the whole middle of the United States it's great if you're going to encourage and nurture new collectors because didn't this I feel like there's enough supply right now but not enough demand so it's great not everyone can travel to art first what happens is all the galleries they send their PDF which I managed to read them all funny enough and and the experience of reading the PDFs and actually being at the Art Fair are totally different it's two it's two different experiences and of course you can acquire from PDF and you can acquire from online but you're not actually seeing it and you know it's not tangible unless you know unless it's a digital work maybe some of the newer technologies with virtual reality might enhance that but I do agree I go through every single preview usually if I like something I still like it it's the things I didn't like in the PDF that I'm always like wow this is much better in person so I think it's just certain things don't photograph the right way certain things flatten out certain things don't look the right scale but maybe as technology gets more and more complex it'll be able to render three dimensions better yeah I think it's it's a great initiative because we are all seeking out ways to connect and that's like what it will happen that even if it's not like making sales at least people are getting to see some my specific work and like oh I'm intrigued by this and then it will open the doors for something else so congrats I hate email and I I literally am I'm trying to be post email and now I'm trying to be post text I want to be direct or on the phone uh I don't actually need to see them but the IKE but I'm happy to depends on how I look on that day but I think you know one email baguettes another texting baguettes another and it's just become such a time suck you know and I yell at my staff all the time so I'm like pick up the phone I know you just emailed pick it up so if there's one takeaway from today is do not send Lisa emails she hates emails I have a very specific question some collectors finds himself in the situation where they took they supported some artists earlier they took the time to visit their Studios they took the time to have conversation with them real dialogues and those artists obviously at some point got picked up by the top ten and you find yourself some collectors finds themself situation that they have no longer access to the same artists and they still want to buy those artists so whoever is going to answer I would like obviously to hear Lisa's answer what what do you do in a situation like this beyond move to other set of artists you move to another set of artists no it's an unfortunate scenario a look a lot of people will seek out an art adviser because they think we have access and we do not have access and I hate I'm like don't give me your list of artists to go get and get access to you I'm not gonna work for you but it is it is here's where the real problem happens I understand when the gallery needs to place works in institutions right so I get that I think the problem comes when it's like well you can have access to this if you buy these other things and I think to myself do your artists know that you're pawning off the one for the others and do the others now and so basically you're gonna sell it to the biggest who's gonna spend the most money on whatever and then resell those artists just to get to this one I don't know the answer to the question and it's just unfortunately a conundrum we're in and I always just say I never get mad at the galleries and I'm always really nice and humble about it and patient because eventually that artist that you don't have access to any more it's going to calm down and you'll be able to get access to it again or maybe it's better to just buy it at auction but sometimes it's a necessary it's just an unfortunate byproduct of the system right now I think if it's a really great artist and you've you've been collecting the artist for ten years and they're reaching mid-career and they're producing maybe twenty thirty artworks a year then you're lucky to actually be have access once every three years and that is is an amazing feat and I understand a hundred percent this situation and it might be better for you for the works you already own if if the gallery is really prioritizing prioritizing museums then it begets it begets your works that you already have that this that these get prioritized and institutions well there-there's something important on these discussion because it is not only that and I'm totally against that I think it's I don't think you should not like I don't like that attitude of not being like open with your with your artists and like the manipulation is something that really I find us as professional in the art world you know I make a living out of selling art the fact that all these games are played I think they're not good they're not good for the artists or not good for the collectors they're not you're you don't even know who's coming to your door and you're already pushing them out I don't think it's I don't think that's that's healthy and when they say Oh you gotta prioritize museums well the museum also has to want that artists exactly you know it's not that you get the artists there it's like the museum has to say you actually want it so I am gonna be careful with it it's very important that the artists are very very savvy and understand what the galleries are doing with their artwork because a lot of it is well so-and-so spent a hundred million dollars with us this year so they're gonna get first access to it but that person might not be the best patron for this artwork so it's really the artist has got to take control when it gets to that level and really haven't and it's unfortunate because they want to not do this but I think they should thank you you have mentioned cárdenas and I want to ask you do you promote artists from Colombia other than Cardenas and also want to know if Cardenas was ever related to one or Santiago Cardenas which probably know who they are and also I wanted to ask you and do you have any art right there without an angle and who would be young artists in Colombia who are actually you know growing or do you think can become big in the in the future I think you may have met a new collector we'll talk later no um no uh we have a big latin-american program so a lot of my artists are Colombian we have on might on the visionaries program that is the one that Miguel is part of most of them are Colombian ninety five percent and then in my young roaster program also so and he's not related to do to the other Cardenas they're very very different very different family I do not know who could have the or a tango right now I might have some ideas in my and I'll be happy to share them with you and who are great in orders to look out I'll have to vouch for my own because this is what I do Catalina Kai said oh I think it's a fantastic fantastic artist Noemi Paris on Philippe Arturo and I will Rodriguez those are fantastic artists producing a life with major um really powerful work that are thinking and working in a very honest way here we go like with microphone is coming hi thanks for sharing your thoughts when you advise somebody on a piece or sell a piece you know part of collecting is thinking that the appreciation of the price will occur for that piece so what method or perspective do you use that you think ok it's let's say $40,000 in 10 years it'll be 80 or it's 10 percent per year in how do you feel never get that advice ever you always first of all art is not liquid ever on any given day at any given moment your artwork is worth zero even if it's the hundred million dollar Basquiat had selling art is very complicated and requires a lot of work but I think I love this quote I read somewhere I think Landau said it you can make money buying and selling art you can make a fortune holding it your help value is always higher than your transacted value you can't you can't a hundred thousand things can happen and you should never ever buy art if your expectations or that it will always go up because it won't always go up a lot will go to zero it just does I think you know a whole collection is sometimes more valuable than the individual pieces and that's why being a confident collector and building a collection that has some pieces that may not have commercial value and by the way commercial value is in is in crisis right now so what we consider commercially valuable is just some at auction so I think there there will be some changes and some positive things that happen but I I do think as a confident collector even if the auction market is telling you it's zero today your value of a whole collection over I can still be something quite remarkable okay maybe last question over here I believe it all good afternoon Luis Vasquez so if we have to summarize the hall meeting in three main bullet points as well as the my question goes call two we are able to gather near collectors can we summarize in three main bullet points how can we actually gather new collectors what are the strategies to be put in place in order to do so does anybody want to feel that one or I mean I think it from from what has been said here I think one big takeaway is to actually engage with the collectors give them the time take them seriously you know give them an education and not just try to sell to them you know I think I need a has said that the one thing that really you know kind of is a huge turnoff is when somebody is just treating her as if she's not willing to spend the time to really engage with the art and really learning about the art so you should take them seriously then I would to say I Instagram is fair he seems to be really useful art fairs and art fairs okay one more do one more cause Lisa mentioned about institutions and I think it's so important that collectors supports the smaller institutions and the bigger institutions they get so much out of it it's so rewarding and you're giving so much to the ecosystem you can meet a lot of great collectors from the boards of those at least in New York City the smaller institutions all of the board members are potential great collectors that is great and very actionable advice because the boards are obviously publicly listed so alright well thank you very much this has been a lovely conversation

Channel: Art Basel

Views: 8,289

Rating: 4.8947368 out of 5

Keywords: Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Conversations, Miami Beach, Omayra Alvarado-Jensen, Lisa Schiff, Anita Zabludowicz, Andrew Goldstein, art, art collecting, collectors, art market, galleries, gallerists, artists, Instituto de Visión

Id: ZR9AdVh65sU

Length: 66min 44sec (4004 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019