In the past year, the majority of cultural institutions have had to deal with an “earthquake”, which caught many unprepared. In these months, we have realized that a physical relationship and contact with art is not the only one, but certainly the most important.

The art world has been one of the most severely hit by the pandemic’s outbreak but it also is amongst those which better reacted to the crisis, given its ability of showing solidarity and actively organizing initiatives, such as online auctions, to support those in need during these troubled times. This period has taught us that no matter how interesting and engaging online auctions may be, from a content perspective, these may represent a “side dish” but not the art world’s “main course”.

As a consequence of the pandemic:

• Museum admissions decreased by 77%.
• Visitors to Europe's top 100 museums in 2020 were 24 million, compared to 83 million in 2019.
• The Vatican Museums lost 81% of visitors, the Uffizi Gallery 72%.
• Institutions without a permanent collection, which organize mostly temporary exhibitions, suffered less damage (e.g., Palazzo Reale lost 48% of its visitors, despite remaining closed for 193 days).
• China has achieved a 36% market share in public auctions, compared to 29% in the US and 16% in the UK.
• In 2020, the global percentage of new billionaires grew by +7%, whereas during the 2009 crisis, billionaires had declined by 30%.

Museums were able to continue some of their activities via digital means, but in multiple instances this has not been sufficient to support their financial needs, leading several cultural institutions to sell part of the works from their collections to replenish funds for acquisitions or to move forward. Thanks to online sales, the greater China region (incl. Continental China, Taiwan and Hong Kong) has become the largest market for auctions, overtaking the USA and UK. The auction’s main axis has shifted towards the East and for the first time, the online auction sector was able to acquire a significant portion of the overall market and to double its size compared to the previous year.

Perhaps, the widespread adoption of digital means in 2020 has prevented a disastrous economic collapse as in 2009 from occurring. However, this may be attributable to a specific cause: while in the past year the number of billionaires worldwide increased by 7%, they decreased by 30% in the 2009 crisis. Such a polarization is ultimately what supports the market.

On one hand, auction houses have had the opportunity to continue their usual activities through online channels by organizing online only, hybrid auctions and virtual private sales. Galleries on the other, have faced greater challenges and difficulties because of the pandemic. Approximately 50% of gallery revenues derive from sales during art fairs and in the past year, most of these have exclusively taken place online. Consequently, auction houses have embraced this as an opportunity to prevail over their main competitor: galleries. The strength that auction houses have of expanding their operations internationally and of embracing new online selling channels may pose a threat to the artistic research carried out by galleries, which ultimately protects and safeguards the art market as a whole.

Auction houses do not predominantly focus on conducting artistic research. Moreover, art galleries in Italy also face greater “structural” issues compared to auction houses, such as having to pay resale rights twice when they operate as intermediaries. Should political forces not intervene to implement structural changes, such as ones of financial nature, the risk is that new digital openings will eventually cannibalize the artistic research conducted by museums and galleries, which lays the foundations for the entire art system. This would inevitably lead us back, especially in the contemporary art system, to a closed, polarized and exclusive art world with little space left for artistic research as it had been until 2009.

Written by Nicolas Ballario

Nicolas Ballario is an art professional who attended Oliviero Toscani’s academy “La Sterpaia”. He has collaborated with multiple cultural and artistic institutions and was awarded the Bassani prize, one of the most important acknowledgments in the world of journalism. He is currently a contributor for the Rolling Stones Magazine’s Art section and has collaborated with Mudec and Il Sole 24 Ore Cultura for multiple culturally themed podcasts. He is both a television presenter for La 7 and Sky Arte and a radio one for Rai Radio 1 and Radio Radicale in Italy.

Credits: Ilde Forgione, currently responsible for the management of Uffizi’s Tik Tok page; source : https://forbes.it/2021/04/28/ilde-forgione-la-socialmanager-che-ha-rilanciato-gli-uffizi-grazie-a-tiktok

This is who we are at ARTE Generali: a team of certified experts in all areas of art insurance. Meet our team that brings together a wealth of knowledge and expertise in underwriting, art and claims, handling digital tools and services. Our concierge service, for instance, offers our clients exclusive services and support on all aspects of art, e.g. transport, storage, restoration, as well as the evaluation of their art pieces.

At ARTE Generali we strive for lifetime partnerships with art collectors, individuals or institutions, as well as art professionals. 
Being a part of the Generali Group with its long history of 190 years in insurance, we help our clients to insure, protect, preserve, restore or appraise their art in a relationship based on shared passion. As ARTE Generali CEO Jean Gazançon puts it, “Passion for the arts, passion for our clients, passion for their passion, helping them to protect their art collection, is our main driver.”

A special thanks to all the team of ARTE Generali: Iris Handke, Head of ARTE Generali Germany, Italo Carli, Head of ARTE Generali Italy, Philippe BOUCHET, Head of ARTE Generali France, Jan-Frerk Stein, Head of Business Development and Operations, Hans Jürgen Kronauer, Head of Underwriting, Daniele Melchiori, Head of Finance, Leonie Mellinghoff, Art Community Relationship Manager, Maurizio Zaffaroni, Digital IT & Development Manager, Alessandro Priano, Product Manager, Mark William Valentiner, Marketing Manager, Ezio Fantuzzi, Head of PR, Marco Umberto Lo Presti, Finance Officer and Annika Julia Weber, Marketing Officer!

Magnum is one of the world’s leading photo agencies, representing some of the greatest photographers in history. The artists in its portfolio are in the top 33.46% highest growth artists worldwide in each of their respective career stages, according to data from Wondeur. Represented artists include Alec Soth, who is in the top 4.67% of artists most collected by the top 100 museums in the world, Dennis Stock, who ranks in the top 2.46% of artists with the highest institutional recognition worldwide, and emerging creatives like Carolyn Drake, who is in the top 0.057% emerging artists with the fastest career growth worldwide. And then of course there’s one of Magnum’s founders, the trailblazing Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is in the top 0.14% artists most collected among the top 100 museums worldwide.

And Magnum’s scope is widening. Alongside Magnum Gallery in London - a commercial space dedicated to exhibitions by artists from their stable of photographers - they recently also announced a new gallery in Paris, opening later this year. This is their first exhibition space in the city for 10 years. Samantha McCoy is the director of Magnum, Paris, and she is full of knowledge and passion about the medium she represents. This interview allows her to expound on her love for photography, and tell us about her life in art.

First of all, tell me how you got interested in art?

I was immersed in the art world from a young age. My father has a gallery in New York City, Jason McCoy Gallery, that specializes in modern art. Some of my earliest memories are of spending my Saturdays at the gallery, playing with the type-writer. At the time, my mother was working at the gallery as well. My parents would always bring us to openings, dinners. There was never really a boundary between the gallery, the ‘art world,’ and home, they always felt connected. My great-uncle was Jackson Pollock and, in fact, he was one of five brothers, three of whom were artists. All five brothers were very interested in, and engaged with, the pulse of America in the first half of the 20th century.  As such, I learned from a young age that art was an integral branch of history, culture and identity, and that I wanted it to be an integral part of my life.

And what was your art journey from there, how did you end up at Magnum?

I worked for Jason McCoy Gallery for 4 years. The gallery is located in the Fuller Building, in Manhattan, which is also home to several fantastic photography galleries. Over time, my curiosity in photography as a medium grew, and I began to integrate photographic works into exhibitions I curated, alongside modern masters. When I heard about an opportunity to work at Magnum I was thrilled. There seemed to me no better organization to be a part of in order to immerse myself in the field. I also loved the idea of the cooperative. The nature of working for Magnum entails working directly for the 100+ affiliated photographers and estates without a middle man.

What do you do at Magnum?

I’m Gallery Director at Magnum, Paris, and my role is to present exhibitions and to work with collectors to place art works in the best collections around the world. I work closely with my colleague and gallery director in London, Nicolas Smirnoff, to curate art fairs and special projects. Together, we work with and for our photographers to ensure their work is properly represented. There’s not one day similar to the other.

It’s an honour to represent such a prestigious and historical brand and animate these remarkable archives in new creative ways. What’s more, I love working with a range of clients, from first-time buyers to museums. Photography is a relatively accessible medium in the art world.

We closed our old space in Paris with two exhibitions: Harry Gruyaert: Morocco and Josef Koudelka: Ruins.

Gruyaert was introduced to the power of colour when he first moved to Paris in the 1960s, and subsequently during a trip to New York in 1968 where he encountered the works of Pop artists Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg, but his revelation that colour photography was his preferred medium came from his very first trip to Morocco in 1969. This exhibition presented in Paris celebrated this epiphany and spotlighted one of his most significant and poetic bodies of works, spanning 40 years of the artist’s work. During his many trips to Morocco, Gruyaert developed a highly personal photographic language, revealing the essence of the colours, landscapes and people he saw and met. Indeed, he has become one of the most significant names working in color.

Josef Koudelka is one of the most important photographer’s of his generation and it was a treat to be able to exhibit an extract of his exhibition Ruins which opened at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the fall of 2019. For more than 20 years, Koudelka traveled through the Mediterranean — visiting places such as Italy, Libya, Greece, and Syria — to photograph more than two hundred archaeological sites. Stark and mesmerizing panoramic photographs take the viewer to Delphi, Pompeii, Petra, Carthage, and other ancient locations, including sites now greatly altered or destroyed due to recent conflict. Ruins is a monument of architectural and cultural history, as well as civilizations long past.

Magnum is opening its first official Paris gallery in more than 10 years, what's the thinking behind the move?

Our most recent Magnum space in the 18th arrondissement was mostly a working environment for the other departments at Magnum and for our photographers. The latter would come and have meetings, leave negatives or prints, have coffees with other photographers and work. (This still happens in our private office upstairs.)

It was not really geared to the public, nor institutions, and the space was not evident to see works. The gallery director before me did a fantastic job of cementing an impressive programme nonetheless. When I took over, I couldn’t help but wonder what we could do if we had a more accessible space?

The gallery we’re opening in the 11th arrondissement is not far from where most art galleries and exhibition spaces are located. We’re excited to be closer to the pulsing cultural heart of Paris. The Pompidou Centre and Picasso Museum aren’t far.

The gallery will be more open and welcoming. It will feature a proper exhibition programme and offer upscale presentations. We also have a private sales room on the ground floor to showcase special vintage pieces. Magnum is really at the crossroads of photojournalism and art and it’s now time to push the artistic side of the institution. The new Paris space will uniquely combine museum-quality commercial presentations, and work hand in hand with our new online programme of exhibitions. We want to respond to art and culture enthusiasts at every level. It’s an exciting new chapter for Magnum.

Lots of galleries have closed over the past 18 months, but Magnum is expanding - is it a risky move in the current climate?

This is true but we’ve also seen a slew of important international galleries opening spaces in Paris recently. The post-COVID era will allow for new creative ways and we already see very innovative initiatives.

This space is both a means and an end for the fresh vision we have for the Magnum gallery strategy. The expansion encompasses both digital and physical programming and that’s also fairly new. When COVID-19 started, the art world had to learn and switch exhibitions online. The situation is fairly different now and the return to physicality is crucial. We feel collectors’ and the general public’s appetite to come and see exhibitions, engage with our programme and discuss with us. The art world is a very social environment too. Our physical gallery will allow all these things.

How would someone go about starting a photography collection? Where do you begin?

We encourage collectors to focus on their passions above all. It’s so much more rewarding to lead with feelings toward artwork rather than with a financial agenda. We often tell collectors to acquire fine prints because they want to enjoy them every day on their walls or share them with their friends. Of course it also helps that these pieces are investments. Photography is an accessible medium and Magnum offers a wide array of work from experimental contemporary prints to classical vintage and lifetime treasures. There’s truly something for everyone.

Some collectors start conversations around themes they love, countries they’ve visited or their preference for black and white over colours. For us, it’s important to guide everyone through their choices and support them with answers on editions, notable collections in museums, quality, vintage versus modern prints, as well as the significance of a photographer’s oeuvre within an art historical context. It’s a journey with collectors and art lovers that is built over time.

What's unique about collecting photography? Are there certain conservation techniques you have to be aware of?

Photography has become a tool that almost everyone has access to everyday. This is not the same as sculpture, or painting. But while anyone can take a picture, and there are many interesting photographs taken by amateurs, it remains an artform just like any other. The more you look and learn, the more you appreciate. There are aspects of collecting photography that are unique to the medium including the film, printing process, paper, edition structure, age of print.

Always be careful not to store photographs in direct sunlight and be careful that a print, if unframed, is not stored in variant temperatures. This is especially important for older silver gelatin prints. Ideally, pieces should be framed with museum quality anti-UV plexi or glass for conservation purposes.

Do you yourself collect art, do you have a favourite piece?

Yes! Though I do not have a favorite piece, it fluctuates. I feel very attached to each piece I’ve acquired. The first photograph I acquired from Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco was made by an unknown photographer: it pictures a bomb being dropped over a city in Italy in WWII. It is incredibly jarring and reminds me of the fragility of life. At the moment I am enamored by a Raymond Depardon artwork from within the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1981 that I acquired from our gallery last year. It’s part of a fantastic series Depardon made called New York Correspondence, and reminds me of home (not to mention Depardon’s incredible aesthetic).

How do you think photography is viewed in the wider art context?

The market for photography has grown increasingly over the past 50 years and I believe we will consider to see it do so. One has only to look at the auctions for proof!

What are your hopes for the coming year, post-pandemic?  

I am very excited for the opening of our gallery in October. We will be opening with an exhibit by Bruce Davidson and Magnum nominee Khalik Allah. The exhibition will showcase two views of New York and span 50 years of photography. As such, it will reflect the richness of Magnum: both its history and future.

I’m also excited about our 75th anniversary which is around the corner (2022). Magnum has never followed trends and photographers mainly respond to and interpret the world we live in, as witnesses to the world’s events and changes. Their views on the COVID era will be interesting to revisit in the future.

We’re at an exciting moment within Magnum’s history – thanks partly to our new gallery and presence within the art world – which attracts younger collectors, new talent, and opens opportunities in new territories.

It feels like anything is possible. Paris is certainly booming at the moment with the opening of new art foundations and galleries. I hope to see our gallery become a staple in what many consider to be the photography capital of the world.

Interviewed by: Eddy Frankel, author of ARTE Generali

Our Head of ARTE Generali of France, Philippe Bouchet invites you to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, to speak about our company, our main mission of supporting art collectors, digital innovation and our engagement with the art community. 
 

Meet Wondeur AI, our partner specialized in artificial intelligence applied to art. Inside the ARTE Generali App, art collectors have access to real-time insights on their artworks and the artists behind them, thanks to Wondeur AI. In our latest ARTE Generali Talk, our Head of Art Community, Leonie Mellinghoff speaks to the co-founder of Wondeur AI Olivier Berger who explains how the algorithm technology works and why the solution is so groundbreaking for the art market. 

Mauro Mattei is an art world Renaissance man. Since starting out working in tax and legal consultancy, the Italian collector has since moved on to founding an art advisory company, creating his own art trust, launching an art prize and curating exhibitions all over Europe. He’s everywhere, essentially, and uses his deep passion for art to fuel his seemingly endless projects.

How did you first get interested in art, how did your passion get sparked?

I was 14 years old and I was studying at a very tough, traditional and male-only school run by Salesiani Priests in Milan when a new young teacher came in to substitute for our old Italian literature professor. He was even more severe than his predecessor, maybe thinking that being unreasonably demanding and behaving like a total asshole was the only way to keep 30 hormonal kids a bit more quiet… and of course the entire class hated him!

One day he walked into the class with a very sad face and when asked what was the problem he replied “didn’t you guys hear the news? Andy Warhol has died”. Not surprisingly, none of us had the remotest idea of who the hell Andy Warhol was! So he decided to skip the literature lesson and dedicate one hour to Warhol’s life and practice. While the vast majority of my classmates were sleeping or secretly playing card games, I found myself captivated and fascinated by the story which rarely happened in a normal lesson! I found out that our professor was a huge art lover and besides teaching he was really into contemporary art. From that day, I began annoying him with many questions about art and he was patient enough to indulge my curiosity outside and inside the class. And every Monday morning he would start the lesson with 5 minutes about the exhibitions he had been to see over the weekend. There were so many and I can only remember an “immersive site specific sound installation” by Brian Eno in Milan. When asked “OK professor, but what’s the point of it?” he candidly replied “I don’t know exactly… but when I was there I felt good.”

Well, this response is still with me now that I’m much older: art, at least as far as I am concerned, is something that makes you feel good, and that feeling comes from your mind, your heart and your gut.

What were the first steps you took into an art career? 

The very first step into an art career was a very fortunate occasion where, after a number of coincidences, I convinced a famous international curator, Jerome Sans (one of the founders of the Palais De Tokyo in Paris) to curate a big group exhibition at the prestigious Triennale in Milan. The show was called “It’s not only rock ‘n roll, baby!” and gathered a series of musicians who were also engaged in visual arts, with names like Yoko Ono, Patty Smith, Kembra Pfahler, Pete Doherty, Devendra Banhart, Anthony of Anthony and the Johnsons and many more. I had seen the show at the Bozar in Brussels and contacted Jerome to propose the same exhibition in Milan. After 2 long years of preparation, travels to Paris, meetings and exhausting phone calls we successfully managed to open the show: it was June 2010 and since then I can say I learned how to deal with every aspect of a big international group show in a museum!

You run BeAdvisors, what does the company do and what's your role? 

As my background is in economics and I have been professionally working as an international tax advisor for many years, I was trying to find a way to get more connected to the art industry.

In 2017 I started to realise that, besides the tax and legal services related to art, I could potentially also offer “non juridical” services to clients and broaden the spectrum of our assistance to include proper art advisory services by creating a dedicated art advisory department. In my mind, this would trigger extremely promising cross-selling between the tax and legal services and the art department, and could create a one-stop-shop consultancy boutique exclusively dedicated to art.  
So I created BeAdvisors Art Department and created a dedicated team of art advisors: the core services we provide are the ones related to primary and secondary market assistance but we pride ourselves on being deeply involved in very sophisticated activities like strategic consultancy to galleries and even also to artists. We also work with companies offering a wide selection of, as we call them, “corporate art services”. We are capable of supporting companies in the process of defining the best strategies aimed at reaching an active and positive presence in the contemporary art world through financing and sponsoring art projects. We help them in designing marketing campaigns that engage art lovers and those willing to support the production of new artworks. We are committed to delivering tools able to enhance the identity and marketing activities of our clients such as corporate hospitality in art venues, networking activities improving the connections in the art industry and special projects such as fellowship programs and guided tours to galleries, museums and art fairs.

You also run an art prize, tell me about it.

The Mauro Mattei Art Trust Acquisition Prize is conceived of as an itinerant award aimed at supporting emerging art in all its forms. The main purpose of the prize is to allow young artists and their projects to grow with a view to discovering, valorising and highlighting the most disruptive new trends of international contemporary art.  MMAT Acquisition Prize doesn’t have a fixed focus in terms of medium, nor does it have a predetermined selection committee, as its purpose is to be nomadic and adaptable to different contexts and countries.

The selection committee is headed by me, joined every year by a different jury (curators, art critics, art advisors, collectors etc.) connected to the prize’s context. The awarded artist’s artwork becomes part of the Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection with the goal to valorise and support the work of artists born in the 80’s and 90’s. The first edition took place in 2009 in the context of FEA Lisboa, the 2020 Edition was a totally digital initiative where three international galleries showcased a number of their artists and the 2021 edition is focused on one specific element: the capability to combine artistic research on the most relevant current social and political issues with a solid presence in the art market and simultaneously with a significant institutional visibility.

Do you yourself collect art? Do you have a favourite piece? 

I have been collecting art for many years but only recently I started to give more consistency to my collection and I have created an art trust to be more focused on my role as a patron and a philanthropist as I believe it is crucial in the art ecosystem. The Mauro Mattei Art Trust is focused on young and emerging artists: all the acquisitions are coordinated by the Scientific Committee of the Trust, composed of a curator, an art advisor and an art collector, selected among the most experienced and competent in their respective fields of activity.

I believe that identifying the best strategy for the conservation and enhancement of an art collection is one of every collector’s recurring thoughts. Art trusts are one of the best tools for efficient wealth planning and for the generational transfer of artistic assets; they are able to provide a unitary and organized management of the collection, protect their assets from external aggressions and, at the same time, satisfy collector's wishes in the field of patronage and philanthropy.

Not sure if I have a favourite piece… every single one is special and represents a piece of my research and of course of my personal life. I would say (as I used to say when I was much younger talking about my girlfriends)  that my favourite piece is the next!

How do you find the art you collect? 

I genuinely love art and there are many factors that can trigger my passion, which is more about feelings and emotional impact than aesthetics. That is why I do not have a preferred medium but I’m always looking for something that really connects with me in a way or another. Having such diverse taste and preferences it is really hard for me to tell which are my selection criteria. But if I have to pick one I would say that I focus on artists born in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, since dealing with artists in the first steps of their career is the most enjoyable part of being in the art business. The personal relationship with them is key when I decide on an acquisition and I always get passionate about their path throughout the steps of their practice, including the galleries they are represented by or the institutional shows and acquisition or prizes they participate in along the way. The relationship with the galleries is crucial, so my attention and my focus goes mostly on galleries capable of doing solid work in terms of research and at the same time in a position to invest and to support the artist in the most consistent way.

How has the pandemic affected your work?

Immensely. Without art fairs and with closed galleries I must admit it was a nightmare. As BeAdvisors Art Department we managed to be present digitally and organized a very successful series of “virtual walkthroughs” to art fairs and their viewing rooms and a decent amount of art talks on Zoom. It was a lot a work but worth every minute. I’m not personally a fan of the digital fruition of art… but as we needed to do it, we did it in the best way possible.

Do you have hopes for a post-pandemic art world? 

For sure a few things have changed and my hope is to be back to see art in person! That’s the reason why in June we are starting a series of exhibitions in London under a format called “SUPER Preview”, all focused on showcasing the most exciting emerging visual artists carefully selected by our art department. 

What do you see in your future?

Good question! I will be surely doing my best to support art and create ways to do valuable things for artists and the galleries they work with. If this would lead to the number one of Artreview Power 100 it would just be a pleasure!

Interviewed by: Eddy Frankel, author of ARTE Generali