"Selling Art Online: Are Galleries Prepared?" | Barcelona Symposium 2020

well as has been touched on change some come slow sometimes slowly sometimes in the art world and you can see that I'm not a millennial which means that I do have a long enough memory to remember the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and when I was researching this topic so I kept thinking about how many businesses that been that existed and disappeared The Wall Street Journal thinks about 40 businesses started up to sell art and antiquities out sorry arson antiques online in that period of which there are incredibly few survivors one of them of course was art net which in fact started a little bit before that before that boom but what has become apparent and let's say the last five to six years is where those businesses failed for various reasons and then of course we had the VIP Art Fair which I'm sure some of you will remember a number of businesses have emerged that are building it seems we don't know because we tend not to know how the profitability but our building apparently stable and growing and sustainable online businesses I mentioned art net obviously this artsy where Elena used to work the big auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's again you may remember Sotheby's had its hands burnt first time around it invested 40 million dollars partnership with eBay in the first time and that I'm afraid failed but they reported figures I think in 2018 of 72 million dollars in online sales which represents about 7 percent of their turnover so a small part of their business but a rapidly growing one and obviously reading the reports coming out of Sotheby's online looks like it's going to be a very sort of key part of their business strategy having said that most sales have tended to be at the lower end of the market we know that art world data tends not to be comprehensive for a lot of reasons but both artsy and Claire McAndrew of the Art Basel UBS report say that most online art sales are around the $5,000 mark I think what's so interesting about having Olivia and Elena here with us today is that two of these very large two of the leading art galleries I guess in the world it's Werner and gagauzian have done what most people have failed so far to do which is to sell at a high level online and that's one of the reasons that you've been invited here today suela launched its first online viewing room in 2017 gagauzian followed a year later in 2018 and just last year I think we had we don't know the final sales prices I think but the Gaussian sold an album oilin priced at six million dollars a table during art basel hong kong online and as well I think it's sort of record-breaking sale was the kasama pumpkin sold at 1.8 million dollars again on an online viewing room during Art Basel as introduced we have Elena she's director of online sales at David's Werner she is driving forward online viewing rooms and also these kind of I don't know what would you call them almost like parallel art fair presentation exactly virtual art fair booths or something we've referred to them as yeah okay and olivia is director of digital marketing and she's at Coco's Ian you're kind of more on the content and marketing side aren't you Olivia but you work very closely with Allison McDonald who was here last year in publications and with Samm Orlovsky who I think is the director at Kerr goes in who is driving forward the the online viewing room program okay well just to kick us off I'd quite like to ask you what do we mean by an online sale now I say this as somebody obviously I'm not a gallerist I have by things online I'm not buying top-level oz I'm a journalist that would be most unusual but you know I think it wasn't on when I think of an online sale generally I think of something that I saw online I saw the price online I paid for it online I paid for my shipping or sever online and I don't see the item until it lands with me if I like if I keep it if I don't like it I put your turns label honest and back at gays what do we mean in the art world when we say an online sale I'm happy to you know answer that since I think it's a great definition to start off with thank you for having us here we all know that I think a majority of sales at a gallery now go through PDFs and JPEGs and I think that in the way that our gallery thinks about online sales it's really sales that are driven through the inbound channels of our digital efforts and for us that is primarily our website and the online viewing rooms exhibitions Art Fair engagements that we do but of course it also includes third party platforms like artsy and art net as well as various other channels such as social media so you don't necessarily mean a sale that is digital all the way through no and I think that's a key difference because as you said we are reaching a much higher price point so when you come to buy in the online portal at Davis burner it is still an inquiry I think that's important because they're still for high-value objects a lot of discussion sometimes that should be had and it also allows the collector who's engaging to still get the benefit of the really sort of expertise of the sales team that they're working with however of course you know the engagement starts off online and then can be continued online and for the collector never to come in or sometimes you know there is continuation where the collector does come into the gallery to see them yes and it's not the same fear for circa Gaussian Olivia yeah it's very much the same there's third party platforms are main kind of high price point sales go through the online viewing room and then there are other channels primarily newsletters social media the website but I also think it's worth pointing out that it's not a very neat conversation and they're increasingly what we're seeing is clients who possibly sent a direct message on Instagram but also had then simultaneously contacted someone that they already know through the gallery and more and more you're seeing that when conversations happen internally there were inquiries happening at multiple through multiple different channels and that's a very interesting thing as well so defining them particularly is like straightforward online sales is still a difficult thing to do because I think even looking at your profiles on on on art see for example there are a few occasions where you can buy directly mostly at they're very very much lower level but in general would you say it's gallery policy to to put a collector in front of a member of the gallery team as soon as as soon as possible what we see that as a benefit to the collector because frankly we're not a marketplace model like arts your art net where the volume is what sort of drives that in what we do there's really sort of an exhibition based model which means there's two exhibitions a month or so so really getting the collector to be speaking with one of our gallery directors immediately is a benefit and then they can choose the kind of interaction they have so would you say it's close to say buying couture fashion or buying a high-end car where I don't think many people would buy a two hundred thousand pound car without test driving it um that's a little bit more complicated I mean it goes in we also have an online shop which Tim mentioned and that's very much more more on the e-commerce side although we do sell artists editions and have a very big rare books department and that's a huge part of you know what we put out a new setters for example and then there's the higher price point and and actually for the majority I mean I think almost all of our on arguing room sales they've never been the works were never seen in person before they were bought so it it kind of there's not a depends it's definitely this hybrid model I think and that's something that before everyone was trying to make a very distinct of you know where there was going to be ecommerce or in person and I think collectors just expect a very fluid experience the question obviously on the board is are galleries prepared how much do you think you are playing catch-up with the big auction houses like Sotheby's do you think that you're behind the curve would you feel like you are ahead of the curve because of because of what you've achieved so far do you wanna yeah great so I think as an industry the art world is certainly behind many other industries and you know we're looking at real estate finance luxury so I think we have a lot to learn however you know part of the reason I joined the program was because David's burner was the first one to establish an online viewing room and really sort of does see it as a space of investing for our artists and our program so I do feel that that's been significant and what I'm seeing in the last year is actually the industry adoption is really happening and so what we're seeing is a lot of galleries of all various sizes experimenting with their own online sales models yeah and I think very much goes in one of the driving forces behind setting up an online viewing room was I mean Larry was an early investor of artsy and the gallery had been watching that develop and also watching what was happening in the auction houses and we decided during the first online viewing room to see really what kind of innovation and progress could be made a much higher price point so the first online viewing room that we did was experimenting the works between $100,000 and a million dollars and then increasingly up to the Albert Olin that we sold during our puzzle Hong Kong it's like a much much higher price point so I really think that although generally the art world possibly is behind lots of other industries I think I got what Coco see that's really trying to do is like innovate and and really experiment at that at that level and each time we've done an online viewing room we've you know a slightly different model slightly different format different works primary/secondary you know we've really been working towards that yeah and I think we might go through that a little bit more later can I ask in a simplest terms why are you doing it are you doing it basically to make money is this experimentation are you concerned that the gallery is a business we'll look we'll fall behind if it doesn't embrace new technology I mean what's the kind of overriding reason do you think that the people at the top want to invest in this for us it's the same reason that we do everything else at the gallery and it's ultimately for our artists they are the sort of North Star of everything that we think about and that is why I think the approach that we take with sort of looking at online through the perspective of exhibition making is distinct and really sort of unique in the space for us we try to do something that's you know 20 shows a year that are led through this process of working with our artists to see what facet of their practice is not represented through the physical exhibitions that we do and is their opportunity to create something that excites them and I think that's sort of been a key driving goal of course on the other hand we are also serving collectors and I know the talk beforehand summarized great great points about millennial collectors and what we're finding is certainly it's a great channel for us to engage with new collectors and we see about you know 40 to 45 percent of inquiries that are coming through online for us are those who've never contacted the gallery before so it's really a key source of connecting with new collectors for us as well of course as reaching very global audiences Olivia what's good goujian's driving motivation here I mean working with artists is obviously I mean the fundamentals of what the gallery does but I think artists are very interested in the online space because of the potential reach and the potential international reach and also the ability to tell stories about their work and what they're doing the practices online and really traditionally I think artists wanted you know to have a print ad you know a long time ago a print ad in like the New York Times whereas now it's like you really do to be able to put your work on a platform in front of you know Kokosing has one point eight million social media followers it's a huge audience organically so that's very very important and collectors I mean one of the main reasons why we started doing on viewing room it was that we wanted to do them around like art fair moments so the on our viewing rooms tend to open a few days before a major fair and then close a few days after the fair and I think the thing that people started noticing was Art Fair fatigue and that people weren't attending the fairs and by therefore offering work so exclusively online we were able to reach people that potentially I decided not to attend affair and so that that was another driving force parted so perhaps this is a good point just for people who don't know about the two strategies of the different companies maybe just to run over the kind of the overall sort of spread of online online that you do starting with you Olivia so you you you have third party platforms I think you said that you're on artsy art net ocular yeah those are the main ones okay and but I had a look at that and again mostly there's a lot of inventory on they're really only at the cheaper end of prices put on there and I think do you actually sell directly or do you always encourage it's always encouraged but it's not actually even it's not actually particularly low level there's still inventory it's like I have much higher percentage the prices what only disclose like oh yeah yeah I could see there was inventory high level but you only put your loan appeared for the low level prices yeah so you've got some low level you've got all well a wide range of inventory with those with those players but only priced at the lower and you know that's visible at the lower end the Goshen shop is interesting there that Tim mentioned earlier because again you have a wide range of goods on there from I think you said cards was the the census card posters but I noticed like I saw a really nice Richard arch Frogger poster on there but that was an inquiry so so what's the kind of range that you're selling on the gag Ossian shop and what's the point of that and I think the guys in shop has been around I think the physical store was opened in 2009 and then the auto shop followed adequately so it's something that the gallery has been involved has been working for a really long time and the price point I mean we do actually lesser prices and newsletters up to sort of $30,000 you know that's something that that does happen I think a lot of the reason why the online shop for example if you found a rare book on the online shop you would then be put in contact with our rare book specialist within the gallery and that's again about expertise about having a discussion about the work and someone who really knows about it so there's like varying strategies but obviously the Google goes in has a huge publications department and you know I think were over 500 books have been published by the department and the online shop is a very good way to be selling those as well as artists editions the more that artists are collaborating that offers a platform for us to sell starting rubies fashion line you know there's a huge variation of what's on so you bought in quite early didn't you to the idea that you would really like people to be able to walk out with something yeah I think that's and I guess what people probably hear most interested there is the strategy for the online viewing room so you've done four of them yeah I wonder if you could just talk us through the different thinking because they've they've all been different haven't they they have all been different and so the first one that we did was during an Art Basel 2018 and it was a group online viewing room so we presented tender works by 10 different artists and it was open for 10 days and a lot of the like philosophy behind your name viewing room is that those a the work is presented in a physical viewing space and you can kind of zoom in on the work see videos about the work read sense of essays so that was the first one and then did you have much contact content on the first one always it wasn't as much content and then the second iteration we produced a lot more content that was a lot more focus on video we did a much wider social strategy and there's like 24/7 assistant so you can contacted a member of staff via the portal and the conversation then continues on email or in person and then the third on viewing and that we did was that album on this was a solo booth so we presented one work it was a 1988 abstract what by Albert Olin and that one we really produced even more content there was a historical analysis on the site market analysis on the site we produced videos which were members of go-go's II and go-go's and directors having conversations about the market on the one hand and also the history behind the work on the other and I think what that really did was allowed people who were online to see the kind of conversations that you would be having with go-go's in staff you know in a gallery space and that that was very successful and then the most recent one that we did was for Friesland and that was worth starting Ruby and that was a collaborative project and the whole online viewing room was curated by Salman offski from go-go's Ian and then starting Ruby and that was there were 14 watts in total seven of them were primary market works that had come straight from Stirling studio and then he had selected important historical works to present them alongside and there had been a big influence on his practice and through that on my viewing room we we interviewed him and he he told an audience a huge amount about his work and obviously he works across a variety of mediums and it offered him the platform to speak about all kinds of work that he's producing online so that's we've kind of been like innovating and changing the ways that we're doing it so would you consider price an experimental strategy or are you finding that there's a model that's already working much better than the others yes we're finding yeah perhaps we could explore a little bit late baby Elena again very similar you have you have the third-party sellers like artsy online you really only sell publications I think my rice book story yeah but you've been adopting a somewhat different strategy for these online viewing rooms could you talk about the two strands yeah absolutely so we started in 2017 and there has been over there have been over 50 viewing rooms so far about half of them under my tenure so it's certainly been a different approach and how we look at it is we call it our seventh gallery space and it's something I've talked about in past interviews but I really think this is sort of the best way to think about and describe our efforts in the sense that what we do is we really work with artists and it starts from a phase of us researching and understanding what is an opportunity to whether it's bring together a group of works or obviously highlight a facet of an artist practice so to say are these exhibitions all primary markets all with living artists or not no actually this is a amazing thing it's both with artists and estates and some of them have been curated externally and group exhibitions some of them are even with artists we don't represent but have hide for example shows but such as Bruce Nauman or Charles white and so what's been really interesting is really working with each individual artist or a state to try to find what it is that they're really passionate about and really want to bring online and then of course you know trying to work with them and resourcing it accordingly and so back to this I say what so well how long is the run of an exhibition because I'm obviously yours like ten days that's got that real sort of time pressure do you run them for six weeks like a normal show you know for the exhibitions we that are online in the online viewing room we do five to six weeks for our parallel art fair booths which you mentioned which are around these critical Art Fair moments they're also about a week so they really then they are in parallel to the fair so they make sense for them to have that finite time and other works on sale they're only available online it's not it's not a copy of what you're bringing to the Art Fair so we while we present already ongoing for every fair we do we generally present an online preview which also sites like artsy or even bring on there what's unique about how we've started and you know with Basel Online was are really big feature where we sold you know 3.5 million of art including the pumpkin but as well as other many amazing works is really that that those are exclusively for online audience but the quality of the work is alike to what you'd find I pause --all and really there its dedicating that inventory and setting it aside and saying that this is for a global audience because there's so many collectors who don't necessarily travel to all the art fairs that's the author fatigue that you would yeah yeah and and to come back to this sort of idea of the seventh gallery space you know in terms of just even how we think about it and you know it's important to know that we really resource it accordingly and so to to have all these exhibitions we need we need to look at it as a gallery space much like we do with you know David's foreign or Hong Kong David's burner up town in New York or David's Werner in London this is David's burner online and so that really encompasses having dedicated sales assistants dedicated registrar's you know dedicated editorial team working on this specifically which you know with having so many shows of course doesn't I think surprised people but I think it is important to note that having those that team in place and just to talk about you know the process of working with artists and estates and how we've really been able to develop this model it really does come from conversations and really sort of offering artists the opportunity of treating this as a space and I think one Gordon thing is it's not an alternate space to having a physical show we're not saying David's fern are still a brick-and-mortar gallery but it is this sort of new space and artists are very excited much like you said to to really explore that and and so you know we have artists like Rose Wiley or Oscar Mario who are really sort of conceptualizing and making work specifically for this space and making work in a way that is better adept at being shown online potentially then it is offline and because of the rich context and narrative it offers and with Oscar you know to go further he did a series of drawings that seem very obsessive and abstract and you don't realize they're actually drawings that he made on an airplane until you see the full context of the viewing room and so just really taking the viewer inside that whole experience with the artist is really part of what appeals to I think both artists and collectors about it so I guess you wouldn't want to do this with an artist that wasn't enthusiastic about this can I ask Olivia with the with the album oil in which that was that work was consigned wasn't it did you have to get permission from from Whalen I mean and what was the process I think I think generally what we're finding is that artists are slightly less perhaps they've Auto enthusiastic about working with us on online projects and consign is a it's slightly more it's slightly different territory and I think possibly there may be there are some obvious points about the fact that a lot of the works that when we're speaking with artists a primary marker and they've come straight from the studio and so artists they seem very happy with the price transparency which is I think one of the things that glucose Ian's were doing was making choice prices transparent a particular level an artist seemed very comfortable that consigners it's less initially behind the initiative but we've had I mean great success but I think that's just often because they possibly only have one work whereas the artist has a body of work you know there were some of points about possibly why that is but we obviously speaking with artists all the time about these projects and you don't have any resistance from artists saying I'd much rather people saw the physical quality of my work so I think actually what we're finding is that the way that goes in is presenting these works online there were very very high quality videos and so you really get a sense of like the texture of work you know I do think that psych testament to the fact that by it's haven't seen these works in person because we're putting a lot of effort into video and also presenting the works at scale becomes very important I think that's one of the things that possibly and in someone who inquires fire art she has massive a sense of like the scale of a work and they're more far more likely to want to see it in person than someone who's come in from the online viewing room where the experiences is it's far more superior and we even translate a lot of those things which is more where my role sits a lot of the things that we translate from the website are then used on social so we're using a lot of very high quality video assets on Instagram stories on Instagram you know paid social ads like a lot of that and so people really get a sense for for the work and so I mean that's obviously is a big investment there isn't it I mean III make videos as well and it's expensive it is but I do think there's a lot that you can do that's not you know I think people do sell stuff do take you know photos of works on their phone with someone you know scale it's something that's like very well-established in the art world but so you can do a different level but I do think we've had great success doing it well to add to that I think that video it is so uniquely you know well adjusted for online content obviously and artists are really excited to take to take the viewers inside of their process because often what you see within a gallery setting is just the end result and they're actually just thrilled to show you how it's made and the whole story and narrative behind it I think a lot of artists actually really enjoyed that aspect and you know I think to sort of really sort of agree with what you said there that for them because we're not taking shows away from them having physical work we're just saying this is an additional space and so they want to create work that potentially has extra concept or extra narrative quality that they see is actually uniquely better positioned to be online so if the artist you mentioned the fact the artists are very comfortable about the price transparency because I mean that's been something I think anyone who's ever gone to an Art Fair as a reporter will tell you that the reason were often told that we can't find the prices out is because the artists are very resistant about this do you think this is more an issue of just art well practices you know I think that that's something that has been an evolving issue and I think young collectors just art of changing that game it's it's been you know transparency now with every all the information we have available is something that we expect and galleries have to adjust and so with every online viewer and we've done we've posted the prices and whether the you know the works are under ten thousand or you know just below two million you can see it and I think it's actually very educational for collectors for new to the market to come in and start to understand this because it just takes some of the intimidation factor out it also shows you that even you know large galleries like ours have a lot of works which are in the few thousand dollar range at least for us you know and I'm sure in the gift shop you could also find that and really give some confidence let's talk a little bit about the collectors who are they I think most people would probably expect that they are indeed younger Millennials perhaps that they might be new to buying art they may be coming from countries like Asia where people are it's harder to get to the galleries and people are very comfortable with online but is that true so from what we've seen there's no single collector demographic and I think it's very important to point out because obviously while we have started you know trying to find sort of what are the patterns and a lot of people discuss in the earlier conversation that there's a very younger audience I would say for us we have collectors who are coming in through Instagram and buying their first you know Josh Smith monotype of $2,000 and there are those you know top 200 collectors coming in at a very different level and what we're seeing is it's that online serves different collectors in different ways and for the younger collectors is definitely this kind of price transparency and accessibility of information and getting you know their first work while it also is really a huge global reach and I'll elaborate there in in the sense that of the 15 most valuable works that we've sold online all have gone to collectors in cities we don't have a gallery and that clearly shows that we're serving those collectors who it's not that they're choosing not to come into the physical space we they don't have the option to do so we think that just time pool you know and also just don't have the ability to not necessarily be you know traveling to New York or Basel all the time and so those kind of cities the collectors are coming from you know San Francisco Toronto Houston Antwerp Singapore you know Tokyo it's it's amazing but it's really that's I think also a little bit of what the prior panelists were talking about that online really extends your geographic footprint and really serves that higher-end collecting community that's you know very broad Olivia obviously specializing in marketing so I'm guessing you know quite a lot about audience motivations why do you think people would like would like would prefer to buy online but not everyone do and we'll come on to that but but why do you think this this is suiting its kind of something it depends on what kind of work we're talking about and also where it's been marketed so a lot of what I mean one of the when I arrived at the gallery one of the first projects I was involved with was like the Murakami a blow show in London and so we there was a lot of there were prints and t-shirts we did flash sales it was like a kind of different different kind of marketing for a different kind of audience of like newer younger collectors we mainly promoted on Instagram I mean you're working with two people who have enormous Instagram following answers so it's slightly different to this there's that there's those collectors that we're talking about and then there's the online viewing room collectors which is obviously a different bracket and I think with that we're seeing the data sets still small which I'm sure is what it's happening across galleries but what we're seeing in with the online viewing room is that sometimes their new collectors who who are possibly known to the gallery but haven't bought and might be might follow us on social or be signed up to our news data and and I think maybe that's and then there were some who possibly haven't bought for a long time through the gallery but they might have a member of they might have a contact at the gallery they haven't smoked into for a while but they've possibly engaged in a meaningful way and I think activating those collectors it's possibly quite an important part of part of online and and that's very much done if you've got a big audience which the gallery is lucky enough to have where you're more finding that you're kind of tapping people tapping into people who do actually know the gallery know the brand know the artists very well and and that's almost what's happening that they're signed in presumably that's also because at this much higher end I mean we are talking about a very small number of people are we yeah and I think to the point of you know datasets one thing that you know someone also with an economics background will point out that it's really sort of you know we shouldn't sort of draw a large conclusions because what everything I've seen it's really driven by the inventory and actually dependent on what is the inventory you put out there is the kind of audience you get and so creating an average of that is really for us that has not been a valuable inside did you find a min at the beginning I think people noted with with Werner that you know if you're selling something like this very recognizable like Donald Judd or kasama that is probably easier for people to buy online I wondered if you sort of signed up to that point of view but it seemed to me that if you've seen an artist's work a lot you might have seen it as exhibitions or you've seen it at art fairs I mean pressing ping isn't quite so scary as maybe an is his work you don't know you know that is the hypothesis that I also had and generally we have seen a lot of those artists have a strong obviously interest but I've been really surprised and you know bringing the exhibition of Bill trailer for example online had an enormous response and he was an artist that we had not worked before we did a show with him uptown this fall in you know with kisses you know works from his estate and has just been it was incredible the kind of response we got it so it's totally unexpected in some ways and in the artists that get the most interest and inquiries are not necessarily the biggest names that you'd expect although of course there is an audience for that can you share anything um well I think I said I mean at Charles White was and you know an exceptional viewing room and that that was great and some of the the works that we did there went to actually institutions which is incredible to be selling online and well I was surprised by that when we talked about this earlier that you have actually been making sales to museums online which was I mean how's that happening why is that happening if you have the Ray works I think and sort of again broad reach it's sorry you know it becomes a place where all types of collectors you know institutional trustees whatnot come and look to you the other thing is that we've really communicated to our collectors that if you want to see our whole program it's not just the six gallery spaces there is this online portal and they know that that is part of you know the gallery exhibition program to a point that actually when you walk into our New York space is the vinyl listing you know of all everything global and for online there is a listing there and I think that that sort of shows the kind of commitment and dedication that we have I I was interested looking at some of the surveys and again I keep repeating this thing about small data sets and you know and not complete data nonetheless I think his said that the things that motivated people were things like same quality of art quality of navigation reputation of the seller price transparency was very important as well amongst the people who bought online there and this I think this figure came from arts economics only 12 percent said it was their preferred way to buy what do you think are the barriers to people buying online what what have you got to change I mean well I suppose we've touched on one which is the physical the physical inspection of the work which you're trying to deal with through the way you present the work and the film's I mean I think one of the things that people are always going to be concerned about issues like provenance authenticity reputation well I mean I think they're having having a brand is obviously a strong advantage and the fact that we are the primary representatives of many of the artists which we show and that we have obviously a reputation within the art world and we're at fairs and people know of our brand obviously gives them sort of trust and assurance and of course that you know when you're buying works of Kusama or donald judd you want to make sure that the provenance is there that you know that you you want to know that the quality of shipping and handling and as well as just sort of the art historical narrative that you get and that the salespeople are educated in that way and so I think that offers obviously huge benefits I clearly you know I think that online is still a new channel to a lot of collectors but from what we've seen it's not a resistance it's rather that they might not be aware of it I guess but you know it's again it's different from the report there yeah and also to be fair most people are not offering sales you know openly priced you know the question will be will that will those statistics change I guess if people are doing it more often and it's just a more standard practice that you can say as we've been talking about repeatedly the issue of price and seeing the work and being able to see it well can I ask a little bit about the way you organize your teams and how many people are involved I mean obviously you're both significant galleries I've you know 200 to 250 staff your big operations how many people are engaged for Swarna in in the online operation it's a tricky question because of course there is the online sales team as I mentioned which is my team we do these incredible exhibitions and it feels like we're still sort of a small start-up within this much bigger entity in the New York office you're like 5 6 if you do something that exactly so it's six people however we also rely on the resources of the marketing team the technology team you know obviously the photography and video teams and so while those are not strictly online sales they support everything online sales do extensively as well as they support everything that the exhibition's program around the world so it's really there's not a clear answer because of this and I don't know if you'd have a similar I think rather than I think what's quite interesting about the way that online sales have Tibet has developed within the gallery it's been very much driven by Allison and Sam and that's someone Allison is publishing director and you know has his black tongue establishing the go-go's in quilting magazine and then bringing the magazine online and driving videos and then there's Sam who's works who's got a huge amount of experience working with artists and is the Sales Director and and then more kind of my team side of things is the digital marketing side and so it's been very much driven by a combination of like what I'd say is sort of very solid who goes in like pillars of the business you know like it's very important that it's that the projects that we're doing online content rich and so again I think it's it's difficult to define everyone that works within the gallery is sort of very aware works digitally has to be aware of the of the promotion of exhibitions and their artists online presence and you know even sort of Google search as people have to be aware of these things so everyone is you know I feel fairly but are you under pressure to deliver that they large sales targets you're obviously quite small oops by the sounds of it within these big operations or are the gallery judging your success in other terms I mean what other sort of measures of success that that you are trying to foster or meet success for us is our artists being engaged and wanting to exhibit in the program of online so I think that's sort of reflected in the goals that we set out because it's not necessarily you know while the price ranges it's not only sales driven because we want to be able to use this as an experimental space and have a viewing room maybe if one piece are just very non commercial entities that we feel you know should be shown and that artists feel that they want to bring us that part of their practice to the audience and it is you know our goal to fully support that and so of course it is a sales platform and as a gallery our responsibility for artists is to support them in a commercial sort of way and make sure that there is sort of they have livelihoods at the same time I think that for us success is sort of a broader concept which is artists first but of course also just the level of engagement that we have from our audience and so we're connecting them into the quarries for example and of course yeah inquiries and views and you know for us that that sort of it's important metrics yeah yeah what about folk ago see'em I mean I'm sure I'm sure it's the same that there are metrics that very much not about sales about how the artist feels about the content that's being produced whether they're happy to be involved there's sales and then there's the metrics mainly that I focus on which is about engagement reaching new audiences what we're doing in terms of like digital advertising new contacts you know how many people have read our newsletters you know their metrics are important across all businesses because everyone has an online element so it completely varies and different we look at varied lots of different metrics to measure success yeah okay but I say with the kind of sails are clearly you've achieved something very interesting and the sails or something I'm sure you're looking to grow but and maybe fair to say at the moment wouldn't it that this is probably a fairly small slice of of the gallery's turnover so I mean we don't talk about sales and you know those kind of terms but I you know I think one public number we did put out there then of the year is we had four hundred percent growth in terms of the sales value and 160 percent growth in terms of inquiries which gives you an idea as well just of you know we've really I think you referenced some of these reports and the average sales price being you know five to ten thousand and what we've consistently seen is that while within our viewing room the price range has been from you know two thousand dollars unless almost two million we're really seeing a much higher average price than what the reports are sort of showing yeah and I think also a lot of the reports say that most galleries are it's about six percent of turnover is coming from online but again I'm guessing that both of you are imagining that that is going to grow significantly I mean would you be surprised if in ten years time we're still around those kind of numbers definitely I mean auction houses are you know one industry benchmark that I think we can all look to where in I believe it's about twenty five percent of the Lots of a total auction house right now for Southern B's go through online of course for value it's different things about 7 for 8 exactly so but I it's of course natural that it's gonna grow and I think that and if anything you know one of the things we've seen is sort of the the collectors are getting more and more on board and you can hear from us the artists are more and more willing to take that risk because you know they're they're able to and it's really sort of the traditional art world establishment I would say that's still we're trying to win over and in that sense you know what we've been doing for example is bringing new work that artists are putting together curated exhibitions online and you know the they haven't entered yet into that sort of critical discourse and what I'd love to see you know happen in the next I don't know how many years but is that the industry response and in a way that acknowledges that I mean a few years ago people were talking about sort of Netflix and streaming and whether that was something viable that you know is eligible for awards or is eligible to for reviews and you know now that's not even a question now I think Netflix Studios has something like twenty Oscar nominations and so what I'd love to see is you know how long does it take and what does it take from our side for you know the art press many of you are here to start thinking about this as actual shows because artists are well that's a challenge to some of us in the art press and also some of the arts the traditional art world I'm sure some some some of us are in the traditional art world so this is probably quite a good time to go out to questions would anybody like to ask Elena or Olivia about their online experiences the lady over here i hello Marian I'm from Paris actually have two questions um I think that a lot of I will say middle galleries are here and smaller galleries so do you think that this online developments is only possible because of the brand of gagauzian and after its failure how do you think that well how how should do a smaller galleries to to develop their online let's say exhibitions or shows but also because do this should they concentrate or to do this kind of online development or just should they work more with platform that maybe have a bigger audience already well you know I'll just say that I think that every gallery should figure out their own route for online and I would say that from what I've seen there's many great smaller and medium sized galleries everyone from you know the journal to aster shipper to David Gordon ski really figuring out their own model for this so so I ask what you think that doing that's so good they're trying something out and I think that that's what's valuable is just that kind of level of experimentation and asking your artists of what how they want any gauge for the platform and I think a lot of what you talked about with us content and you know the idea that also we were so you know invested in developing with you know video and all this extra narrative and really sort of editorial is something that every gallery can do and it provides a greater archive and resource for collectors so it's really again a hybrid element and I would say it embrace a hybrid strategy in that way and it's been interesting the degree to which you've been experimenting with different things yeah I also think that possibly what other platforms offer is an kind of a fairly straightforward way to get inventory online which that means that you can push people to it from your newsletters and from other kind of more traditional marketing strands so focusing on sort of growing newsletters subscribe and doing all of those things that really I mean there really are important and they're still hugely important to the gallery and that's something that I think I put a lot of work into and Joe who was here on stage earlier I think was such a great example of a gallery that's of really taking ownership over the online strategy and having such you know large top end of the funnel with the Instagram audience and the newsletter audience and then really sort of I guess from his description being targeted and the way then that he approaches things you use a lot of opportunities to grow your newsletters don't you how do you do that well I mean there's those ways you know you propose ask push people just subscribe from Instagram stories you know there are ways like that to do it but also I think programming feeds a lot a huge amount into what we're trying to do online and you know we have a big public program of exhibitions and film screenings we're working with other you're reaching out to new audiences as well through partnerships through working with some of them are brands some of them are other cultural institutions and by doing that what you're allowing yourself to do is then have create like online connections I mean some of its as simple as like tagging people and posts you know you're then reaching wider audiences and those things have a big a big impact and then in time translate into more solid online sales strategies so I'm obviously more in the content side so that's the site oh sorry somebody in the back and then somebody over here I got my glasses on ecology see when my glasses are on okay there's a few people at the back I'm Andrew goldstein the editor of art net and I just want to say this is a fascinating field that you guys are working and you're obviously the pioneers into what is going to be a big part of the future of the art market so Olivia you mentioned before that some of the hesitation that you're seeing is coming from the concise and actually that that reminded me that I was just in Taipei dong died a couple of days ago which is if it's kind of incredible to think about and I was in this Werner booth and I saw that there was this beautiful Raoul de Kaiser on the wall that I was like where do I know this from and I I think that I recognized it because it was an incredibly memorable video that the artist Harold and cart had done where he said whenever I see Ralph de Keyser it makes me want to go to my studio and paint it's an amazing quote it was a it was an unforgettable video and that makes me think okay so if you are doing these online viewing rooms and you're putting work up on on the internet for a huge audience to see I mean particularly with something like the Albert erlan show where you've got like one work that is getting a huge amount of attention how do you how do you kind of hedge against the idea that this thing gets burned is there a way that you can you know have a guarantor perhaps who's who's ready to step in or there are there mechanisms to prevent that an artwork of that caliber from not being sold and then the second question is what is the philosophy towards archiving these kinds of these kinds of sales because I don't think there's there's much archiving of previous sales the first question I don't really work in like straightforward sell so as he didn't deal with a Berlin consignment or anything but I think that with that project in particular there was a lot of market analysis that was published as part of that online viewing room so we we published a lot of data there were a lot of graphs included and in that about Owens market and the strength of of the market and the gallery was obviously very behind the idea that this was an a great painting a great price at the right moment and I think I mean you know there was a sale for 7.9 million at auction for one of Owens works in June and we it really did continue to to rise and I think that the gallery had great faith in that and that it was it was really a strong work to be presenting online in a solo booth so I think that's really the kind of story behind that particular project and in terms of arc I think I don't know if you want to yeah so for us we do keep our viewing rooms online after they have closed so we do remove the pricing information so while the viewing rooms are live for the five to six week period pricing as well as availability and I think that's important because it's if something's on reserve you see that if something is sold you see that in the viewing room but after it closes we keep the complete archive but remove that sort of pricing data and I think at the moment you don't talk although I'm sure they're archived somewhere but they're not so public you know so the gallery is it's like a completely separate microsite and so it's it's separate and you visit it and it's it's not archived you can't access the the kind of inventory of works but I mean they're fairly widely published you know I will add one more thing that we've actually found from several viewing rooms that have happened in the past we continue to get weekly several inquiries because we may be and inquire and for an A or rauch that's been so incredibly successful that you know we we continue to see sales and enquiries and that one because it was prints it's something that we actually have additional inventory of so we can offer it to clients so you're basically getting a benefit from leaving it up can I ask out of interest why do you take the price information down because I mean over the years that might come become different and so the collector will have a different expectation yeah yeah so you know something we've been doing it since 2017 I think there was a question over here was it if they're at they're at the back first is it and then here and then there's somebody the far back yeah thank you again for another great panel discussion um talking about reputation I mean the the question was already kind of asked because you you have a big credibility so we can see how clients are not reluctant to buy from casinos right now I just wanted to ask something about again like smaller and mid-range galleries how would that let's say affect their reputation in the sense that before when we spoke about the The Young Money and Millennials we spoke about introducing our two different aspects different industries so if you want like I could texture interior design a bit of this like Russian constructivist spirit let's say where art is kind of like part of life which is very nice and we can think of like examples of other crossings like diesel which is a fashion brand did a very nice collection for Moroso four beds and sofas and for furs Carini four lights but that's sold in interior design shops suede-like Yayoi Kusama did a collaboration we'll leave it on I guess it was only sold in the return and I just went on your online shop for Joseon and I saw a handbag so how do you think it would affect if you know small galleries with all of a sudden start selling handbags and other products that are not art on their websites I do you think it would affect them do you think gagauzian has that power to do that just because of the reputation or maybe we should ask ourselves is there even a line drawn nowadays between this luxury business says maybe we can just sell everything it's just a question well I mean I remember a few years ago in Miami I saw some great project so we're really artist driven I that's what I sort of would be my suggestion is as long as it's coming from the artist and they're working on it and you know it's authentic I think that that's where it's you know you can incorporate that as part of your gallery program or exhibitions online of course you know I think that whenever thinking about collaborations one needs to balance how to ensure the artists work is presented in the best way possible and really true to what their goals are so I don't you know I don't think it's only the large galleries that can do brand partnerships and I speak from experience because it artsy one of the things that I ended up doing in my last couple years was running artist projects where we would work with big brands everyone you know from Microsoft and Gucci and Dior and really sort of supporting a lot of younger artists and really enabling them to do large-scale projects that they could not have realized otherwise I mean we've certainly seen artists design projects with small nonprofits and I'm thinking about Holshouser Voltaire in London I know that's a non-profit but it has a very successful shop which if anything I think probably means that people have heard of it so I guess it's I guess it's what you do I don't know and I mean it's also about obviously of an artist has been involved in one of these projects and it's making a handbag they you know they wanted to be involved in it and therefore sort of want you as the rep as someone that represents them to be communicating that and communicating it well across you know different platforms so I think that's very much what goes in Stan's that you know so I guess there's projects of projects that don't it's yeah okay the lady in the front here first of all Olivia Yelena thanks Freddie insides I'm a PhD student and I'm at market research and about everything you are speaking about videos and doing interviews for the online exhibitions I can't stop wondering the future galleries are turning into media houses yeah it's very interesting question so um I mean I actually do you have an editorial background I worked for design which then on my magazine for a long time and a lot of that was about I mean it had a huge readership and a lot of that was about communicating what architects and designers are doing to like a very wide audience who are mainly mobile first so it was like very fast journalism I do think that like those skill sets are attractive - yeah - galleries and but then equally the gallery has a huge department that - the right catalog resonates at the other end of the like media spectrum but it all is about promoting an artist there's like huge value and all of the books that they produce and everything that we are and publishing online and for them they're really they really want it as well so it really is part of like what we're you know the way that we work that on my mac the magazine and print and online it's largely artists driven as well I think you said that Lucas Werner has taken over as head of all content is that right so yeah David's wanna but that's been a big you know change because of course you know and I think it speaks to what you're talking about the media shift and I'd sort of reframe it as publishing sort of 2.0 in the sense that now publishing is no longer just the books and you know traditional formats we think about but also really extends into video and online in all these different channels and so Lucas was the at the helm of all of our publishing efforts and really in the last couple years he's taken over as the role of all of the content which does include a lot of digital and the podcasts and the podcasts and dialogues and so I think that now you know our collectors sort of see it as a holistic again you know way to learn about our artists through all these different facets I mean it's obviously as we had the discussion on this last time actually and then we were really discussing what the challenges might be to traditional publishers publishers like myself but it certainly seems to be that most of the big arts businesses are absolutely moving in this direction Sotheby's and Christie's are producing enormous amounts of content I think there was somebody towards back over there one too and then I think we're probably coming to the end hola buenos dias gracias por su escuela intervention Aquarius Aruna consulta kay portent ah hey des us artistas UT listen Internet como spatial discursive Oh Oh como es parent a mercy by supportive death in a or video gracias we need a translation sorry hold on please I think I would just made to score it but not we change to the other question and then we come back okay sorry the gentleman over there my name is Eric in Georgia I took a short course in art history so I know that if it's on the wall is probably a painting if you couldn't walk around was probably a sculpture my question is do you notice different patterns from the sales online and does it help blur the difference between materiality of the objects I mean do you sell more easily video art or digital art or photo online when you would do from the diary thank you and my question to you into available galleries here great question and I can say that you know again I think it really varies across price points one of the really curious things that we found is that the higher value higher value works we tend to sell are actually there's an over-representation of sculpture and that's been really fascinating for me I think it's partially because of the video and ability to really capture texture and in the round quality of the object in a much stronger way than just a PDF or JPEG can and which is you know I think that it fascinates us I thought you were gonna say painting obviously well and then for of course the lower end and you know we do we do work with our artists on mono prints you know and a lot of different printmaking and you know that just tends to if it's in the lower bracket obviously be very accessible however you know I think it really is speaks to the quality of the inventory that you put online I will know the another thing is that online has a tendency to sort of erase hierarchies that are existing and so I think you know we even did a project of viewing room based on this idea of playing with scale because a tiny work can get the same attention as something that is completely vast and you can give it a kind of treatment as such so I think there are very unique opportunities that online offers and as we've been learning this we've been tending to lead more and more and explore those I mean it's just we've had a sculpture sell what paintings are what's little cells interestingly I think the benefit of of online for us has been showing like true scale has also been really important to calamitous is to see really that you know what you are buying and so video and particularly the way that could goes in presents real online viewing room space you know the work is scaled in a room with a chair so you can see the size of it has been very important and that's a cross sculpture and painting photography we've sold a lot of different works have we got the translation of the the so do you want to just reached out to us let's hola yes buenos dias gracias por su s Clara fedora intervention Korea preguntar les quais portent aji de sus artistas utility' Internet commerce patio discord discursive oh oh cuantos artistas utilizes LRT merci beau como el cine Oh L video gracias okay so the question was what percentage of artists use the digital as a discursive space um yeah and what percentage are working in digital media give any idea you know it's I I don't have percentages off the top of my head we do have an archive so you can go and see but I would say that your question sort of speaks a lot to some of the aims and some of the longer-term projects because I think in terms of developing a way that artists can interact with technology and new media online is something that we're increasingly sort of being interested in and you'll be sort of seeing in seasons to come I will note a couple obviously artists within our program such as Stan Douglas right now whose show just opened dan a theater is new media artist Jordan Wolfson so we certainly have artists who are very interested and aware of working across digital media and I think you'll be seeing exciting projects with them soon I hope goes in represents a very broad range of artists in various different mediums but my in terms of artists using digital platforms themselves when I meet artists they always ask me lots and lots of questions about social media and a very very interested - I'm sure you get the same it's just very much part of you know the discussions that happen within within the gallery basically you're helping a lot of them get online but ask this a lot of them are online and very you know try to their own online presence of course okay I think with one last question and then we will wrap up okay my last question my question is the following do you plan to use all this data that you collect from your online activities I mean using artificial intelligence machine learning do you plan for the future years to come to you to do something with this data do you actually collect enough datasets to do that well you know I again when I was leaving arts I think that they were just exploring the field and just to give you a perspective artsy has obviously thousands of partners and you know hundreds and thousands of works and so when you're talking about Big Data I think that's a better question for third party platforms in that way of course we are gonna be taking feedback and iterating based on the learnings that we have but I don't think that at a scale of doing you know two exhibitions online per month I can really justify and call it Big Data well you know I I hope there's a lot of things different in ten years and certainly uh you know I was one of the people who was in SF last week and I think that our world has a lot to catch up on and a lot to learn so so so hopefully what we'll be learning not just that but a lot more if there was one learning tip you'd like to share something you've done that you'd like to share with the audience what would be your advice to them for all these people the small amid galleries who yeah I mean we all look at your budgets and think well it's alright for them but but you know what what would you like to share with the audience as a kind of final takeaway I think possibly what I wanted to say was somewhat covered in the last session in the kind of question about looking at data and how that informs what you're doing online and in terms of like promotion and I guess to to use it but also to exercise caution in many ways about staying true to your programming and your artists and I think that really for me is something that that we really we're really trying to do as well and simultaneously is like assessing things and so that's probably the thing that I would so listen to your audiences but don't be so hidebound because people can't really imagine what they haven't already seen so Elena for me the kind of mantra I would share is something I kind of keep going back to is the best way to predict the future is to invent it and I think that sort of mentality is what everyone should bring to the online space it's a constant experimentation yeah okay on that note thank you very much to our panelists and thank you for many questions

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Length: 72min 8sec (4328 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020