Episode #104 – Hear, at last the truth! Blaise Niosi (Curator & Art Dealer) reveals how to compete in the market of Contemporary Art

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BIO:

[Download .PDF Now!-Show Transcript - Episode 104]

Blaise began her career at Sotheby’s auction house where she supported a department dedicated to building internal intellegence and strategy for the company’s most valued Contemporary art collectors.

Ms. Niosi earned her Bachelors Degree in Art History from Skidmore College, and Masters Degree in Art Business from Manchester University through the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where her original thesis was the first scholarly writing to investigate the opportunity to collateralize video art as a capital tool in fine art-based loan structures. She is a regular contributor to various online and print fine art publications.

Blaise & Co. maintains a stable of contemporary artists working in various media who wish to expand their careers by exploring exhibition and commercial opportunities beyond the walls of the white box gallery.

LINKS:

Website - www.blaiseandco.com

Twitter - www.twitter.com (@BLAISEartworld)

Newsletter - “The BLAISE & Co. BULLETIN” -  www.blaiseandco.blogspot.com

Email – BLAISE@BLAISEANDCO.COM

Click To Subcribe To Our Podcasts on iTunes

Q & A  for Episode 104 – Blaise Niosi [31:16]

August 29, 2010

Q: Briefly describe one of your typical days, when you worked for Sotheby’s Auction House.

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, when I worked for Sotheby’s, I worked in the client development department, which is an internal department that researches and builds strategy for the top level of clients in all different collecting genres.  And that’s because the smallest amount of buyers at Sotheby’s create the majority of their revenue.  So it’s really just a handful of people, of individuals, who are really driving the market in each collecting genre.

So I focused on the contemporary art collectors.  So each day would include everything from reading all sorts of magazines and newspapers, everything from Vogue to Art News to Forbes to get information on these collectors, and make sure we knew as much as possible to – you know, targeting very specific markets around the country.  And then a lot of the job was actually very adventuresome.

And I worked closely with the special events department and the marketing department, because one of the best tools that Sotheby’s and the specialists have to really gain an understanding of these individual collectors is to host exclusive high-level events on their behalf or to work with them in their philanthropic interests, or to bring them on very exclusive tours of museums all over the world – things like that.  So the day was very event-oriented, and detail-oriented, and it required a lot of attention to detail.

Q: How much did the Sotheby’s experience influence your desire to create your own company in June of this year?

A:  Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, I think I had always known that I wanted to be an entrepreneur of some type, and have my own company, but I don’t think I expected to do it as early in my career as I did.  I, you know, had my undergraduate degree in art history, and then my master’s in art business, and then I worked at Sotheby’s for about two years, and I just got a little antsy, and I guess it’s sort of a blessing and sort of a curse, to be impatient.  But I come from a very entrepreneurial family; both my parents run their own businesses, and they always have, and I think I always expected of myself that I would eventually do that for myself, because it really creates this enormous sense of personal liberty and, you know, creativity.

And I’m just – my personality is one that I don’t really like feeling too dependent on other people to begin with, so the thought that, you know, a boss at your job could determine whether you have a great day that day, when you get up, or maybe you have a miserable day sitting at your desk for nine hours, doing something you’re not interested in doing.  Maybe your job description changes; maybe people get laid off and you’re doing the job of four people.  I didn’t really, sort of – I don’t know how to explain it, but it really made me uneasy to not be able to determine what I was going to be doing myself.

Q: Now, if I’m an artist, what would be the advantages and disadvantages, if any, of working with a curator?

A:Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, the traditional way for an artist to sort of break their career and be a successful working artist who is selling works, making money and is also creatively fulfilled, is to submit their work to a commercial art gallery, hope that the dealer is working at their gallery like their work, and then you get signed on and the gallery represents you.  That’s really the traditional way, and it’s really not that relevant anymore, from what I’ve learned, speaking to these artists that I work with – because, you know, you sign on with a gallery, and you have an exhibition on the wall with them for maybe four weeks or six weeks, and then it’s down, and they move on to the next show with the next artist.

And the artists tell me – they sort of confided in me that they don’t feel comfortable and they don’t know what they can ask and how, you know, if it’s inappropriate for them to say to the gallery, you know, “What have you done for me this week?  Did you make any sales?” You know? “Are you still focused on me or are you focused on the next month’s exhibition?”  And I noticed a trend that the buyers and collectors and writers in contemporary art really today, in my opinion, aren’t very gallery-driven either, so it’s not relevant to the artist, and it’s not really relevant to the consumer, either.  Because, in my opinion, the consumers follow the taste-maker.

So, if they like, you know, the Minceys’ taste, they’re going to follow you and want to read about you and hear your recommendations, whether you work at gallery A or gallery B.

Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, the traditional way for an artist to sort of break their career and be a successful working artist who is selling works, making money and is also creatively fulfilled, is to submit their work to a commercial art gallery, hope that the dealer is working at their gallery like their work, and then you get signed on and the gallery represents you.  That’s really the traditional way, and it’s really not that relevant anymore, from what I’ve learned, speaking to these artists that I work with – because, you know, you sign on with a gallery, and you have an exhibition on the wall with them for maybe four weeks or six weeks, and then it’s down, and they move on to the next show with the next artist.

And the artists tell me – they sort of confided in me that they don’t feel comfortable and they don’t know what they can ask and how, you know, if it’s inappropriate for them to say to the gallery, you know, “What have you done for me this week?  Did you make any sales?” You know? “Are you still focused on me or are you focused on the next month’s exhibition?”  And I noticed a trend that the buyers and collectors and writers in contemporary art really today, in my opinion, aren’t very gallery-driven either, so it’s not relevant to the artist, and it’s not really relevant to the consumer, either.  Because, in my opinion, the consumers follow the taste-maker.  So, if they like, you know, the Minceys’ taste, they’re going to follow you and want to read about you and hear your recommendations, whether you work at gallery A or gallery B.   So it doesn’t – it’s not completely relevant, it’s not necessary to the success of an artist’s career to work for a gallery.  So what my company does is offer an alternative way for them to sort of manage the business end and get to whatever the artist defines success as.  Maybe it’s making – as simple as making more sales, selling more paintings.  Maybe it’s developing a more intimate relationship with really committed collectors.  Maybe it’s getting more media coverage.  Maybe it’s working with a specific curator who they’ve always admired.

So I – the advantage of working with the sort of curator business manager model, which is what Blaise and Co is,it’s a much more intimate relationship.  It’s much more artist-centric, because I don’t own a space that is catering to the consumers.  I’m catering to what the artist wants to achieve for his or her career.  And, you know, that can be very different from one artist to another.

Q: If someone was about to purchase something, is it like the auctions that we see on TV with the paddles and such, or is there a price range?  How does it work if someone wants to buy a piece of art that you have?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, if someone wants to buy from me, I really try to create a continuous experience for the buyer, just as I do for my artist clients, in that however they learn about the artwork, what they’re interested in buying, maybe they see it on my website or maybe they came to one of my exhibitions, or maybe they read about the artist on a blog.  It’s really a one-on-one experience, where I would work with them directly to learn more about the artist.  Maybe we would have a studio visit where I would take the buyer to the artist studio, and we’d have a little discussion together and get a little behind-the-scenes look.

And then, you know, to facilitate the transaction, because as you said, we live in a really fast-paced, technologically savvy world – there – I mean there are certain things that I can do to make it as easy for the consumer as possible, and that’s – that ranges from accepting credit cards on my website to – I mean, I can accept credit cards over the phone, and via email, and in person at all of my exhibitions.  PayPal, things like that.

A: You had a showing in South Hampton with the artist Leah Dixon, I believe the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I think it was called?  How did you come up with that concept for the artist?

Q: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, I’ve done two shows with Leah Dixon so far.  The first one we did – the most recent one was in South Hampton, and then the first one I did with her was with another artist who I work with named Winston Schmealinsky.  And they were – this was when I was still working at Sotheby’s and focused on my job there, and I was just sort of supporting and interested in my artist friends, and I had recommended their work to some friends of mine who own and direct very successful galleries in New York and Philadelphia.   So I thought, now, let’s actually have like a great little cocktail party, where people can meet like-minded people, and the cherry on top is that there will be beautiful art on the wall that they can buy right there, and walk out with if they want to.

Right!  It was sort of like a little invitational like think-tank, almost, with champagne and chocolate-chip cookies, because we just had other artists and very serious committed collectors and writers and influencers and bloggers and people who really wanted to meet people that they could have a real conversation with, and take a minute to look at the art, and even talk with the artist.  So it ended up being a great –

It was a great little party, and everybody was, you know – people were lingering at the end, and they actually had fun.  And they said, “You know, I’ve always wanted to do this.  I don’t go to the Chelsea openings anymore because they’re so uncomfortable.”  And it sort of hearkened back to the way it was originally done, with people like Peggy Guggenheim and Edith Griper-Helper, who was a dealer, where they had these art houses, and they would just have sort of salon discussions with their friends, and talk about whatever it was that they thought was interesting in art at the time.

Q: So when you launched the business, did you launch the newsletter immediately, or did that come into play after you opened the business?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, we – so when I worked at Sotheby’s, I left my job in March, and I had a non-compete agreement which said that I couldn’t work in a similar capacity for several weeks.  So I sort of – I mean, you know me, like you would think that I would sort of enjoy that as a forced vacation, but of course it made me completely anxious and impatient, and I felt really not productive, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.  So I decided to start a blog, because I never had before, and everybody does now, and I thought maybe I can do it my way and make it something that I would actually want to read also.  So that’s how it started, just as, you know, a creative outlet for me to keep my mind working.  And then, you know, when the company really launched, as soon as my non-compete was over, we really hit the ground running, and that’s when I started to use the bulletin as more of a marketing tool to announce the exhibitions and show pictures from the opening, and give my reviews and interviews with people that I do, things like that.

Q: Now another thing that I saw when I was doing my little research on Blaise – the top five reasons to follow Blaise.  Can you just elaborate on that?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Well, okay.  The way I see it, is Twitter can be used one of two different ways.  One way is that you use it as sort of a personal outlet, for whatever rants and raves you have throughout the day.  Another way is that you can use it as sort of a window into your day so that people can sort of have that experience virtually with you.  And that’s the way that I really try to use Twitter, so that someone can sort of check in with me and see how I’m spending my day as I’m running my company, and get sort of a behind the scenes look. So that little reason, for why to follow me on Twitter, just speaks to all the different amazing people in the art world who I run into all the time – maybe it’s at a museum exhibition, or at a dinner party, or, you know, maybe just over email.  It can be anything.  You meet so many interesting artists and curators and thinkers and writers and people who are just interested in contemporary art.  And so for me to sort of share their thoughts over Twitter with my followers – it’s almost like my followers are there themselves.

Q: What the larger museums are doing to, if you will, democratize their appreciation of art and to drive in the general public into the museums, you know, to keep the revenue flowing.  Now, in your line of work, as a curator, – I know that there are declines, that people are just not coming to the museums.  Do you think that you have an advantage because yours is a much smaller – you manage it in smaller pieces, as far as perhaps opening it up to the general public?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Yeah, I think I definitely hold an advantage because my company is really based around the idea that people follow, like I said, whoever they think is the tastemaker.  Whoever they think is influential.  And so to really stay sincere and retain the integrity that these are genuinely artists who I think, you know, spend my time with, and I go to their apartments, and we talk on the phone, and we’re so invested in each other that the artists who I’m presenting really speak to my personal taste.   And so I think that holds a specific sort of benefit, because it’s not mass-marketing.  It is open to anybody, I mean, I have a website and, like you said, the bulletin, and these exhibition openings for the public.  But it’s definitely more of an intimate sense.  It’s a different sensibility.  It sort of goes back, like I said, to the way that our – was presented around a certain person’s style, as opposed to marketing that painting for the next four weeks.  It just – it did – you know, it doesn’t really make sense anymore, so I’m trying to make a different business model that, as far as I can tell, from my research, nobody is really doing for these artists, and I think that is what attracts people to my business.

Q: I read something today about a curator who came from one of the Eastern bloc nations, and what she did was she collaborated with several artists, who came from different Eastern bloc nations, and they put together a show in Rhode Island, like you had mentioned earlier.  They were like-minded people, and I was just wondering if you were involved or had future plans of being involved in something that may take you out of the New York area?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): I don’t have anything international on the schedule right now.  I do have exhibitions planned through November and probably December, and the next one is going to be opening on September 8^th at Gallery Bar in Manhattan.  But I don’t have anything international planned.  But I love that idea of curators sort of bringing, you know, bringing these people to Rhode Island, of all places.  I think that’s so interesting, and it really shows how, you know, small the world is.  It’s really a globalized market.  I mean, you and I are doing a podcast interview and there’s Twitter and all these crazy things that keep people connected.  So I think that’s great.

Q: China is now emerging as the number two economy in the world, so perhaps something might take you to the Asian pact countries.  You never know!  It’s art, correct?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): I went to China and Hong Kong and Japan when I was in second grade with my parents and my sister.  And it was an amazing experience, and little did my sister and I know at the time that my parents were considering moving us to Hong Kong, apparently, for my dad to have a new job.  And so we were on this sort of extended vacation there for like three weeks, and my sister and I were wondering, you know, why we were there for so long.  And we learned years later it’s because we might have stayed there.

Q: Is there anyone that you would like to give a shout-out to during the podcast?

A: Blaise Niosi (Blaise & Co.): Definitely my sister.  Her name is Lauren Tory Niosi.  And – I mean, because she’s my best friend, and also because she is very much involved in these sort of globalizing new media things that you and I are talking about.  She works for a company called Epics, and she has a blog for them where she interviews different actors and reviews movies and interacts with all of their fans, and she does a really good job at what she does.