Full transcript: Harry Blain on London Real
0:34 Silicon Real. It’s about the people. This is Silicon Real, the weekly talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. I am Brian Rose. I also host London Real.
0:48 It’s the same studio, but it’s not just tech. We’ve got whistleblowers, CIA officers, rock stars, politicians, filmmakers, NBA athletes. NBA. You were really impressed by the NBA guy, weren’t you? Totally impressed by Cuz you’re a basketball guy.
1:01 Yeah. It’s a little bit longer. It’s a lot of different things besides tech. So check that out at londonreal.tv. But as usual on Friday afternoon, we’re here to talk tech.
1:09 My co-host is entrepreneur Colin Pyle. You’re living the life. You’re going to Naples. You’re selling coffee online. What’s going on?
1:17 Working it. Yeah, just got back into town from quick little trip in Italy. Coming out with a really, really intense blend for everyone that has been sort of craving that over the last 6 months. So, yeah, doing that up all dressed up, cuz I’m, you know, shaking some espresso martinis this evening. Yeah, you got to work, got to work night jobs, too.
1:36 I love it, man. I like the new look. You know, you usually dress down as opposed to dressing up. So, Harry can probably confirm this. So, I like it.
1:43 This could be a new trend for you. I got some strange looks in Shoreditch wearing, you know, collared shirt. They don’t know what to do with those over here. Yeah, even the tech guys will probably think you’re weird. So, anyways, there you go.
1:52 Thanks for being here. On with the show. Our guest today is Mr. Harry Blain, who is an English art dealer, gallery owner, and the founder of Sedition Art, an online resource where editioned digital artworks can be bought and traded. You have artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin as your your clients. You’re an international art gallery owner with places in Berlin, London, New York.
2:15 Harry, thanks so much for being here. Welcome to Silicon Real. Thank you. Good to be here. Although I feel a little intimidated after the previous list of guests you just ran out.
2:22 Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Well, you know, that’s a different show, but we’ve had some big people here in tech. But you know, there’s one thing. We haven’t really talked much about art.
2:30 You know, I come from a finance background in banking. And when people tell me about, when I tell people about banking, they’re like, I have no idea what’s going on in banking. But that’s nothing compared to the way I feel about art. I mean, this is a massive, very non-tech, and I think poorly understood market. the fine art market.
2:45 So before we get into Sedition, I was wondering if you could tell us how does one become an art dealer? Because I don’t think that’s an undergraduate, you know, degree anywhere. And how did you get to where you are today? I think most people are a lot better qualified than I am. My journey was just a little bit more opportunistic.
3:03 It was a situation where I’d always had an interest in art and eventually a friend came across and said, “Come and join me in a gallery.” Actually, I started in finance as well. So, I’d been three or four years in finance, was looking for something as a way out of that and art just seemed like an incredible opportunity to actually make a living from it. Sort of 23 years later, it’s worked out okay. But we also have been in one of the most incredible booms and the recognition of art as well over that period of time.
3:32 I think with the internet specifically, communications generally and the whole sort of period of prosperity and world peace largely given what’s going on at the moment, that may seem controversial, but has enabled a market that was far more fragmented and far more perhaps elitist to become widely known and widely engaged with by, you know, tens of thousands more people. So it’s been an incredible moment. It’s interesting because you talk about I mean a relatively peaceful period.
4:06 So as an art dealer you must be thinking about things in terms of hundreds of years because I guess there has been 60 years of non-global world war and that does help the art business. Yeah. A lot more than that these days. I think it’s, if you look at some of the artworks, I mean, the art world and I guess the art business has been around for hundreds of years. You know, this isn’t a new market that everyone’s seeing.
4:28 Contemporary artists, you know, suddenly becoming, you know, better known than rock stars. This is a market that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. You have the sort of Canalettos of this world, the people going on the grand tour, buying those paintings. Back then, these guys had celebrity status as well. It’s just today it’s that information is available to a much wider audience.
4:50 And the transition from somebody who’s not so well-known to somebody who’s a household name happens very much more quickly. That’s interesting. What’s the biggest misconception people have about the fine art world? Oh, I don’t think there’s one. It’s like, what are the top 10?
5:07 Well, I don’t know. You probably have to throw some ideas at me. I think that it’s a closed shop. You know, I think this idea that you can’t get involved in it, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s pretty daunting for people who perhaps haven’t started collecting or haven’t been involved in it to find their first steps into a market like that because usually those people are pretty intelligent.
5:37 They’re educated. They’re cultural. Most of the time they’ve succeeded incredibly well in whatever their sphere of expertise is, whether it’s tech, finance, industry, whatever that might be. So they don’t want to come into a world which they’re being made to feel inadequate or new effectively without any knowledge to them. So it can be very daunting in that, and it’s providing a conduit is providing a way, an access point, so people can enjoy art.
6:07 So they can really get to understand it, engage with it in a way that they start to learn and feel comfortable within their own choices, their own decisions and their own collections that they build. And actually that’s one of the reasons that we thought about Sedition is because it enabled that, it enabled people sitting in geographically diverse situations anywhere around the world where perhaps they didn’t have the usual access to a museum which traditionally would enable that role to look at what the world’s leading artists were doing today at this point in time and actually identify those works and perhaps even collect those works. as well.
6:49 But even if they don’t collect through Sedition, they can look at the artist studio. They can follow what’s going on, what exhibitions, what projects, what public works being created and start to, you know, build up a recognition of what that artist does. So if we talk about Sedition, is this specifically digital art created for Sedition or is this ways of them tracking their what’s the, what, what do you call real-world art when it’s not digital? Actual art?
7:14 What you call it? It’s a very, it’s a very, it’s just art. It’s just a different medium. I think Sedition, excuse me. Um, if you think about Sedition in terms of etchings, woodcuts, prints, these are, you know, these are media that the or forms that the artists have used in some cases for, you know, hundreds of years.
7:35 It’s a way that the artists created a work that could reach collectors or people who are interested in it, for not as much money as the original painting. So if you look at a Dürer, for example, if you were going to buy the original painting or you were going to go down an avenue where you’re buying, I don’t know, an original Rembrandt or something like that, it was clearly even back then a considerable amount of money and there were very few people who could afford to buy that or collect that work. But by creating prints and editions, which are original works of art in their own right, it enabled a much wider audience to engage and become collectors and actually have a collection of these works around them.
8:19 So there’s no difference between that and what Sedition is doing. All Sedition really is is a platform for the artists to create a digital limited edition which can go to a very wide audience and at a value which enables a much wider audience to engage with them. I think one of the most exciting things when we first set up were the interviews with the artists themselves, because we thought, well, you know, how do you market this because it doesn’t exist.
8:49 People are not used to the idea, certainly not in this country, of a digital limited edition. It’s an anachronism. You know, digital by definition is almost limitless. It’s something which is infinitely copied and has been used as such. So to create this, seemed like going against the flow.
9:08 But the artists themselves actually said it on the website. You know, they thought it was a fantastic idea, and this is what they’re saying. And because a lot of their audience, as you become a successful artist, gets left behind. They get priced out of the ability to acquire a work and to collect that artist’s work. This enables them to do that, and perhaps also a more comfortable way for people to start their collection and engage with it and learn about the art world and the artists themselves.
9:38 Does the art world in general like tech? I know you started this company 3 years ago. I mean, these days tech is hot, tech is cool. Our show is on that kind of thing. But three years ago, in 2011, was it a tougher sell when you mentioned tech to gallery owners and artists?
9:52 Are they, do they kind of want to stay away from it? I think everybody, everybody recognizes, you know, there’s a lot of very intelligent people working within this area, and everybody realizes that there has to be a way of engaging the tech and what’s happened, you know, with the internet and with technology generally into the art world. It’s just that at this point in time, nobody’s really cracked it. There’s lots of great ideas out there, lots of great companies, but nobody’s actually found out how that’s going to work, and what benefits, you know, the players within that world, to the most, to the best advantage.
10:35 So, it’s going to happen. It’s just a question of how it happens. So, there is this real interest. I think everybody’s got a, you know, a back thought somewhere of how they might employ technology to make it better for everybody today. Yeah, we’ve seen a bunch of plays.
10:49 We had Vistari on a few months ago, and that was Bernardine Broker, and they’re using it as a tool to try to, get artists, I mean, to get owners to kind of get their art out for curation and then to be used around the world. It’s kind of an anonymous system. There’s all sorts of other plays. There’s Artbinder, Artfinder, Artsy. Do you sense a trend here?
11:08 Art Guru, Paddle Eight, but they all have, I mean, it’s a huge market, and they all have slightly different niches whether it’s a, an auction play or this kind of play. I mean, yours is quite unique in that it’s a digital piece and it’s a limited edition piece. Yeah, I think most of the technology is, at the moment, utilizing the sort of broadcasting elements of the web and, you know, and technology as a whole to bring audience to a physical. Yeah. work.
11:34 Yeah. And that can be brilliant and needs to happen and is being, you know, I think employed by some very good companies, some of which you’ve just mentioned. The whole thing with Sedition is, it doesn’t, you know, it is purely about the artist creating artworks that only exist in this digital form that are for your devices, but that you can do everything you can with a physical work. So you can collect it, you can enjoy it, you can display it, you know, you can have it on your wall or you can have it on your phone if you’re at a dinner party and just wanted to show somebody something you bought for your collection, but also you can resell it.
12:11 So, it has every element of what you would do in the physical world, but contained within the modern technology with simple digital world. What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, I guess, me, I’d love for you to explain a little bit more, because I know you have sort of, you know, almost a Sedition environment where the art is kept so that, you know, it keeps its limited edition, right? So, I think a lot of people listening might say, well, you know, what do you mean you resell a piece of digital art?
12:41 Like, can I just email it to someone and give it to them for free? So, maybe, you know, I’d love to explain some of that to our audience as well. Sure. Yeah. That was one of the, you know, that was one of the, the problems I suppose that we had to encounter is how did you, how did, how was there value to this?
12:57 How is it not just, you know, it says an edition of 100 or edition of a thousand. How is that possible, excuse me, in this world? Um, and what it is is that every work that you buy is individually signed and numbered by, uh, or shown by the certificate signed by the artist, signed by the company. So it shows if you bought edition one, two or you bought edition 50. It gives you that certificate of authenticity.
13:23 The work itself is then only displayed in the app, which is free, but you download it to whatever your device is. And so it’s contained within the app itself. Now, anybody, you know, I don’t come from a tech background, but anybody who’s got a decent amount of knowledge in tech can jailbreak an app. I’m picking up some of the lingo. Good.
13:45 Thank you. Thank you. And if they want to, they could do that and copy the work. But you can do that with anything. You know, you could buy a Picasso for $50 million, and if you wanted to get it copied by a really great artist, they could copy it almost exactly.
14:01 And unless you were an absolute expert, you’d be very hard pushed to tell the difference between that. This table, this glass, these days with technology, you can copy anything that you like. So, it’s not about copying it. The only way that you can resell that work. The only way that you can be a part of the art community as such within that Sedition sphere is if you actually bought the original work, you’re, you know, and it’s in the traditional sense of patron of the arts.
14:30 You are supporting the artist. You’re involved with the artist’s practice. It creates a relationship between you and what is going on in contemporary art world today and contemporary art history. You can easily break something off and copy it if you try hard enough, but you could never resell that work. There would be no value to it.
14:49 And it actually excludes you from every other benefit that there is in being an art collector. So you could enjoy the image. Sure. And there’s plenty of posters of original works of art around. So you can enjoy the images that way, but there’s a real difference between that and an engagement with the art world if you like.
15:03 That’s interesting, because the first thing you think of is piracy when it comes to digital art. and you think, “Yeah, it might be 50 of these Damien Hirst pieces and then all of a sudden there’s 500,000.” But that’s not a concern for you. Well, of course, we would try and stop it if that was to happen. And have you seen it happen?
15:19 People have tried. We had early on, we had somebody hack into the site and allow some of the images to be copied. But, as I say, you know, that was quickly plugged, and actually it didn’t really change anything. People still came back. Other collectors bought those works, and once the work has sold out in the edition, you then if you wanted to, could resell it to another collector on the site.
15:43 And that, interestingly, has happened hundreds of times since we set up that exchange. And the whole process was so that people could engage, people could swap artworks, they could sell artworks, they could create the collection they wanted. It opened it up to a larger community, and again that community sort of empowers itself, if you like. How’s business been? You started three years ago.
16:08 What were you trying to do? Were you trying to sign up a certain number of artists, and how do you scale that business and what’s been the plan? Well, I’m still driving a 4-year-old car. So, it’s hard times still going. It’s been great, actually.
16:23 You know, I, as you mentioned earlier on, I’ve got, I run a contemporary art gallery, and it has been a lifelong career, if you like, for the last 23 years. It’s been fantastic, and you know, a real privilege to work in this world. But I have to say that this is probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done: to watch people when we, when we opened day one, we had 15,000 people sign up to it on day one, and these people started buying and collecting these works that were created by, you know, the artists we all recognize today, and actually enjoying them.
17:00 We did a recent, we did a recent sort of, um, survey or competition where we asked people on Sedition to send us back how it is that they were enjoying the work. And it’s incredible, the differences. Some people have it on their 100-inch plasma. Other people had it on their iPad, which was propped up on a frame on the side of the, you know, near the sofa, playing the work, as they were sitting there having a dinner party. So the diver and other people out in the country, you know, had it out while they’re having a picnic.
17:30 So the diversity of how people were enjoying the art was fantastic. What’s a typical, what are your best sellers? Like, what are, say, three typical pieces of art that I would buy on Sedition, and are they animated? Are they stills? What do they feel like and look like?
17:46 Largely they’re, their video work, or animation. So that’s, you know, where it lends itself best to it. I mean, in, for example, one of the artists on the site is an artist called Bill Viola. Now, we represent Bill Viola through the galleries, and Bill’s work sells between $50,000 and $2 million a time. But ostensibly that is digital work, you know, it’s, he’s working with light, as he would say it.
18:17 It’s working with the pixels and creating these most amazing works that you’ll ever engage with, in my mind, from a video context. He’s largely regarded as one of the, you know, if not the master, one of the masters of that field and certainly the pioneer. That type of work on Sedition is a great way of a large audience engaging with some of some of these pieces, as I’ve just alluded to, which they might otherwise never have access to, never be able to enjoy in their own environment.
18:48 So, the most popular ones have been the video pieces. Thinking out loud, you’ve got Mat Collishaw was, with a burning flower piece, which is one of his, one of the most popular on the site. Actually, interestingly, having said what I just did, the Damien Hirst and Wim Wenders still images were very, very popular, have been very popular. Um, Elmgreen and Dragset, I think, had a couple of thousand people within the first day or two, you know, sort of bring those into their collection.
19:18 And what we try and do is give people a heads up to when these works have been created and when they’re released. And if you’re already a collector, then you get 24 hours ahead of everybody else to be able to go and buy a piece in case it sells out. It typically would, you know, what’s kind of the average price for some of these? Well, it’s an interesting one, because we started, I mean, when we started, they were quite accessible. The lowest price on the site is £5.
19:48 And the highest price was £500, which was actually a Damien Hirst skull piece, which is fantastic. But now it’s £1,000. There’s an Elmgreen and Dragset work on the site which is £1,000, but it’s only edition of 100. And we’re about to introduce one or two other works which will take the high price up to £5,000. So there are, you know, there are different price points, if you like, but different edition sizes all the way through that range.
20:19 Was the Hirst piece the, a video of his, for the love of God skull with the diamonds, or was it a different? Yeah, for the love of God. Exactly. An iconic image almost overnight, and it was a still image. No, it’s a video piece.
20:31 It’s a rotating. So are these, are you kind of turning these artists into filmmakers to a certain extent, because it is a medium they don’t normally present in? Right. Well, a lot of the artists have this side of their practice. It’s just there hasn’t been this sort of platform to allow them to reach an audience before.
20:48 So part of the reason that we did it was to act as an information source, if you like, to those collectors or potential collectors. So, if you can imagine a situation, you know, I think there’s half a million people on Facebook on this at the moment, but if you can imagine a situation where, God willing, there’s 10 million people, and, you know, 500,000 of those happen to be a Damien Hirst collector or a Mat Collishaw collector, then the next time that there is an exhibition of Mat’s work or Damien’s work at a particular museum, we can obviously send an email to those collectors to say, “Look, as a collector, you might want to know there’s this great museum exhibition and, you know, perhaps there’s a discount for being a collector for the ticket price.”
21:31 So it sort of drives audience, if you like, to the physical world, as well as having the opportunity to collect or make your own collection online. And go ahead. Go ahead. Yes. You know, I think you look at this, the space, the market, and essentially you’re opening up the doors to art for everyone in the world who has an internet connection.
21:54 And do you ever fear, or I guess it’s potentially a good problem, that you won’t be able to get enough art created for the demands of the masses? No, I’ve never thought of it. I’ve never had that concern, I should say. Um, I mean, there are, you know, tens of thousands of artists out there, and there are thousands of artists who make their living from being an artist every single day. And there are hundreds and hundreds of artists who are alive today who are the names that we recognize.
22:30 And each of those, you know, some are prolific and others, you know, perhaps make two or three works a year. But, excuse me, if you look at it from an edition point of view, that really resolves that problem. You know, I would, I would love to think that we would have far more demand than possible artworks out there, but actually if you look at the edition sizes, the smallest edition is 100 at the moment, but the largest edition is 10,000. Okay. Now, if you multiply that up by a large number of artists, that’s a very significant number of works that could potentially be available to an audience.
23:10 And does the artist determine how much, how many editions they release, or is that kind of a joint? It’s in conversation with the artist when the edition is released as to what their ideas were. So we recently, you know, had an edition with Ron Arad. In fact, Ron Arad created two editions for the work, and you know, he had very specific ideas about how that should come across and what the edition size should be and what pricing he would like that to enter the Sedition platform on.
23:46 So you know, the artists obviously are very aware of their own position and what they want from this. Most of it is not, in fact, I would say all of this is not monetarily driven, because at the moment, this is a fraction of, you know, we’re talking some of the world’s leading artists, is a fraction of what they actually earn as an artist. This is much more about being an exciting new platform, a new way of creating a work and showing a work, and a way of reaching an audience which perhaps hasn’t had the chance to engage with their work before.
24:18 Is it a marketing platform to a certain extent for these artists? I think that most artists would like their work just to be seen by people. You know, the works are, you know, the works are their babies. It’s, you know, it’s what they’ve created. And I think the worst thing that can happen to that is that it’s shut away and not seen or recognized by anybody.
24:39 So, you’ve got to get it out there and give it a life of its own, so people can enjoy it and engage with it. I think once that happens, it takes on its own momentum. I read a stat that 70% of art collectors bought artwork after seeing like a digital image, and they didn’t actually see it in person. Am I getting that stat wrong, or you’re a gallery owner? Is there a big digital use in what you do, or do people actually have to see it and touch it?
25:03 I think that’s more about sending JPEGs, images of physical works to people, excuse me, who want to buy something physical. I don’t know whether the stat’s right or not, and I haven’t actually monitored from the gallery our own position on that, but the use of JPEGs as the first stage is commonplace. In fact, you know, I think that I’d be surprised if it happens any other way. It used to be transparencies, but obviously that’s been taken over by the ability to download at large file sizes on the internet at a reasonable pace.
25:36 But more often, I would always recommend that people see the artwork that they’re buying, because unless you’re buying something on Sedition, which is you are looking at a digital work, and what you look at on the screen is exactly what you’re getting. When you’re dealing with a physical work, there can be quite significant differences between what you’re seeing in a JPEG and how the work actually reads when you’re standing in front of it. Right. You mentioned forgery earlier, digital in your business.
26:04 How much is forgery an issue in the physical world? Is it something you’re concerned about? Do you ensure against it? Is it, is it, you know, 1% of artwork are forgeries, or is it much smaller? I think it’s a concern, particularly when values get to, you know, a reasonable level.
26:22 Because once you’ve got, you know, once you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of pounds, or maybe less than that, but certainly millions, then there are going to be people who want to try and take advantage of that, in, you know, in a criminal way. With contemporary art, it’s less of an issue, because the artists are generally alive, and you can always phone them up and ask them, and you track them. But from a trust point of view, this is a lot of the reason that collectors buy through certain galleries and, you know, counterparties in the market, because those galleries, like ours, will stand behind whatever they’re selling to the collector.
27:01 You know, we are effectively the guarantor that that work is correct. And obviously, we, you know, with contemporary work, it’s very easy. And with perhaps works that are of a certain age, say pre-war, then you take, you go at great lengths to check the provenance and the authenticity of these works before the client actually is offered them. I was wondering if you could tell us, from like an emotional perspective, when someone walks into one of your galleries, and, I guess it’s probably similar with Sedition.
27:28 Is there kind of an emotional journey that they have to go on until they’re invested, or they want to invest in a piece of art? I mean, is it a story line, and is it something about them, and do they, I mean, it must be, is it a similar kind of adoption process or sales process? It’s completely individual. I mean, you’ll stand in front of one work and be blown away by it, and somebody else will stand in front of the same work and can’t see what you’re going on about.
27:53 So, it’s an entirely individual reaction, and everybody is different. You know, some people have come in and fallen head over heels in love with an artist’s work and followed that artist and built a collection from day one. Other people, you know, I’ve known for seven or eight years before they bought their first work. So, there is no average. I’m always curious about that.
28:16 Yeah. Do you sort of generally see, I guess, um, for both Sedition and in the physical world, people buying sort of the low-level artworks for, you know, an investment to sort of increase the value, or is it just because they love that piece of work? Um, I think people always buy for a combination of reasons. You know, they love the work, aesthetic value. Um, maybe for investment, um, maybe because it’s, you know, it’s a trophy for them.
28:46 It’s a kind of, you know, look, I’ve got, you know, I’ve got this incredible artwork by whatever it might be, Picasso, Damien, you know, Dunning, whoever the artist might be. But most people buy for a combination of those reasons, you know, and it varies according to the individual. You know, some people buy purely for aesthetic value, um, purely because they love the artist and, you know, they have a visceral response to it. Some other people buy purely for investment value because they think they’re going to make money from it.
29:17 But as I say again, it comes down to the individual and where they sit in that, on that scale. You know, we’ve seen tech like disintermediating so many industries. You know, we’ve seen it now with, like, you know, commercial residential real estate, Zupla, and we’ve seen it with, you know, Airbnb and people’s spareous and all these issues, Uber and Uber, and, you know, even eBay. I mean, you said that the art market is known as kind of a relationship business with these things happening.
29:43 I mean, where do you see tech taking art in the next 10, 15 years? Is it going to disintermediate everyone? Will there be an eBay someday that replaces your gallery? Is that something you think about? Yeah.
29:53 No, I think it’s something everyone’s been thinking about, is how it is. And I know, you know, the word that everyone used to hear was disruptive. Um, tech people love that word. Excuse me. Yeah.
30:04 When we set up Sedition, we, you know, we had offices in San Francisco and London, and that word was banded around a lot. But actually, I think with Sedition, for example, it wasn’t set up to be disruptive. If anything, it was set up to be supportive. It was set up to, um, allow a larger audience to engage with and come to the art world, that would benefit the galleries, that would benefit the museums, and would benefit, you know, the artists who are at the top of that pyramid, if you like.
30:35 So, and the way I hoped and saw that working was that the two major beneficiaries would be the museums and the artists, because it would drive audience to the museums, obviously increasing their numbers of attendance and their engagement with art, and obviously greater knowledge of the artists themselves and the artworks, and therefore a larger collector base for them ultimately. And who’s to say that somebody who doesn’t buy a 500 Damien Hirst or a 1,000 Elmgreen and Dragset doesn’t go on to become one of the world’s great collectors, having started on Sedition, you know, but having the physical works maybe in his own museum later on. What’s been your biggest challenge or biggest struggle with Sedition?
31:17 Actually, the biggest struggle was, um, was audience after the first, um, day, with 15 odd thousand people signing up. Um, it was difficult to know how to reach that audience, and a lot of, you know, I think like any startup situation, a lot of what we wanted the site to do wasn’t in place on day one. It now is, but it’s 2 years later, and we’ve had a very great, faithful core audience who come back time after time and are creating wonderful collections of these works, and we have a growing audience, but it’s been much slower, um, than we would have liked, if you like, in terms of getting there, and I think, excuse me, I think at the start we tried these things like search engine marketing and various ways of trying to find the audience, but nobody’s looking for digital limited edition prints, because, or sorry, digital limited edition works, because traditionally they haven’t existed.
32:11 You know, there’s nobody searching for it, because it’s not there or hasn’t been there. So, we’ve had to try and, uh, let people find us and create that, um, awareness of what the artists are doing in different ways. So, we’re now at a stage where it’s, uh, it’s gathering its own momentum, which is which is exciting to see. Yeah. Most tech companies don’t like their growth patterns, you know, because that’s just the story of tech, isn’t it?
32:40 What, um, are there any tech, tech plays out in art that you, you’re bullish on that you think are exciting that you see out there? Um, or has anyone kind of cracked it in America or over here in terms of the art world? Yeah. Yeah. Um, because I don’t know these companies, you know, when I hear them, they haven’t become household names.
32:58 I mean, Artsy has been doing, I think, been doing very well. Um, and has a great, great group of, um, investors and great group of people involved with it. Um, it’s probably one of the ones I know better. Um, but you know, Paddle 8 have been making some progress. I don’t think anyone’s really cracked it yet.
33:16 There’s a lot of, as I say, a lot of smart people out there with a lot of great ideas. And I think, I think actually, if they hold on in there in the next 5 years, there’s going to be a sea change in that, in that world, because I think the technology has just started catching up with what those companies, well, our company and others who are trying to do the same thing are trying to do within that, within that arena. It seems like with the adoption of like huge panel plasmas and stuff, that’s like a big part of your business model, because like the more, the better those electronics come and the more ubiquitous they are, then that’s a platform for you, right?
33:54 Yeah, absolutely. And the more people are using their devices and their screens around them as part of everyday life, um, the more likely they are to want an art collection or other things attached to that. I, I think too you’re starting to see it more and more, uh, sort of just out and about, you know, in hotels and these types of things, where people like myself, I was in New York, I went to the Standard hotel, the High Line Standard, and they have this 7-minute video in the elevator, and it’s just like, you know, you ride in the elevator for, for 5 days, and each time you’re kind of seeing a different piece of this artwork, and you’re like, wow, that’s incredible, you know, that’d be great to have on our wall at home, and I think as, as it, you know, starts to seep deep into society more and people realize how obtainable it is.
34:41 Well, you’ve got, and on that basis, you’ve got two other hotels that have really embraced this, um, with us. Uh, Edition Hotels, which is Schrager’s new, um, hotel, uses Sedition artworks in their rooms and has a, has a, a sort of revolving exhibition of these, of certain works, for their, uh, you know, for their customers in the room. So, they get to engage with it there. Citizen M have done the same thing. So there are, you know, there are these sort of pioneers within the hotel business.
35:12 They’re creating new experiences and new ways of their audience engaging with artworks in hotels themselves already. You’re right. Yeah. Yeah. I think the Mondrian in LA had that many years ago.
35:23 It was kind of like short pieces of video art. And, uh, Mark Hix has them right down the way in Tramshed, in the men’s room. There’s a very interesting piece of video art. Um, so yeah, people are kind of adopting those things here and there. I think it’s exciting.
35:36 I think so, too. Um, is art still a good investment? Is the market on art moving up? Do you see people that do invest in it, like, like Colin was asking? Yeah, I think, um, you know, for better or worse, art has become, uh, regarded as an asset class.
35:51 Um, there are funds these days who simply buy art for investment. Um, you know, I think over the last 50, 60 years there have been some extraordinary, um, increases in value of these artworks. So it’s almost inevitable that people are going to start looking towards that area as an investment as well. What are the pros and cons of art as being an investment? Lots.
36:13 I guess business can be good for you, but then art sometimes gets being not appreciated or not held. Well, you know, you’d like to think that people are buying it to appreciate it because they love the work. And certainly, I think the artists themselves, um, wouldn’t want their works just to be bought because it was a, like a bond. You know, why bother? You know, that’s not why they create the artwork.
36:38 But you know, the demand for the work and the success and the, um, the kind of expansion of the art world has meant that, uh, and will, I think, continue to mean for a long time, that, um, these prices are seeing significant increases in value, and obviously people want to take advantage of that. How’s the market in Britain compared to the rest of the world when it comes to art? Now, well, London is one of, is a great hub. It’s become, you know, I think you’ve got London and New York, which are two of the world’s major art hubs.
37:09 They’ve got some of the best museums and cultural institutions here. You’ve got some incredible artists based here. And you’ve got some of the world’s biggest collectors here. So, that, that kind of mix of people and institution and artist and culture and history, coupled with the fact that we’re, you know, in a fantastic, uh, time zone. Nice that we got GMT.
37:32 Um, means that you. It was a fight. The French wanted it, didn’t they? Means that you, you know, you get to deal with the far east and the west coast of America all in the same day, which means you can, you know, look at what’s going on in in any of those spheres. So, London today is a transformed city when it comes to art.
37:52 Do you need an urban environment to create a good artist? I know, I, you can’t say you can’t say yes to that, cuz it probably says bad things, but you mentioned London, New York. I mean, there’s a reason that maybe these art comes from these cities, or the artists come from these cities, right? Because the ideas or the density of things. Yeah, it’s an interesting question.
38:08 I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s a necessity, but obviously it is, the density of the population of artists, mainly because that’s where it’s going on. That’s where the galleries, the museums, collectors, and everyone sort of congregate. I, I guess by virtue of that fact, means that you’re going to get some of the best artists come from those urban environments. If there was a different model, perhaps it would be a different situation, but, you know, it’s a bit of a bit of a tough one to work out.
38:35 Are you seeing the same trend online, that, you know, a lot of your buyers of the art are coming from New York and London, or they… Yeah, the… Well, not so much New York and London, but more, and I guess just by virtue of the way that we’re set up. Um, the two main audiences are America and England at the moment. And then Europe, but then it goes literally everywhere.
38:58 I mean, Australia, New Zealand, India, South America. It’s extraordinary where people are engaging with the works on Sedition. And we’re now just about to, we’ve just had the site translated into Chinese as well, for that audience there, because obviously there’s clearly a thirst and a hunger to engage with art from the audiences in Asia. That we’re not currently set up to talk to. So, has China broke yet as a big purchaser of art, or do you think it’s still another five, 10 years away in terms of, do they purchase fine art?
39:34 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you only have to look at the big galleries that have opened up in Hong Kong or Shanghai or Beijing over the last, uh, the last 10 years to show that there’s, you know, there’s significant interest, um, from the domestic audience based in those countries. You know, we always like to hear a little bit about the people kind of at the end of the shows, but I was wondering, what is a typical day like for you? I’m trying to imagine, you know, what goes on with Harry’s life?
39:59 I mean, are you on the phone to Asia in the morning and New York at night, and are you attending all the parties and the champagne, or are you down meeting the artists, or what is it? What is your life like? Yeah, that would be nice. Um, it’s never as glamorous as it would seem, I guess. Yeah.
40:14 Well, I hope somebody might call me about buying an artwork occasionally. I normally sit at my desk waiting for the phone to ring. Um, not, uh, not quite. No, the answer is there’s no typical day. Um, as you mentioned earlier, we have a gallery in Berlin, we have a gallery in London, we have a gallery in New York.
40:29 Uh, these days there’s, you know, a hundred different art fairs that, uh, you’re meant to be doing. We’ve just come back from Rio. Uh, two weeks ago, Chicago, last week, it’s the Frieze art fair this week coming up. So, you know, there really is no typical day. Everything is different in some way or another, but it does involve a lot of traveling.
40:52 It does involve, um, a lot of conversations with different parts of the world, and fortunately it involves a lot of, um, you know, sitting down with the artists themselves and talking about the exhibitions or the works, which is some of the most enjoyable. So yeah, what are you doing when you go to these art shows? What is your purpose for being there? Art fair. Well, an art fair is just, it’s purely a mechanism to present the work to the audience in that country.
41:15 And so what you’re doing is really, you know, reaching out to the local museums and collectors, hopefully renewing some old relationships and meeting some new people. Um, and hopefully they’ll become new collectors of the work of the artists you represent. So you’re bringing artists you represent, you’re bringing their work to Rio de Janeiro, meeting, showing it to people that are potentially people that will buy the art, that kind of thing, and maybe meeting some artists in Rio de Janeiro as well.
41:41 Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Rio particularly, and uh, Brazil as a whole have got some fantastic artists. So your job is to ultimately really network and get to know the artists really well and the collectors really well.
41:52 Yeah, absolutely. And then you’re the middleman. Hopefully at some point somebody might. And what’s the big, what’s the biggest misconception about an art dealer, is that you sit at the phone and then you just pick up the phone call and pick up the phone call, and then I don’t know. I think most people wonder what on earth you’re doing.
42:07 You know, the traditional, I think the traditional outside view of a gallery is it’s a very sleepy, you know, situation with a desk somewhere at the back of the gallery, and occasionally somebody walks in and buys something. Well, because that’s what they look like to us, to us, people on the outside that don’t know what’s going on. Unfortunately, that’s what they look like to us occasionally as well. Giant big spaces with things hanging from the walls.
42:26 Is there a lot going on underneath? Is that it? And then the gallery is there to have a physical presence, but not to be busy. No, I’d like it to be busy. That would be good.
42:36 But is it not necessary sometimes? Because sometimes you go to these art galleries, I see them around Shoreditch and literally no one in there, and there really isn’t anyone in there, and then six, sometimes six months later they’re gone, and I just Yeah, that’s probably why. But I mean, is it an ideal art gallery? One that has traffic, like, like a PR. I mean, do you want flow in there, or is that, I, I don’t think any, any gallery, commercial gallery owner would not want, you know, uh, good traffic through his gallery, you know.
43:03 I mean, every gallery owner wants the collectors to come to the gallery and engage with the work, and hopefully, you know, if it’s the right, the right match for the collector to acquire that work, um, and have it in their collection. So, you know, we don’t want big empty spaces the whole time. It’s lovely to look at the artwork, and, you know, perhaps one or two people come in and get a better view of it because of that, but actually, I’d much prefer that there were, you know, 50 people in the gallery at all times, all asking if they could, uh, you know, possibly buy something.
43:34 Makes sense. I always wondered, you know, um, you know, Harry, we ask everyone at the end of the show a few questions, and I’m gonna ask you one. Uh, if you can make a phone call to the 20-year-old Harry Blain and give that young man a bit of advice, is there anything you would tell him as far as what to do with his career, or to stay away from certain things? Uh, yeah, but that’s a very long list, and I don’t think we’ve got time for. We have time.
43:59 Um, no, actually, you know, at the end of the day, I think anybody who’s opened a gallery, anybody who runs a business or anything and does for himself, you have, you have Eureka moments where it’s the best thing you’ve ever done, and you have other moments where you wonder if it’s the worst mistake you’ve ever made in your life. Um, hopefully the Eureka moments by far outweigh the other moment, and you’ve probably made the right choice. and working, you know, within the art world is, it’s been an incredible, incredible journey.
44:29 I’ve met some amazing people, and I think you do, you know, you’re, you’re dealing with, you know, the world’s greatest artists. You’re dealing with some of the best collectors, the most interesting academics, you know, I mean, the whole mix of people and friends and colleagues. It’s, um, actually an incredibly seductive world to be in part of, and a real privilege. So, it’s, uh, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough to anyone. Would you tell a 20-year-old to get an art degree?
44:59 Do you have an art degree? Yeah. No, I don’t. And yeah, probably. I would, uh, I would say it would help.
45:04 Would it help? It wouldn’t hinder you. It wouldn’t hinder you. No. Okay.
45:07 Um, I think actually just spending, you know, go and do an internship with an artist, or go and spend some time in a studio and spend some time in a gallery and work out what it is that you like and what you want to do. Um, can you tell us the best advice you’ve ever received, business or personal? Um, the best advice I’ve ever received, yeah. Um, probably, um, to marry the girl that I’d met in MoMA. Um, that was the, uh, the best advice, um, given to me by the girl, actually, that I met.
45:42 Um, she said you should marry my wife. No, no, I asked her. Okay. Um, and I think, uh, I think somebody from a business point of view said to me that, uh, people do business with you for three reasons. Because they like you, because they trust you, and because they believe that you can deliver what you say you can.
46:01 Um, and in that order. And there’s a lot of truth to that element. Um, you have to be able to deliver. You have to have the expertise and the knowledge. Um, but also, it’s particularly this business.
46:13 It’s a relationship business, with whether it’s with the artist or whether it’s with the collector or the museum. It’s all about the relationship. Um, you have to have everything that backs that up, but it’s a people’s business. Interesting. Last bit of advice.
46:27 Um, to the 20-year-old that’s listening around the world that wants to get involved in the art business, or get in, long involved in the digital art business, what do you tell them to do, especially if they’re not in an urban environment? What should they do? Um, never give up. I think that’s the thing that you need to do. You just need to kind of find a way of getting into that world, whether that’s just writing letters to the galleries or the artists.
46:50 You know, keep, be consistent, you know, keep the tenacity there. Um, and eventually, I’m sure if you can do that, you’ll find a route in. Does the art world appreciate some tenacity? Uh, from the right people. Yeah.
47:03 Yeah. Yeah. I wonder about that. Um, excellent, Harry. Thanks so much for coming on and tell us about it.
47:08 Um, I’ve seen your pieces on Sedition. I mean, it’s beautiful stuff, you know. Uh, I, I’m just thinking, if I should get, like, a plasma screen just for art display, right? Because that could be the way forward, right? Absolutely.
47:19 I think certain people are already developing that. So, and have, right? And the hotel, um, sounds like a fascinating way, because, you know, you want to be in a hotel, and, and sometimes you don’t want, you want something visual, but you would like it not to be something that’s you know, you have to pay attention to, like, a program, you know. I think that’s a big cross for people. I think most people, especially in America, maybe are thinking, “Okay, it’s video entertainment and they wouldn’t understand, you know, something that could just be a piece of art, like you said.”
47:45 So, I, I love the piece of art in that elevator. It was, you know, you’re still talking about it. I know. Each time you get in, it’s just like a different piece. It’s really cool.
47:52 Art can change people. That’s the whole point. Yeah. Great. What’s the best way for them to get on there and buy art?
47:57 They go straight to the website. You guys are on Twitter as well, so, yeah, just straight to the website. You know, you can browse, have a look through it, follow some artists, and if you want to collect something, it’s, uh, you know, it is there. That’s what it’s there for. Excellent.
48:11 Are you accepting Bitcoin? No, I don’t think so. Yes. Good question. Seems like a, yeah, a great spot for Bitcoin to be, mer PayPal now accepting it.
48:20 So, BitPay, there’s BitPay. BitPay. Yeah, there was an article just came out this week. PayPal might start integrating some Bitcoin. So, yeah, it’s the ultimate clash now.
48:28 Bitcoin and art. So, fantastic. All right. Good. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, come check us out on YouTube channel, Silicon Real.
48:35 We’re always looking for guests. It keeps going. If you want to send us your ideas, it’s [email protected]. And we got Uber coming up in a couple weeks. Few other exciting guests.
48:44 We can find out what’s going on with those guys. Interesting. We still get nasty tweets from our Halo episode. From our Halo episode. So, we’re going to be fair with all transport.
48:53 We’re going to represent everyone. I’m sure after the Uber episode we’re going to get some, uh, black cabbies and some people, but that’s okay. We’re here to promote the discussion. We’re here to, yeah, create the platform to discuss, not to take sides. Right.
49:05 And if Lyft comes to London, I don’t know if they’re, then they can come on and talk to you. So, we’ll see. As we say, on Silicon Real, it’s about the people. Harry, thanks so much for telling us about this edition, and I wish you all the best. Thanks very much.
49:20 Cheers. Take care. Many technology entrepreneurs don’t know how to pitch their startup, and when you’re doing a startup, you can’t afford expensive PR people, and things like that. So you have to pitch the media yourself, and they weren’t doing it right. In London, you have the financial industry, financial tech industry is very big.
49:42 You have a fashion industry, is very big. Media is big. Arts, culture, me, you know, you name it. So all these vertical industries are all equally big. Silicon Valley is no longer a place.
49:53 It’s a state of mind.
