"Young Money: Understanding Millennial Collectors" | Barcelona Symposium 2020

everybody good morning thanks for getting up early in being here with us before we move into the discussion phase I just want to kind of set things up a little bit so obviously one of the major challenges that's facing our dealers right now is this question of how do we connect with new buyers and who are those new buyers and I would argue that the most important demographic they could possibly try to access is young people which means now Millennials and soon after them generation Z so what are we talking about when we talk about Millennials the definitions shift a little bit but in general it's people who were born between about 1980 and 1996 and that means that this year they will all be somewhere between about 24 and 40 years old another important thing to think about here is that millenials are the last generation where some of them at least grew up without the internet saturating every single aspect of our daily lives generation Z when they come up they won't have known any other type of world besides the one that we now live in one important thing about these two groups is that over the course of the next ten years economists estimate that they are going to receive a good chunk of somewhere between fifteen and sixty eight trillion dollars in assets that are going to be passed down by the baby boomers baby boomers for reference people who were born between 1946 right after World War two in 1964 which means that they will be between 56 and 74 years old this year and some of those assets they're gonna be handing down our artworks but a lot of them are not and those other assets can certainly be used to buy a lot more artworks now the important point here is that we shouldn't assume that Millennials and Gen Z are going to automatically become collectors just because their parents were or their grandparents were and this is especially important to think about because Millennials and Gen Z have become increasingly vocal about how sharply they disagree with older generations specifically the baby boomers on a whole variety of different ways that they have chosen to live their lives and nothing embodies is better then the phrase okay boomer do we have the slide okay so I'll just I'll just launch into this okay boomer as some of you probably know is an online mean that has basically taken over the world over the course of the past six months or so and it's a it's basically a comeback that younger generations specifically Millennials and Gen Z have had towards baby boomers who have taken up this trend of just launching into these tirades about the way that young people live their lives and how it's all wrong okay boomer is a response to any kind of these criticisms and it's not just a way of saying your criticism doesn't apply to the world I live in it's a way of saying that your criticism doesn't apply to the world that I live in specifically because your generation screwed things up so badly for us so if you want to convert it up I'm sorry if you want to criticize Millennials first say like not having better jobs or bigger bank accounts they'll say okay boomer back to you and it will mean we don't have those things because boomers blew up the economy in 2008 when we were trying to enter the workforce and now we're behind for a generation if you want to criticize a millennial for say extending a business trip because they want to take a low emissions train instead of flying somewhere they'll hit you with an okay boomer and that means I want to do these things because your willingness to take planes and burn fossil fuels every conceivable opportunity is now subjecting millions of people around the world to catastrophic climate change and by the way the Boomer legislators don't even want to acknowledge it let alone try to change it we're giving you all this background because I think that we've now reached the okay boomer moment in the art market the reality is that many young people are as turned off by boomer implemented and boomer sustained policies about the way that art is supposed to be bought and sold as they are about boomer implemented and Boomer sustained policies about everything from the economy to the environment to politics and much more in short this is not going to be a problem that we're gonna fix by just galleries going out and starting Instagram accounts instead it demeans we're gonna take but you have to take a hard hard look at every single way we have thought about how the business works we have to ask ourselves whether these things are doing more to bring young people in today or keep them out forever and that is what we are going to investigate today with these four brilliant panelists and Millennials who happen to be over here to my left so do the more formal introductions alexander forbes immediately to my left is the director of corporate development and market intelligence at artsy where he works across the organization to advise on company strategy develop key internal initiatives and grow the company through partnerships and acquisitions previously he was the executive editor of artsy editorial and earlier the European market editor for art net news in Berlin and bureau chief for Louise bloom and media in german-speaking Europe alex is left is Joe Kennedy Joe is an entrepreneur and co-founder of the gallery unit London which uses new technologies and pioneering approaches to digital media to expand the audience for contemporary art he's a young patron of taste the V&A museum and the Royal Academy he also sits on the serpentine future contemporaries committee and was recently named co-chair of MTV's redefine program as well as one of Forbes as 30 under 30 entrepreneurs Claudia shock and moon to Joe's left is an art strategy consultant and the founder of bureau shakuntla as Erick based agency that advises on real estate related art spaces physical and virtual art hubs and much more she previously worked as a key part of Art Basel new initiatives and VIP team where she launched the fair's global patrons Council and next program for young and emerging collectors in Basel Miami Beach and Hong Kong and last but certainly not least cami our maliki is the director of the Volta and pulse art fairs from 2016 to 2018 he served as director of the contemporary Istanbul fair with over 15 years as a collector curator and patron of contemporary art he is fosters numerous young artists careers he is also the co-founder of the Agha Khan Museum UK patrons chapter and the founder of I see a young patrons for the Institute of Contemporary Art in London okay now we know what we're dealing with I'm gonna turn it over to these guys and I want to start on on this point so when I started working in the gallery back in 2005 I was a front desk assistant and one of the first official things that my boss told me was that my job was to and I quote in take maximum information and give out minimum information and obviously this is a textbook example of the way that the gallery world is supposed to run on exclusivity and elitism and that's how you create value in artworks and make people want to buy things how does this go over with the Millennial audience Joe I'm gonna start with you because I feel like you feel particularly strongly about this thanks an amazing introduction thank you very much yeah the I think how we approach that scenario is basically doing the opposite and we started our gallery six years ago probably unwittingly knowing that transparency was gonna be a really important thing and I guess we started our guy only twenty two come from this kind of new generation I think and we know that if somebody comes into our gallery in the second time out of their day to walk in we have to offer them value back and so to assume that people walking in should just be left alone shouldn't be engaged with shouldn't be treated with kind of a level of courtesy and engagement we think that's just not the way to engage new people this is a generation obviously which is is now the largest ever consumer generation that's ever existed on the planet it's also the most racially diverse ethnically diverse the most engaged generation they have more access to information and art than ever before and obviously the power of this generation is huge and it can have a huge transformative effect on the perception of the art world and the perception of the culture around contemporary art in the future so I but I think they also have grown up being told that they can have whatever they want whenever they want which is an interesting fact the okay boomer meme is a great example of that you know there were all these comments about this generation being entitled and lazy and self-obsessed and that's all fueled by social media and the selfie culture and the meme culture but actually if you look at how society has structured itself around this generation they're being told that whatever they want they can have they can watch movies on demand they can order food and it's there within five minutes brands and companies are constantly optimizing their products based on the behaviors and preferences of that generation specifically so it's almost like we've created a monster in a way with this generation they are entitled for good reason but as gallerist and as as our professionals and custodians of culture I think we need to understand how we get these people involved in our industry and the way of doing that isn't by not engaging them it's by offering them value and that value can be as simple as when they walk into the space giving them a smile being out of the way with how much you go and engage them and educate them you if you walk into any big retail store or if you walk into pretty much anywhere on the high street you'll never encounter a situation where there's two people sitting behind a desk in armchairs who don't get up when you walk in and I think it's almost as simple as that I mean we've always practiced this you know get up off your seat if somebody walks in and say hello walk around the space with them if they want to give them an education and understanding you know these people are distrusting of big corporations they've gone through the global financial crash they've gone through data scandals with Facebook you know the Trump impeachment inquiry that's happening at the moment at all these all these things that they've existed through have kind of generated this real corporate distrust and as a result people are by more independent brands people are looking for alternatives to corporations and if they do buy from organizations and if they do engage with organizations they want to do so with organizations that look after their staff that the support unrepresented artists behave ethically and that transparent and open with their pricing the way they go about marketing their products and their services and to to give back to people when they come in to offer them value means that they will engage with you and engagement is the most important thing for this audience I think if somebody walks in and they're not necessarily a buyer if I walk into a gallery most galleries will just ignore me because I'm not I don't fit the profile of you know a typical collector I'm young I don't dress maybe like a collector but I might have a million followers on my social networks and a hundred thousand of those people might be very engaged in r100 those people might be collectors so if I leave with a bad experience it's not only that I haven't purchased something there and then but the gallery has missed the opportunity to build credibility amongst my network which can obviously have a huge future impact on sales and revenue for the gallery which is almost unquantifiable these days I know you can pop your quantifier but but but that that exchange of value I think is really important and I think it'd be great to discuss today I think what that value is that galleries auction houses fairs can give to this generation so that they feel part of the conversation well that creates a natural segue it's Alex do you want to talk about some of the things that you found out through studying the collecting population like do these these articles of faith that we've lived with about building value through exclusivity do they actually show up when you survey people at art see they do so we surveyed our collectors over the summer and you know I think one of the important things technologies that also the exclusivity that has been built up does work on some level for the gen-x and boomer collectors it is something that is motivating but when you switch and look towards Millennials and Gen Z folks it falls apart really quickly we find that people really expect to have all the information that they would need to make a purchasing decision available before they ask any questions so that could be information about the artist it's particularly prices you know I think it's it's a common practice in the art world today not to list prices publicly online but we find that artworks that are uploaded with their prices public are between two and six times more likely to sell and that's particularly the case for artists who have less inherent demand so information asymmetries like that tend to hit you know artists that you know aren't your Kusama x' and Warhol's where somebody already knows the name brand it's looking after them so particularly if you if you have a kind of newer program that can be a way to reach younger collectors that you wouldn't otherwise I also think that the Internet offers a really interesting opportunity you know it's amazing if you can walk into a gallery and have that interaction with the dealer and get the story about the artist it's amazing if you're a really established collector in the art world and you have that you know key that unlocks all of the great information about artists and their stories for most people that isn't the case but Internet the Internet allows you to scale up that storytelling so you can have the same level of introduction to an artists career that you would if you were a moment rusty and had a hundred million dollars in a duffel bag walk into a gallery if you do that once and put it out there you know we still do hear from people that they want to hold back that information to initiate a conversation but when we talk to the collectors who we surveyed in greater depth they said more frequently than not they just won't inquire if the information isn't there already they'll move on to something else there's so much great art out there and so it I think it is a really important thing yeah and I would imagine that the people who are seeing that there's not a price listed and going away are not just saying oh it's not that it's not just that I don't know the price it's that the fact that they're not showing me the price tells me something deeper about the way that I'm gonna be treated if I go to that organization absolutely we hear that it just means oh is there something shady going on here am I gonna get a different price than somebody else that asks does that mean that there's gonna be some value judgment against me if I ask for a price and I can't afford it well this gallery ever care about me again so it just sets the wrong tone and and it's such an easy thing to fix you know I think there's this notion that it devalues the art but but I think in ultimate ly if the gallery wants to make sales grow the artists career off for more opportunities for them to to keep the lights on keep building more ambitious projects so it's a really easy thing to do yeah yeah call you can you talk a little bit about what it was like to start the next program at basel ii i imagine that since you were spearheading this i've imagined the organization just wasn't thinking about it as deeply as you were and you were really somebody who was passionate about saying like no this isn't generation that we have to pay attention to and they may want to do things very differently than what you expect person for Art Basel but of course I made this experience and it's about approximately seven years ago which is quite a long time so our puzzle at that time was already thinking like how to approach new collectors as well as existing collectors so we had these two basic initiatives which was the global patrons Council you might know so the mega collectors of this world and at the same time also the next source which were the emerging collectors and we were basically this department department which it was kind of appendix to our puzzle basically task force to provide the galleries with new collectors which is I think it's the it's the responsibility of an Art Fair to bring good collectors to the fair eventually and so we we did a lot of research and also we started to create these focus groups where I also met kamyar because at that time he was an emerging collector and yeah then we started is this art basel tours at all in Hong Kong in Miami and Basel and it was quite interesting to see how actually not motivated the galleries were to participate it was really the the response was slow it was like okay come on guys do we really have to explain you to you that there is a new generation they want to come into the art market they're interested they're young corporate people having their effluent they're having money you you can't just focus on the one or two percent on the top there is like 99% behind who are actually very interested and I think what I also observed is that and also in my environment these people are mostly they're entrepreneurs themselves so they will always know that it's kind of attention is a currency for them they you know they as you said you know they spent their time they want to come into the gallery and find some works for example but also they want to have a very like a social moment they want to engage with other people they want to be entertained if I may say that like that but it's it's really about not only buying art or it's more about experience art and the whole social scene around to get to know you new people you know to make it happening and I think art is a really event-driven business so we can make much more of that part and I think that was a key finding I think and also as I said not being ready for that audience from the from the gallery side yeah and speaking of the event side of the business cam can you talk about it a little bit from the Art Fair directors perspective because obviously you're dealing with dozens of galleries and I'm sure that there are very few of them who are as willing to say like yes I'm ready to embrace new people and do things differently like not everybody's gonna be Joe about this kind of thing so can you talk about that that process yeah sure so you know for me it's also a unique position that I'm in because I come from the collector side so I'm previously being a young collector myself you know when this whole thing started you know so we look at it from a very different standpoint and I use actually Claudia's young initiative from for Basel patrons as an example of you know this whole boomer generation it feels about it's about accessibility it's about inclusiveness it's about being part of it you know some of the biggest fears that young collectors have these days of going into a fair you know like someone you know famous singer or rapper and AI guy or an Apgar you know walking you know maybe as you said you know in driving and shirts and you know serious galleries won't take them seriously even though they have the money if they have the knowledge because knowledge is a key part is something that I try to put out there educate without patronising trying to include community spirit this is this is what we tried to do also in Miami this year for pulse we were very engaging on a local basis we were looking at young corporations we did lunches for Twitter and they had 35 people attend luncheons at our fairs and the CEO of Twitter ended buying something and you know we did things for the Burger King foundation you know just engaging people and making them feel welcome because the whole thing is is like if you're a young collector our biggest thing was and one of the reasons why I joined Claudia's initiative was that they don't take you that seriously your parents might be big collectors but you also want to be a collector and you want to have the same kind of respect that you know the galleries give your elders and you don't get that so but also this day and age you have so much choice there's so many galleries up there there's so many art fairs out there so you have to be different you have to create personalized programs you have to be make everybody feel special and welcome attic curiosity when you were laying out the plan for what you wanted to do and did you get any pushback from the galleries and you were like hey we're gonna have this lunch for the Burger King Foundation yeah because I mean first of all they don't take it seriously right yeah and you know Burger King foundation actually has a very huge and what I first heard about was also that skeptical myself but but as a fair you try to associate yourselves with brands with people there different bands that constantly approach me now saying they want to get into the art world because they realize that there's a huge network that you can be made in the art but likewise also for us we have to look outside now we have to look at the fashion world you know look at what Alex Israel is doing with remover look at what everybody is is working on these days and you see how all of these different worlds are interlinking you know why it has untitled and Fox started in San Francisco you know it's not by coincidence that they're all there now it's because they see that the young money is in those kind of places so you have to adapt you have to change and the problem with the art market is is that it's maybe more of an older piece that is used to the top 5% of collectors they use to the ways they've been dealing in the past and embracing change is challenging but something that is necessary to adapt and to win otherwise there are many fairs that don't make it yeah I always one of my this is getting a little bit into the talk that I do later today but one of my all-time favorite quotes from the world of professional sports is there was a coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL and he said that if you don't like change you're going to like irrelevance even less so this idea of education is obviously something that that has come up now already in in the conversation so far and the old school way of looking at this is that the the dealer says ok if I'm dealing with new collectors it's my job to educate them about what's good what taste is what they should be paying attention to all those kinds of things now when that started the information environment was drastically different than what it is now now we're just saturated in info and choices and all these kinds of things how do you think that changes the relationship between a new collector who's coming in and a dealer who's trying to figure out a way to engage them yeah I think it's one of the big misconceptions of this generation is that they don't know what they're talking about and and that they're not informed these people know their stuff more so than you would believe they have access to limitless information most of these young collectors coming into galleries Affairs they've done their research before they get in so um so as a dealer galleries whatever you have to be sensitive to that you no longer have the privilege of being able to say whatever you like and this idea of transparency again comes back in you know you're dealing with people who have done their research and who understand what's out there you know they've might have been following the artist you're showing online on Instagram they might know what's in the studio from a studio photo they've posted so no longer can you say the work that I'm ready at they haven't been finished because they go I saw it yesterday I really so it so it's yeah it's changing the landscape a lot and you're dealing with informed collectors who are empowered who have information and knowledge and so that has to be met I think with a kind of propensity to and a resolve to educate these people further and give them the experiences that they want I think the experience I know everyone talks about the experience economy it's becoming a bit stale but collectors now and the younger generations want to have an experience because it's kind of it's a reflection of their identity and personality they can do their research they understand their stuff but then they want to be able to activate that in an experience whether it's in the gallery or affair so they can share with their audience and the work that they want to buy now will actually need to reflect their kind of belief systems and values but the fact that they can do their own research means that they can delve into a company's history they can delve into the backgrounds of artists they understand them implicitly and I think none of them want to participate in the previous world you know of a small group of collectors a small group of galleries they want to use their information and knowledge to diversify the things that they're looking at the things that they're buying so you so yeah as dealers as galleries I think we just have to be sensitive to that and understand who you're dealing with and I think kind of just basically throw away that misconception about this generation that they don't know what they're talking about and we know more than they do because it's just not true anymore and also the education is also part of a relationship you know you're trying to again with the Millennials they want to have that relationship with the gallery you know they want to be friends they want to be associated they want to go to the events you know I'm in this day and age with technology they can just go to the artist directly they might even you know the the loyalties I was talking to gallery yesterday like the royalty sometimes are not there anymore with the artists so if you can approach an artist directly if the gallery stops you then they'll approach the artist kindly so it's about trust it's about building relationships it's about it's about you know transparency in a way that I mean it's frowned upon still and there's many applications even with artsy even with you know other apps like magnets and things like that that have tried to open up the art world to information but they're still getting pushed back but I think maybe now is the time where galleries should embrace that but again because it's still an unregulated market you know it there will be a little you know fight for it but it's about it's about giving trust back to the clients and the collectors and people that's what's important yeah I mean I think that the gallery still serves such an important role in creating signal through the vast amount of art that we have exposure to now you know we have over a million artworks on the platform it can be really overwhelming even if you go to an Art Fair and you have some you know to 300 galleries in that space you need to find ways to like get into a group of artists that you really love and fostering those careers creating that signal is a huge part of why we've always you know it's been so important for us to partner with the industry on the other hand I think millennial collectors have a little bit less tolerance as you said for for some of those other business practices that go along with that you know they're they're probably not going to because they're not just interacting with a few galleries in their local community there might be more skeptical of the idea that you have to buy a few artists that you are less excited about to get access to the artists that you're really excited about they're probably going to then just go to the secondary market and find it on there and so I don't exactly have the answer of how we solved that because I think that that practice has a real application than the primary market of helping galleries keep the lights on helping support more artists and that's something that we believe strongly in but finding ways to open up some of those practices I think will be important to keep in your streaming I think it's also important to look at other industries for example the sports shoes like Nike as a customer of Nike I can I can create my own shoes and that's basically what we want and we want also the galleries basically to list actually to look at our needs and figure out a way to sell to us and not being like patronizing us and tell us how to buy but listen to like how we want to buy and what we want to buy also I think the portfolio of galleries sometimes is so high up like Millennials or like let's say emerging collector he possibly cannot afford an art piece that is like 20,000 he might want to buy something for 5,000 and if I go to a gallery and I only find works for 20,000 upwards that I can't afford so why am I going there so what's my program that I get to see at the gallery so it's also I think important to have some segments I think in in a gallery so everybody has a way of entry and not just okay this is the most expensive work and if you wanna buy you can buy it if not sorry you're out and I think that's it's a whole conversation between the between the customer and the galleries and I think that's as we said this is key at the moment to open the doors for new collectors I think it's this is really good point other industries that we're all exposed to now the way they operate is so starkly different to the way this industry operates still I think there's a level of expectancy that's created when you do have access to so much information that's your base that's your modus operandi right and that's what you expect and then you walk into a gallery and suddenly yeah how much is this let me take your email you know is you don't get the answers that you're you're used to getting and so so there's a really stark difference there which really turns these guys off especially this generation well it's kind of table stakes too as you said in the intro I can't think of an industry that isn't customer centric that's growing right now and most of them that aren't are declining rapidly and I don't think that we want art to be in the latter group mmm you know that that wouldn't be good for culture wouldn't be good for artists yeah it's it is it is hugely important mmm I think also that point of offering people you know if you're running a gallery and you do want to connect with this audience and let's say they can't spend 50k on a painting offer them a book you know a catalog a print as there's lots of different things that you can offer as if collectors so that they have a great experience and they get on the ladder with you I think you're missing a huge trick if you know the 50 people that walk into your gallery on a day-to-day basis you'd just leave without being spoken to I think I mean maybe it's because we started our business but from completely from the outside of the industry and we knew the value of how important every single person was I think we need to go back to that place where you place value in everybody not just whether they were you know if they can afford to spend a hundred grand with you but whether they can spend fifty pounds with you because in ten years time they might be that person that spends a hundred grand with you I think it's I think it's a really good point an important consideration you know build products and services that can in cater to different levels yeah and I think that's that's important too in the the broader economic picture that we're talking about for these generations to go back to the whole blow-up of the economy in 2008 and all that kind of stuff what we see if we look at all the the data about who's making money we see that the whole middle class is kind of being hollowed out right now all the money is kind of going to the polls you have the top one percent and point one percent sucking in all this money that used to go to family doctors dentists people who were young professionals upwardly mobile but not able to walk into a gallery and spend two hundred fifty thousand dollars on an artwork so the entry point that's that collectors used to have just isn't there so much anymore at least in the in the specific price ranges that it used to be so yeah having these lower priced things that allows you to start a relationship ends up being an important aspect I think right and that's really what it's about it's not about saying like oh we're gonna cheapen ourselves by just offering books for $20 or something like that it's like no this is how you start a relationship with people it's how you start to engage them and then you can build from there as you build trust with them so it's not just a matter of like I would like to make another example for example I I lived in Hong Kong and there I was pretty much facing a very popular approach of dealing with arts I mean you I'm sure you all know Kay Kay level it's basically a mall that offers a lot of art experiences it starts with design with fashion it's all mixed it's kind of its I find this very interesting to to approach people Oseland a lot of Millennials and even Jen said people totally engaged with that way of experiencing art as well as team lab you know people might not want to buy art because we are also a little bit in the age of less you know they're actually they want to experience art they want to they're happy to have their instant gratification by going to a team lab experience for 20 bucks and that's how they experience art and I think that's just also I mean we we should more think about the future than the glorious past and how the things were but actually we reinvent them and I what I see is that there is a very linear innovation in the art world it's never radical like we had with uber or anything in super-slow it's like okay now we go this now we take okay we take our gallery online great so that's nothing new it's just that's just digitalization and very normal and we are actually facing another like in Industrial Revolution which is more about like bringing the body together with tech so where is the gallery world within that I mean I'm going beyond that a little bit but that's actually the future we face and also I'm talking now just pretty from a fair perspective you know our fair business has almost become a cultural tourism business so it's not just about the fair the fair is the access point of what we want to achieve but in order to get the people around we try to engage with the city try to offer experiences to the collector that don't do like I know we see our colleagues from Brussels here they do a good job there as well you know an Eastern will be you know hosted parties and collectors homes and just try to give experiences to people that they don't see and then they can actually see what a collector lives with what they act with how they you know young certain times they're doing a a night where you know it's a mystery night where Kent collectors are hosting a dinner you buy a ticket for it and then you you you go and you don't on the night you don't know where you're going and then you're gonna end up in a different home so it's just about engaging with different collectors trying to network together with without it making pure business network connections yeah it's about cultural tourism and engaging and and making people feel as joe said in the beginning making them feel special don't i've seen many times in galleries and you know people in hoodies and tracksuits they walk by you know don't talk to them I'm like come on guys you know like I've seen many times in my shares where there are collectors looking at a painting for more than two minutes I'm not one gallery has gone and talked to them you know it's it's about really making people feel special and engaging art is out there yes but you want to engage more people and bring them in it's about kind of the gallery stepping in and also changing some of the myths that artists have been told over the time you know if you make an affordable print it'll devalue your market will destabilize kind of where you're at and instead saying actually it'll bring in all these new people I think artists fundamentally want to have their work be seen and if you look at some of the major galleries that have started editions programs and had artists become really excited about the number of young people particularly who now get to live with their work I think it's an important model that the more galleries can come and kind of educate their artists on and and break down some of the things that we've been told yeah and that takes us back to something that just came up a few minutes ago through the lines of K 11 which is this whole idea of what we've been taught about the art market for all these years is that art is special it has to stay separate from all these other channels of the way that we live our lives it shouldn't intersect with fashion shouldn't intersect with brands it shouldn't do many of those things because if it does sudden becomes toxic and e-values the artwork like there are examples of very prominent artists who for instance Ryan McGinley Ryan McGinley is one of the most in-demand commercial photographers in the world but his gallery doesn't talk about it because they don't want that out there because they're afraid it will make people look at the artwork differently so let's talk about this idea it does this still hold or are we lit just miles away from that and it's just a matter of people who have been in it for longer and have that prejudice aren't recognizing that there is all this value that's out there specifically by mixing in all these different elements of culture so when you talked before the panel you were kind of talking about the the remix culture aspect of the way that this generation works yeah I think yeah definitely it's a remix culture I think it just you know if you hold a mirror up to our society right now it's no longer you know siloed industries and distinct lines between different disciplines I think everything is now melded together everything is integrated the way that we live our lives you know if you scroll I don't want to keep talking about Instagram but if you scroll through Instagram on a daily basis you might see a family photo then you'll see a meal from your favorite restaurant and then you'll see a piece of art and then you'll see something in a museum then something sports entertainment it all comes together as part of one holistic cultural experience now and I think the value of this for us is that it it offers a very clear way of us engaging a new audience an audience who are probably feeling initially unwelcome into the industry because they're not being spoken to in the right language these initiatives like K 11 which is an amazing model I think for the future of bringing together design commerce luxury workshops talks cultural programming alongside basically a museum-quality exhibition space is super interesting and I mean it's it's how you've got these incredible the artist permeating culture like they never did before if you keep artists boxed into the contemporary art industry you're only speaking to a very small number of people really and there's traditionally been people who can afford to collect those works over time if you collaborate with something which is warm let's say mainstream you get access to an entirely different audience and that can be hugely powerful for us whether it devalues the art the cultural product of the art I think for too long we've been talking about the narrative around our industry has been money for the last decade at least it's just been dominated by this idea of cash money soaring auction prices 450 million here 100 million here and and that's that's kind of had an effect on this generation you know they walk into a gallery and expect to have a conversation about money a lot of the time and I think what I would love to see is in the future in the next 10 years having this generation come through if we welcome them into our industry properly we can start seeing artists and the narrative around art has become more about social change and more about culture and how it's moving forward so I think you know the likes of Daniel Marsh and collaborating with Dior recently for the fashion show was a great example of an artist actually hitting a cultural zeitgeist right now Vergil a blow is is an incredible designer who's collaborated with different artists and cozy and Murakami these and but interestingly also he's just done a collaboration with IKEA on the other end of the spectrum but it sort but you know these artists and creatives they're actually getting the opportunity to have their voice in the broad market I think the more we can get artists out there into broad culture the better things are going to be for society at large and so I think I think it's a good thing personally and I think it's going to accelerate as things like k-11 having physical proximity between art and branding and design that physical proximity is only going to breed more information and I think it will accelerate in the future I think it's a good thing yeah and also when people give me that trope like oh can't we can't devalue to work by doing these these other like branded collaborations and products or whatever else it really gives the light of the fact they're just not paying attention because I could log onto the go-go's Ian's shop right now and last time I checked I could buy a John Michele Basquiat skateboard I can buy John nouvelles sneakers if this is one of the Paragons of how we are supposed to think about contemporary art and how to sell contemporary art and Kokosing is doing that kind of stuff then it seems patently ridiculous for somebody who's at a lower level to be like oh I need to be taken seriously I can't be doing that branding stuff it comes back to kind of the myth making around the art collector again right you know I think that it's it it is the traditional brand of an art collector of somebody who would go to the Opera and listen to classical music and all these things that are that are still wonderful parts of culture but now instead of kind of a Mozart Mass we have a Kanye West gospel album and you know I think that things have just broken down in a way where it's it's interesting as a millennial to have eclectic tastes that mixes from different parts of the kind of hierarchy of traditional culture and we see that now coming into the art market I think it opens up a lot more opportunity than it does close down but also in addition to the brand collaboration I think it could be also very interesting to do a collaboration with corporates like the CERN and so on so artists have really an impact on science also and because their creative process it's very interesting I think for research or anything and I mean every artist has his own way of researching or whatever I mean how he gets to his end product but I think it's not only interesting to look at the artwork that comes out of the process but the whole process could be included into corporates and stuff the creativity for the future I think is key especially with the autumn association we kind of can make use of that and also as a gallery help help the artists who start such collaborations right in an automation is an interesting thing because of the fact that obviously it involves technology and saying we're never gonna we're not gonna do this stuff by hand anymore we're gonna their machines even help us do things more efficiently and in a kind of lower touch way and I think that that tends to get portrayed as like oh my god it's gonna make the gallery so soulless isn't that the exactly the wrong way to think about it isn't it like oh if I don't have to spend as much time like sending individual emails to collectors or running through my database making sure everything is okay does that mean that like I can spend more time thinking about programming I can think more time I could spend more time thinking about the artists I can spend more time thinking about the things that like we actually got into this business to do a thousand percent yes I mean I think that like everybody's heard the story of the grandfather that tells them they had to walk uphill both ways to school and the freezing rain and that's what made them you know have discipline and learned but probably more about the quality of the teachers when they got to school I think that there's like a lot of you know thinking if technology enters the industry is going to tear apart everything that we hold dear and we tend to have a little bit of an all-or-nothing culture when it comes to these things technology should ultimately empower the gallerist the artist everyone in the art market to spend more time but I think most of us got into this industry to do in the first place which is engage with art worked with artists work on shows all the really important juicy stuff of you know why you do this and don't go into finance suite the customers engage with the customers develop new new relationships you know in it's like who wants to sit and put data into a spreadsheet or you know send out a bunch of emails it can be a lot easier than them for sure and I think like there's the certain things that you can automate and optimize I think it's just picking the right things you know because the relationships are still so important like we send out hundreds of emails a day and not one of them is automated that's really important for us there might be if you sign up to our mailing list you might get an automated response welcoming you to the community but but I make sure all of our staff will always hand typing their emails just because that aspect of the business is so important it needs to be if you're trying to build a personal relationship I feel like that that aspect has to be personalized but then there's other parts of there's other parts of data which is which is so important and we all have access to so much data now whether it's through social media platforms whether it's through the website and analytics and I think you'd be foolish not to use that to your advantage understand the behaviors of your audience understand what people are doing how they're behaving and then marketing based on those preferences and those and those insights I think it's super important not to alter the cultural product that always has to be ring-fenced and protected but the way you deliver the message can be optimized based on your learnings from from your audiences as affair we do that as well very stringent we have a lot of questionnaires a lot of audience engagement within the community of people who have visited the fairs the galleries the collectors also surrounding you know businesses and then we collect the data and we have meetings and then we see what we can do better for the next fair how we can engage more how we can attract more people to the fair which areas we need to target you know it's in while technology gives us that aspect it is that personal relationship and that personal touch that makes you stand out differently so you know it's important to go to the galleries it's important still to get rejected get engaged you know that's part of the game I mean is that kind of case study we introduced everything at the beginning of last year ecommerce functionality young artsy and going back to kind of what we were talking about in terms of having all the information there for the buyer when they're ready to make the decision it's cut down transaction times for those works from anywhere from about three weeks via inquiry of going back and forth tons of emails you know just exchanging the basic information to make a transaction to around three hours through e-commerce that saves the gallery a ton of time and allows them to get back to working with their artists and the collectors that are walking into their galleries yeah I think am I right in saying that obviously the access to our is is bigger than it ever was before more people are engaging and looking at art considering purchases but the conversions are less no well I mean the one thing that I can say definitively is that based on the auction data that we have an art net or if you look at the what's been happening for sales worldwide the market has been stagnant for about four or five years peaked in like 2014 and that's not a good sign for business I mean obviously the auction market is not the gallery mark there's all kinds of information about capturing there but again for what should be a growth industry we're not seeing that growth in some of the traditional places we would inspect so that seems like a negative indicator well at a time of incredible economic expansion right that has accrued to people that should be collecting art like but people should be buying more they are much more wealthy than they were five years ago and if they aren't and it's particularly of transaction volumes are not going up and are in fact declining there's there's some something really bad to look at what's going on you know I think that's where the the public pricing that you guys are introducing is basically building transparency and it means that drop-off of transactions will hopefully go up because conversion in our industry is awful the amount people are engaging with with work but leaving empty-handed is insane I think that shows there something wrong we need to change something to bring those conversions up and I think that's a great way of doing it is by making the prices the prices public straight away so you're not leading people are married aunts and making them feel embarrassed I mean how many people have walked into a gallery and just had a actively bad experience and then don't want to come back again or inquired online yeah yeah it's like you're you're always to go back to that idea that you mentioned earlier Joe about like the network effect you can be rude intentionally or unintentionally to one person and all of a sudden that person has now told everybody who follows them on Instagram everybody follows them on Twitter and you've basically just created a huge roadblock for yourself for all kinds of people you didn't even realize it hmm but I want to go back to something that we were talking about before in terms of this idea of listening to your audience or working off of data or whatever else because Joanne you talked last year and Lucia kind of referenced this and we were doing the introduction you got a lot of pushback from the audience about that idea specifically and I feel like there was a miscommunication there because you weren't saying what we do is we just listen to exactly what the audience is telling us and we just do exactly that thing it's or it's more a matter of and correct me if I'm wrong and anybody because I feel like we're all on the same page about this but you're saying like no we want to hear how people are thinking about these issues we want to try to figure out what's relevant to them and then we're gonna take that in and make that a part of the process and how we make decisions how we decide to engage them it's not just a we're gonna it goes back to the old Henry Ford thing about how oh if I listen to exactly what the audience was telling me I would built a faster horse like that's not the point it's about saying yeah when you take the information that and give them back something different using all these other data points that we have so definitely yeah yeah that's exactly right it's like understand what your audience is doing like don't just ignore what's happening and you know we're we're fortunate in that we got onto let's say social media at the right time and we have now like up to seven million impressions a week globally on our content so we have a huge audience constantly engaging with us online and that provides obviously really interesting exciting opportunities to get data capture to understand what the kind of social cultural narrative is around our content of the things that we're posting and it's you know we have we have an amazing artist we shot at fries last year Helen beard who's whose work is very graphic its sexual and it's you know it's about her as a as a as a woman taking ownership of sexual imagery and celebrating sex celebrating her body celebrating different body types and you know this goes on social media and the debate that it brings up is incredible you know some people are this is an art this is porn this shouldn't be seen other people obviously backing it and and you know going you get really deep into the integrity of what art is really all about and for us like that's that's what is so interesting right now is being able to create this community where you have an exchange of ideas and different topics different opinions that's what should be happening that's what should be happening inside the galleries that should be what's happening online and we should be encouraging that debate and stimulating it because that's where our new ideas come from and that's our job and I think by using that data to I guess what was miscommunicated last year is that we're not using that data to then affect the things that we're showing if people respond better to a red painting we're not going to ask our MARTA to paint more red paintings we're actually saying that if if we understand these cultural values and these opinions and these beliefs we can use that information to then flip the narrative again and people's ideas and it becomes our responsibility to constantly recalibrate what our audience is thinking and what community is saying in the greater goal of stimulating discussion which i think is really important yeah and again that's the kind of thing that that our dealers a good art dealers have been trying to do forever right like to go back to my gallery career briefly they'd still remember my my boss telling me like my job is to figure out what people want before they realize they want it and now we just have a different element of information out there to help you do that process and that's that's not cheating like that's supposed to be the point so you're supposed to give people something that will engage them excite them get them interested and eventually maybe get them to actually buy something I mean it's it's you know I think people have been collecting data you know since day one it's just now it's online and it's more quantifiable you know if people are out and about and a Wednesday evening then you keep your gallery open bit longer Wednesday evening you might get some more sales it's the same is the same collecting the same insights but now we just have a much richer data set to work with and that brings us a lot more opportunities and it's so much easier to work with the data - how many think it used to be very arduous to collect all of that and analyze it in a way you kind of have to be a quant to do that but you know I think we send out monthly analytics to our galleries they can help them act on art see you look at many of the leading inventory management and CRM platforms there's really rich kinds of analytics that they're providing and yet I think I was speaking to one and I said about 10% of their installed base uses the ROI analysis tool that allows them to see kind of you know based on what I invested in the show or this fair or whatever you know was this a positive move for my business but I think there is a lot of let's say big data out there and we are actually don't know what to do with it I think data is only valuable if you have a strategy to follow afterwards because I mean yeah I think that's key and we know we need to know how to eat the data and then actually take action afterwards and not just read it and be like oh great now I know and then you know they're not doing anything different and sometimes you have limitations as well you don't have extraordinary but like I'm talking again from a therapist you don't have extraordinary budgets to engage with what everybody wants from the fair experience so you just pick and choose sometimes you know little things little changes to enhance experiences you know this whole generation is about identity so it's about really focusing on that person on that identity klaudia you on that point about it's not just about having the data it's about knowing what to do with it is that something that you work with your clients on like as an art strategy consultant is that something that you kind of teach them yeah I mean if I work with a client I always start with it with analyst analysis you know I have to look at the location the people there you know dig deep basically to figure out what's the needs there first of all that's where it starts because I could do everywhere I could do the same model which is not what I want I want different scenarios for different locations and different type of people and consumers so that's why I why I think quantitative and qualitative data is very important to start with projects at least and then also add inspiration to it and what's happening in the in in the world also and find answers to that and positive solutions that have actually a positive impact and not just something oh we're gonna do this because it's been done already like that and yeah I think for that it's also very important to change from a micro view to a macro view to compare with other industries and I think in the art world it's also a little bit too much of an insider view we always like look at each other but we don't compare not in general but it's not happening a lot that we compare with other industry which is super inspiring eventually and also create something new because I believe if you bring contradictive things even together you can create something new and also going back to the brand's you can see that there is brand collaboration or cross industry in collaborations of important because let's say the art world is in a is part of the passion market of the luxury market so if we reach out to other brands like watches or whatever it champagne or cars then we can still approach new audiences but however it's it starts with the analysis I think and data eventually so I'm gonna pivot a little bit here just because I want to make sure that we really live up to the the title of this panel let's talk about the money aspect really quick so there's this perception out there that one of the issues this is the last question I will ask and we'll pivot into the audience Q&A actually you know what let's since we're that far along I lost track of time I apologize let's just end with this so if each one of you I'm gonna go around I'll start with you can but if each one of you could just magically and permanently correct one misconception about millennial buyers what do you think would be the most helpful for the art market I mean tough one to start you know it's it's about trying to take them seriously you know they are seriously interested collectors if they're willing to take the time to to visit these galleries to come to art fairs to come to museums to come to shows it shows that they're willing to take time off of their busy schedules to do it and Millennials in general have a lot of options to do a lot of different things so time is of essence and you just make their time valuable and give them back the experiences that they wanted I think we simply should learn from them Shirin sweet yeah I think I said earlier just that they know their stuff basically they empower they have information they have knowledge so I guess it's just being mindful of that and understanding that they're not just these kind of teenagers on their phones taking selfies they're actually they're very very smart and savvy collectors and they need to be and you know that also the biggest consumer generation on the planet so if we all want to make our industry successful in the coming 20 30 years we need to engage them I guess that you could continue to operate without them and I think that if you look and see that these are generations are going to ask questions that are different than what you've heard before that doesn't mean that they're unserious I think you were gonna ask about artists investment you know they might be asking about an artworks potential resale value because they really want to buy something that they probably shouldn't or couldn't afford because of the economic realities that they're experiencing that's an OK thing is if it especially if it's expressing a passion and the artists work or you know yeah the ability buy something that they really love yeah okay we are going to move into the audience question period I believe that will have some people going around with microphones I want to try to get to as many people as possible so to help me do that please try to keep your questions short the find people up here have had to deal with me moderating them for the past hour so if you've launched into a model I'm just warning you I will moderate you too I don't want to do it but yes please hello what a nice symposium it is I'm a bit late I'm sorry I know some of the participants I'm Eileen second from Istanbul University I'm a professor of economics teaching art economics for about 16 years now and I'm really educating university students to become a collector now my question and my observation is the following the Millennials and the the young collectors are more and more interested not to collect but to share what do you think about that the sharing economy what is the role of sharing economy in the art market thank you I just think they mostly want to share experiences together and like kind of be the community and together we experience art and we exchange about art it's it's it's happening okay that's the sharing economy let me let me add what I want I wanted to say actually they are more interested to rent art they don't want to pay a lot of money they want to run Marcedes they want to rent beautiful apartments in Monaco but they don't also they don't want to buy art but they may want to leave art for a while they are because they get bored for a very fast from everything having having run the Istanbul Art Fair I can actually say this is what we were trying to do is we were trying to engage these collectors to say that you know it's about bringing them the right access to art it's about bringing them a quality of art you know I'm sometimes when you look at luxury as art versus art as an asset class you know it's about the educational aspect and you have to you know teach them in a way without patronizing them about the industry and then that's when they will start collecting art you know we try to do that and we did it successfully the two years that I was in eastern wall and we engaged those collectors that you say buy and rent you know boats and houses and all that we engaged them within the fair to start buying art on a smaller level you know you engage them to buy ten thousand dollars worth of art fifteen thousand dollars worth of art and then you know that will establish the collector further I think that they're also very money conscious and there is a sharing economy that's coming into play and people share you know you don't have to necessarily own a car these days you can share it and but this is this is a generation that also they struggle to get their first house they struggle to own things and I think there's plenty of this generation that buy watches and they buy other investable assets but they simply don't know enough about the value of buying a painting if it's especially if it's emerging artists you know you can get to a certain a certain sort of tipping point let's say it's twenty-five thousand pounds where if a young person who's in uninitiated not necessarily knowing what they're doing for them to purchase that work they need to know that there's gonna be a resale value because there's other things that they can invest in for that money and know that they can get a return so so that's where the auction houses come into play because there are there are real bastion of transparency right now which is crazy because as we all know it's like very easily manipulable manipulatable but they need to know right what that resale value will be if they're going to buy something they need to have some indication of where the pricing is historically in the market and what the future potential is and they don't have that right now so I think that's why they're leaning towards other things they're leaning towards experiences so until we can like really bring that transparency into play in a meaningful way for for this generation I think they're going to continue to lean on experiences and buy other things and invest in other things and greater liquidity too I mean I think that it goes hand-in-hand with being able to more easily you know I think if you look at the real real for example and people walking into their closet and all of a sudden seeing the opportunity to buy new things because there are things that they could sell in there once there's greater liquidity market not to encourage flippers but to allow people to transition out of things that they've their taste has evolved beyond I don't think it has to be renting would you view pretty complicated business to do in the art market oh I would imagine [Music] recycling exactly I want to recycle they don't want to buy something and necessarily own it forever they probably buying it with the intention of maybe selling it in a few years time so they need to know that there's that out and you know lots of lots of young collectors that we work with I say 30 to 40 years old they're they're buying and then in five six seven years time they'll they might want to sell it and they might they've chased my change they might want to invest in something else and you know equally some of the collectors that we deal with come to us with things they bought 10 15 years ago they want to sell it to us so they can buy a new artist I think that's also you know collectors aren't just collecting for the long term anymore they're also selling I mean that's partly mindset there is also in in tech you know the art fractioning there are startups doing that a lot maybe that's a solution I would also just add that I think it's also dangerous for us to think too rigidly about the idea of renting art like I'm gonna pay a fee to have a painting in my house for that period of time like going to an exhibition in a way is renting art it's it's a temporary experience with something and taking a photo there is it renting art in a sense and that is how you start that engagement that can then lead down the road to actual purchase so that's why the that's why the educational aspect is so important you know this is what we were doing in Turkey was we were trying this is why I think these kind of talks are important is engaging where where you're constantly educating the market about how things are perceived how you know and that's what's important as well it's not just about of course you know the wine to sell at a more expensive price is very attractive and maybe that's the way you can lure them in but trying to motivate to keep a collection to grow a collection to think about the artist to you know because you're actually the patron of the artists and they're not just the gallery so you know okay yes good morning thank you so much for being here with us today and for debating for greater transparency which is always needed so I actually have two questions and my first is for all of you I would like to know from also the gallery the fair and the online perspective do you think there's a middle ground where you can actually have clients that are boomers and Millennials equal parts or do you think you need more to have a curated program for each of them because I understand that some wealthier individuals and who are more classical in their way of buying might not have the same response so I was wondering do you think it's something that needs to be curated differently or if it can be all served in one model and my second question would be for Claudia I see that you founded your business regarding real estate related spaces and I would like to know if you could elaborate a bit on what you do thank you from an art fair perspective it's important to be relevant so while you're trying to create a showcase for galleries to sell and the showcase really involves around everything from event production to operations to this yes you can have certain areas that are more curated by younger curators by more relevant curators talking about sustainability talking about you know things like that to make it more relevant to attract the younger people but you know you don't have a fair perspective you don't just want to focus on one group we have to focus on the broader specter but then you we can have little subgroups where we could get the attention from the let's say Millennials from the Z's from the I think it's you know one of the amazing things about art is that it brings people together across generations and cultural divides and so I don't think you have to have a different artistic program to hit different audiences what you might need to do is segment your audience and talk to those different groups of people differently you know I think you even see some of the major galleries doing that already having much older kind of partners who are dealing with their very established clients and much younger people from our generation leaving their online initiatives you know we certainly do that with different aspects of our audience talking to one group in one way and another in another way that'll appeal to them more and you know the Millennial might want a much more accessible kind of presentation of information a boomer might need a little bit more intellectual approach yeah I'd agree with that I think it's it's basically kind of tailoring your messaging to different audiences like we we have every single month or for every show we'll have a series of emerging musicians who will come in and respond to the themes of the exhibition and that tends to pull in a much younger crowd and you know let's say the boomer generation might not be interested in in that type of experience but then we have other more intellectual more in-depth events where the panel discussions or something of that nature where you kind of get a deeper connection with an older generation you know there's there's definitely ways of tailoring your experiences and your offerings based on who you're speaking to and obviously you can use data to help you do that in a digital way too but in terms of the cultural product in terms of the works of selling and your programming generally new exciting emerging artists and any artist really is is appreciated by an old generation and the younger generation so the actual programming I think remains the same it's just how you activate different experiences around that and that you can tailor and change I may just answer my question should I or yeah okay so so my part on real estate is actually it's very similar to K 11 so I work with real estate developers that mostly do mixed-use developments that means there are different modules inside it can be health it can be education Hotel Convention whatever and art brings in a certain it brings in a big add-on actually because art has also become part of a lifestyle and people just get this within a whole platform and I think especially with retail that's what a lot of real estate developers also do the whole digital digitalization has actually shifted the retail consumer where he starts to gather information online and he wants to explore and experience it offline and then buy the product online again and I think with that it means that the retail gets more into showrooms actually then sales places where as art is also a lot about experience in the showroom and you know bringing people in and it's another thing as I mentioned before this passion and luxury market is along the same line and a art hub I call it within a large-scale development is for me just an expansion of the line and attracts a lot of footfall and it makes use of its it creates a narrative it's used for PR and communication so it ended of course it approaches the 99 people and not not only the 1% yeah we have somebody way in the back ok we'll get to you next thank you everyone it was dense and really interesting I was wondering if you could speak to some patterns you might have noticed of millennial collectors in the primary versus secondary market Joe you talk a lot of obviously emerging artists and maybe for those younger collectors who have the opportunity to visit a living artist's studio and all these things but can you talk a bit about how they respond to their artists basically also yeah I think I mean they're obviously the secondary market is much more investment motivated so those conversations tend to be much less about their passion actually a much more about you know they see as an investment and as much it's usually a much longer-term investment unless you're dealing with flippers who you can usually spot straightaway but but there is they are very money conscious and you know if they're going to spend a million pounds upwards on a painting on the secondary market they want to know they would first of all they would have done their research they would have gone around the galleries they would have gone on to artsy they would have looked to aren't there and seen all the results so they're very very they're empowered with information and their mentality is very investment focused is very much focused on numbers and so we we have that aspects of our business we prefer to focus on the development of younger artists and bring them through into mid-career but but it's an important thing very different mentality when you're dealing with I'm not sure I don't think there's much of a difference when it comes to the older clients to buy on the secondary market versus younger clients I think it's a similar mentality but it's very much one of investment I don't know if you guys have anything yeah I mean I think that the secondary market just from a but both from a budget perspective and from scale they can adapt to new generation in a much more quick way and as we're kind of touching on before and then people millennial collectors are less compromising and deciding oh I really want this artists it's not available on the primary ok I'll find something else but on the other hand you know primary market is so important for to foster the artists that are coming up so and that's where we really see ourselves is coming in and trying to bridge that at least the digital divide that a secondary market outfit or a major calorie might put out there that might be helping they're helping them develop millennial collectors and for a smaller gallery that might not be something that they had the ability to invest in I think there's also definitely a split between a lot of the times but we the clients will come to us for our primary program and then the conversation will develop and it will turn into a secondary interest so there's also not necessarily distinction a lot of them are very passionate about collecting emerging artists but then also have the funds let's say to invest at a higher level and a lot of the time they will come from families who have a tradition of collecting - all the way in the back you lose my name I'm a curator and art historian based in Berlin and my question is regarding you spoke a lot about educating Millennials right you spoke a lot about building a new community of collectors so what we are experienced experiencing in Berlin right now is that we have on one hand a lot of startup entrepreneurs and they are looking for a union there they're looking for a new new thing they're looking to invest in art they're interested in it but how can we educate them about the art about the sculptures painting if they are used to one second to paint one second attention on Instagram they want to have experience they want to have digital art without giving them Burning Man experience how can we teach them that sketch your installation performance is worth engaging with because right now we have the artistic community that is somehow existing in its own art art bubble but we need to engage with the startup community otherwise it's not going anywhere so how do you educate this kind of people this kind of Millennials with huge assets and somehow they want to participate but they want to pay 2,000 euro and to sell a work of art in two years for 20,000 euro what they did with their startups so what can we do I really think is about us three across the aisle and and not kind of expecting them to come in you know even if you look at artists like Hank Willis Thomas and studio drifts that have done amazing art works out at Burning Man that's brought in a whole new group of collectors that might not have otherwise ever heard of pace or Jack Shaymin you know and if we find ways to get people across the threshold I think there's a lot of art out there that can appeal to that community one thing that I hear a lot is that they're less excited about some of the kind of five and traditional structures of the art world was just in San Francisco for the fairs out there and I think you hear that a lot of the major collectors out there might not they might be buying they might have bought from the fair the galleries that are showing at the fairs but they don't really want to go into what they see as a kind of pretentious Art Fair experience and have to kind of deal with with that yeah and I think you are dealing with a generation who have much shorter attention spans that's just the way it is but I think you use those platforms where they're spending their time to not to give that not so kind of give them everything you use it as a hook to get them into to kind of get them into engaging with you and your experiences that you put on in the gallery in it you have to kind of arc your arc what you're providing so you can provide you know a quick instant gratification let's say on Instagram or your social media which will then allow them to click through to a website which will allow them to book a ticket to a much deeper more intellectual experience in the gallery which they can then share with our audience again and and the kind of the cycle continues and repeats like that Alex said because I come from a fair background actually it affairs is that tool that showcase for that perfect showcase for a millennial because you have the booth and you have up to 1500 40 of them so so it gives them a quick insight into the artist that they like they can engage with the gallery then they get feedback from the gallery they can keep in touch with the gallery afterwards they happen to be in the city for a conference and you know they can keep their relationship going and and this is what we provide as a fair perspective is we want to engage them we want to hook them in and then keep the relationships with the galleries goings we're that platform to do that for them okay now all the way in the back thank you so much and thank you for your presentation um I would just wanted to ask about or introduce rather the geographical aspect of this because when you talk about young money and you say some of them are come from collector parents and I just you know there is a division between let's say the Western world where art institutions have been very present and more in the kind of everyday aspect of the Millennials life but then you also have other kind of rising geographies since we talked about Turkey in the last manual in September half of the Millennials were going to the new art airspace opening and the other half was flying to ask you Shahir to like a new amazing museum that opened so I just wanted to know if you make some distinctions you know between what's happening in let's say Eastern Europe Turkey South America you know because I kind of just feel a bit that this was a Western aspect or maybe you know or how you would differentiate the The Young Money and the Millennials in different parts of the world because I don't think they're all the same that's some question about a geographical aspect of it no no and I think that brings a really important point like obviously by its nature if we're trying to talk about a whole group of people like Millennials or talk about Asian collectors whatever like these are imputed people have all kinds of different nuances involved in them and I think it's it's important to try to find those distinctions I have more that I could say about that but for the time being I mean Claudia obviously you were talking about Hong Kong and and k-11 and all those kinds of things and kam you've been talking about Turkey so I don't know I mean looks like do you see any kind of when you're parsing data for younger collectors I mean do the geographically trying to show you big difference you know by and large they remain fairly true generation by generation I work in our China business as well and one thing that we do see there is that you know the collectors are about ten years younger in their journey at any point in time so that's something that's maybe slightly different I do really think that a lot of the the core access to information component is is really a key driver there we see that you know particularly for those collectors who are in geographies that might not have as robust of a contemporary art infrastructures as you know New York London Barcelona anywhere that having that immediate access to information is that much more important and what's really cool about that and what we see with our collectors is then they are sometimes traveling to those places and meeting and gallerist meeting with the artists but but by and large a lot of the trends remain true anybody else hi thank you for the insight to valuable insights on the industry this is kind of a boring question in a way but I would like to know what's the impact on the tax side of young money you know for example of physical gallery being in a certain country or a gallery that's online and doesn't have like an actual physical storefront so what's the tax side for a collector on this and what do you what's your opinion about this particular point well Joe right before we came on the panel you were talking about the idea of the fact that you guys only have one physical location yeah and that that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not expanding in other senses in terms of overhead and all that kind of stuff so maybe even that yeah I mean I think from a tax point of view from a collector I mean there's certain things you can do as a collector to to protect your assets if you have a great collection there's structures you can set up to protect it and make it more tax efficient for you in terms of how galleries operate and how that affects yeah it's your point I mean we have we have a central gallery in Mayfair in London and we've had lots of opportunities to open up over in different locations but actually if you can make your online community really strong we have you have seven million people engaging with you a week and a lot of those people are big curators and collectors from all over the world lots of different cultures and different cultures is a really important thing everyone that you deal with from different cultures has a different kind of way of approaching you and have to have different values and belief systems so you have to obviously be sensitive to that but if you can build a really strong online global community which is what we've done over the last couple of years the idea of taking on big new fixed costs by opening up another space elsewhere becomes quite a tricky kind of prospect it's almost it'd be nice to have ten galleries around the world for us but actually if we can spend a tenth of that money and create amazing experiences and keep building our audience globally that almost has more value for us at the moment then taking on huge fixed cost and open up galleries overseas I think is going back to the experience point you can create experiences about having huge fixed costs of other galleries you can have pop up spaces last year we did a pop-up in freeze LA lots of big galleries also doing pop-ups in conjunction with big fairs where you know the audiences are going to be and then you obviously are the artists and Gary's are collaborating with other brands activating our and exhibitions in different ways so there's much more cost-effective ways of reaching new audiences and having physical presence other than kind of building other galleries I think and from a tax perspective it's something you've got to deal with tax unfortunately but thank you I think that wraps it up thank you very much for listening to us [Applause]

Channel: TALKINGALLERIES

Views: 3,623

Rating: 4.9183674 out of 5

Keywords: Talking Galleries, Barcelona Symposium, Tim Schneider, The Gray Market, Joe Kennedy, Unit London, Kamiar Maleki, Alexander Forbes, Artsy, Claudia Schachenmann, millennials, collecting

Id: is0-2kewy80

Length: 85min 45sec (5145 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020