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Introducing the Fine Objects Society
26 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Ben Miller introduces the Fine Objects Society, a new “association of forward-thinking professionals and enthusiasts who share a devotion to fine handcrafted historic objects” of which he is president. Officers Brenton Grom, Bailey Tichenor, Sarah Margolis-Pineo, and Benjamin Davidson, all former guests on the podcast, are on hand to detail the goals of this exciting new endeavor in the antiques field.
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Transcript
Introduction to Curious Objects Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
Speaker
This is the podcast about architect of arts and antiques, stories behind them, and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
00:00:24
Speaker
Now, I want to have a chat today about the state of the antiques world and about a new organization, which is trying to change that.
00:00:32
Speaker
So my disclaimer up front is that this is a meta conversation.
00:00:36
Speaker
It's not about a specific object in its story, but rather it's about the whole ecosystem of objects and the
00:00:43
Speaker
communities of professionals and enthusiasts and collectors around them and what the present and the future holds for
Challenges in the Antiques Industry
00:00:51
Speaker
us.
00:00:51
Speaker
So we're going to be talking about what's gone wrong across the industry and how our mentality needs to change and
00:01:00
Speaker
what we can do to share the gospel more effectively.
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Speaker
There's even a chance we might say some things that get us in trouble.
00:01:07
Speaker
If all that sounds interesting to you, listen on.
00:01:09
Speaker
But if you're here for the juicy stories about curious objects, I don't blame you.
00:01:14
Speaker
Feel free to skip this one, and I'll catch you again next time.
00:01:17
Speaker
So...
Foundation of Fine Objects Society (FOS)
00:01:19
Speaker
Over the past year, I've been working to establish a new organization called Fine Objects Society.
00:01:27
Speaker
This came out of a simple idea that there is so much fresh energy and excitement around old objects, but
00:01:34
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we don't have the infrastructure to support and encourage it.
00:01:37
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And don't get me wrong, there are numerous groups and institutions which do invaluable work funding and organizing around the decorative arts.
00:01:46
Speaker
But our community has generally done a pretty bad job of reaching outside and inviting people in.
00:01:53
Speaker
There's a refrain you can hear from just about every corner of the antiques world that young people just aren't interested in this stuff anymore.
00:02:00
Speaker
And I know that's not true.
00:02:03
Speaker
I know a lot of you listening to this are in fact young people.
00:02:06
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But beyond just age, the fact is that this industry can be pretty insular and tough to penetrate.
00:02:13
Speaker
And that's a problem.
00:02:14
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It's a problem for the future of dealers and curators and auctioneers.
00:02:20
Speaker
And I think it's a problem for culture more broadly.
00:02:24
Speaker
But I believe that it's a self-inflicted wound.
00:02:28
Speaker
And fine object society is an effort to pitch a bigger tent and to gather energy and focus
Innovative Engagement in Antiques: 'Please Touch' Exhibit
00:02:35
Speaker
it.
00:02:35
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We know the future looks different from the past, but we think it's a strong and exciting future.
00:02:42
Speaker
So according to the FOS mission statement, we are building a supportive network of connoisseurs
00:02:49
Speaker
creating ambitious and imaginative projects, pursuing unconventional partnerships, supporting scholars and entrepreneurs, upholding ethical and connoissorial standards, improving access and transparency, and above all, fostering community.
00:03:04
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And speaking of community, FOS has come together thanks to a phenomenal group of people
00:03:10
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many of whom you already know because you've heard them on Curious Objects before.
00:03:15
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The full list of founding members is at fineobjectsociety.org.
00:03:19
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But joining me today is our executive committee, which consists of myself, our treasurer, Brenton Grom.
00:03:27
Speaker
Hi, Brenton.
00:03:28
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Hi, Ben.
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Our secretary and head of events, Sarah Margolis-Pineo.
00:03:32
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Hey, Sarah.
00:03:33
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Hey, Ben.
00:03:34
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The head of our public image committee, Bailey Titchener.
00:03:37
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Hello.
00:03:37
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Hello.
00:03:39
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and the head of our Rolodex committee.
00:03:41
Speaker
And we'll get to what that means in a bit.
00:03:44
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Ben Davidson.
00:03:46
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Hi, Ben.
00:03:47
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We launched FOS officially in October with an exhibition called Please Touch, which happened here in New York.
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Speaker
We wanted to get rid of the China cabinet and the museum glass and just put people in front of objects that they could interact with physically.
00:04:02
Speaker
And at first, a lot of people were kind of nervous about it, but as soon as they started picking things up and turning them over, I saw eyes light up, frankly, in the same way that my eyes light up when I get to handle a great object.
00:04:15
Speaker
And that was really the perfect starting place for FOS since we want to take down barriers and share the joy and meaning that these pieces can bring to our lives.
Evolving Landscape of Antiques: Collectors and Dealers
00:04:26
Speaker
And so I wanted to kick off our conversation by talking just a little bit about what the landscape of the antiques field looks like today.
00:04:36
Speaker
If I had tried to characterize that, say 40 years ago, I would have said that the antiques field is largely based around, at the top end, a small dedicated group of collectors who are fairly connoisseurial and scholarly and who focus on acquiring the very best objects.
00:04:57
Speaker
supported by an infrastructure of dealers and other businesses, which have constructed a kind of ladder that collectors can climb up from the least expensive to the most expensive objects as they develop their knowledge, their enthusiasm, their expertise, and of course, as their means increase.
00:05:18
Speaker
Today, I think that might look a little bit different.
00:05:22
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It's such a huge can of worms, Ben.
00:05:23
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This is Sarah speaking.
00:05:26
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For myself, I think this is at least my status at the antiques world today.
00:05:31
Speaker
I'm relatively new to the commercial side of Americana, and I have a very narrow specialization.
00:05:37
Speaker
I specialize in shaker.
00:05:39
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material culture, primarily 19th century.
00:05:41
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And so, and I feel like many of us in this field, we occupy a very quirky little corner of it.
Building Community in Antiques
00:05:50
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And so my interest in fine object society was really as a social vehicle, a vehicle for knowledge sharing and networking and just
00:06:01
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being able to broaden my own expertise and learn more about all of your individual little corners of Americana to sort of open up the conversation and, you know, be able to communicate across across the field more effectively and more meaningfully.
00:06:18
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I don't know if any of you share that at all.
00:06:21
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Yeah, and this is Bailey.
00:06:24
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I agree.
00:06:25
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And going off of the social aspect, I think that is kind of where the broader field of antiques are going.
00:06:33
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Everyone, you know, that I've engaged with, with Fine Objects Society and with my own practice in a private gallery.
00:06:42
Speaker
We're interested in making connections and communities either online through social media, which is actually how I have met most of you initially, or, you know, with wonderful in-person events.
00:06:57
Speaker
So I think that, you know, the sort of...
00:07:01
Speaker
segregated communities of collecting in the past of like, oh, I only collect this specific thing.
00:07:08
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So I'm only engaging with these specific people.
00:07:13
Speaker
Those boundaries are kind of getting broken down.
00:07:15
Speaker
And, you know, as Sarah said, I want to learn about other people's interests and maybe they're going to become my own.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, along those lines, I wonder, Brenton, I mean, there are so many decorative arts organizations scattered around out there.
00:07:31
Speaker
And, you know, you've been involved in quite a number of them yourself.
00:07:36
Speaker
And as I said, I think many of them are really doing great work.
00:07:39
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But I wonder, I mean, building on what Sarah and Bailey were just saying, what would you say that FOS can add to that ecosystem?
Integrated Approach: Scholarship and Social Engagement
00:07:50
Speaker
Well, there are indeed a bunch of them doing great work.
00:07:53
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And in some ways, it's a daunting question to say how the fine object society is different, because by naming differences, it may seem to imply that there are deficiencies.
00:08:05
Speaker
And the reality is that no organization can say
00:08:09
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do everything.
00:08:10
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And it's also true that in order to cohere as an organization, you have to have a sort of identity and a way of functioning.
00:08:17
Speaker
And I think that adding to the portfolio of these organizations is is
00:08:25
Speaker
only helpful to provide opportunities for everyone possible to find the one that fits them, the one that sort of fits their comfort, their interests, and their mode of engaging, even if they're just discovering that mode of engaging.
00:08:40
Speaker
I was just in Charleston recently while the Decorative Arts Trust was having its fall symposium there.
00:08:46
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And I wasn't actually there for the symposium.
00:08:48
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I was having completely other meetings.
00:08:51
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I wish I were participating in the symposium because it sounded like a tremendous amount of fun.
00:08:56
Speaker
But I seem to be always in their wake.
00:08:58
Speaker
Everyone was aware of what was going on and it was incredible, impressive stuff.
00:09:03
Speaker
And, you know, let's be honest, it was it was all involving people who are friends and really respected colleagues of ours.
00:09:11
Speaker
So, you know, we're not striking out on our own.
00:09:13
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We're not breaking off.
00:09:15
Speaker
But what I think we are doing.
00:09:18
Speaker
is creating opportunities that may take the best aspects of what different organizations do and combine them into a kind of proprietary formula so there's um there's great scholarship behind what we do but it's almost as a rule in close dialogue with practice um we're you know looking at what
00:09:44
Speaker
contemporary makers and designers are doing in dialogue with this close looking and understanding of material that already exists that we would call historical.
00:09:57
Speaker
We are not
FOS's Vision for a Permeable Antiques Discipline
00:09:58
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doing scholarship for the sake of scholarship, but we're also not doing practice without thoughtfulness and sort of intellectualizing what's happening in that practice.
00:10:09
Speaker
And on top of all of it, I think we're creating an environment where the social is valued in just the same regard that the actual kind of intellectual and close looking is.
00:10:25
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We threw a launch event that pulled in a tremendous number of people to a gallery, some of them perhaps just because it seemed like a party that would be fun.
00:10:36
Speaker
And yet it was an incredibly stimulating thing.
00:10:39
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And for those of us who are there, perhaps more for the exhibition and for the concepts and for the networking, the party lubricated that.
00:10:46
Speaker
It helped everyone to come together, to encounter one another.
00:10:51
Speaker
And that's something that really is, I think, not to be discounted.
00:10:56
Speaker
And it seems to be the ethos of our group as we start out.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think a key word here is permeability.
00:11:04
Speaker
I mean, if there's one thing that FOS can really do in my mind, it's make the boundaries of our discipline permeable.
00:11:13
Speaker
And that means putting what we do in context, in social and cultural context.
00:11:20
Speaker
It means building bridges to designers, right?
00:11:24
Speaker
And to historians and to people whose interests are
00:11:29
Speaker
maybe tangential to antiques and decorative arts, but tangential doesn't mean unrelated and tangential doesn't mean cloistered or it shouldn't at least.
Democratizing Antiques: Tools and Knowledge Accessibility
00:11:42
Speaker
And I think there's such a
00:11:45
Speaker
such a sense of isolation amongst the community that we all participate in that I would love to break down, that I would love to make
00:12:02
Speaker
I would love to sort of give the impression and create the reality at the same time that the Department of Arts really are powerful and meaningful in the broader culture.
00:12:17
Speaker
And I think we all hear
00:12:19
Speaker
feel that.
00:12:20
Speaker
We do the work we do not because we want to be irrelevant, but because we feel that the material we handle really is deeply relevant, even if that relevance is not always understood or recognized.
00:12:35
Speaker
And I wonder, I mean, one of the key activities that we're pursuing at FOS is programming.
00:12:44
Speaker
And Sarah, you're heading up that effort for us.
00:12:47
Speaker
So I wonder if you would share some thoughts with us about what kinds of programming we can do at FOS that can help us reach people who maybe haven't been fully embedded yet in the antiques world.
00:13:00
Speaker
Sure.
00:13:02
Speaker
I think...
00:13:03
Speaker
A word that you brought up earlier that I think is sort of central to how I've been conceiving of programming is this idea of access.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's access to tools, access to objects, access to knowledge, access to each other.
00:13:16
Speaker
And I think that is really sort of forming the core as a way to get to that that permeability that you mentioned.
FOS's Expansion Plans: Pop-ups and Exhibitions
00:13:24
Speaker
I think, I don't know, thinking about antiques, I mean, I think there's a real interest in them now.
00:13:32
Speaker
as a way, I mean, we're trying to escape from the mainstream capitalist marketplace, I think, in a lot of ways.
00:13:38
Speaker
I mean, especially given, you know, the state of politics in our world, I think any way that we can take a little bit more agency over our sort of material environment, our landscape, our built landscape, is always, especially now, a desirable thing to achieve.
00:13:58
Speaker
And so I think for programming, we want to create a low bar
00:14:02
Speaker
to entry to sort of have the fun and the social be obviously emphasized, but as Breton said, with some pretty hefty scholarship and expertise backing it up.
00:14:12
Speaker
And so of course, I mean, the opening party was a great example.
00:14:16
Speaker
I think what we're going to be doing going forward, these pop-up parties, events, and exhibitions, we're also thinking about around this idea of
00:14:26
Speaker
pop-up historic supper clubs, which could be really, really exciting.
00:14:31
Speaker
Of course, too, you know, we'll have sort of more traditional talks and discussion-based events, outings behind the scenes at cultural institutions and artist studios, workshops, galleries, et cetera.
00:14:49
Speaker
And really sort of
00:14:51
Speaker
highlighting collaboration, particularly in our first year, as a really productive way to sort of bring in new audiences and also get really compelling sort of cross field discussions
Touch and Technology: Engaging New Audiences
00:15:03
Speaker
starting.
00:15:03
Speaker
So in the near future, we are going to be hosting monthly pop up events and meetups.
00:15:12
Speaker
predominantly in the city of New York, but we hope to expand that more broadly in the future, not only in this country, but also potentially overseas, as well as dovetailing on design and art and antique spheres and creating programming around existing events.
00:15:34
Speaker
We'll be doing some activities in Philadelphia this April, as well as we're working on something for the winter show, Winter Antiques Week in January, February this year.
00:15:44
Speaker
So, you know, I think there's a lot of potential there.
00:15:47
Speaker
And really, I think this will be, especially in our first year, what brings our audience together and what hopefully catalyzes some momentum to go forward and continue to plan really
00:16:01
Speaker
compelling and engaging events for the audience that we will see how it develops.
00:16:07
Speaker
So I mean, that's really just sort of the most exciting part of this is just letting it unfold in many ways on its own terms and seeing where the spaces are that, you know, potential members are eager to engage and how fine object society can sort of fill in and meet that.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:29
Speaker
I wonder, turning toward the objects themselves,
00:16:33
Speaker
I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to present objects in ways that connect with people.
00:16:39
Speaker
And thinking about that both with respect to Fine Objects Society itself, but also more broadly about the way that dealers, that curators in museums, institutions, and auction houses present objects to their respective audiences.
00:16:59
Speaker
I wonder, Bailey, I mean, you've done a lot of creative presentation through your own firm, and you're now heading up the sort of public image and outreach for Fine Object Society.
00:17:14
Speaker
Do you have ideas about
Post-2008 Antiques Market Dynamics
00:17:15
Speaker
general strategies for presenting objects that you think might resonate better with today's audiences?
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, so we kind of already touched on one, pardon the pun, which is, you know, to touch them going off of our initial exhibition that we had called Please Touch.
00:17:37
Speaker
I think that this is the most crucial way to sort of engage with these new generations and these new collectors.
00:17:50
Speaker
You know, previous generations,
00:17:52
Speaker
ways of sort of museum display or going to, you know, a gallery is, oh, you know, you can't, you can't touch this, but really the ethos of what FOS is doing is yes, we would love for you to touch it because these things were made to be used.
00:18:13
Speaker
And I think that that really like kind of touches on, um,
00:18:19
Speaker
like the storytelling aspect that I think a lot of people today are interested in what they're collecting.
00:18:27
Speaker
The other thing which I'm, you know, more engaged with with FOS is the digital, which is kind of a little bit of an antithesis to the touching.
00:18:39
Speaker
But, um,
00:18:42
Speaker
You know, using social media, using like very good photography and like interesting photography, doing digital exhibitions, all those are great ways to explore objects and reach a broader audience of people who maybe can't make it to see these things in person.
00:19:06
Speaker
Ben, I wonder, you know, Bailey and you and I are all dealers.
00:19:11
Speaker
Sarah has done work as a dealer as well, although she straddles the line.
00:19:21
Speaker
The core group of founders of Fine Object Society represent quite a few dealers alongside curators and other roles.
00:19:32
Speaker
But clearly dealers are central to the way that the antiques market works and the way that the whole ecosystem sort of comes together.
00:19:44
Speaker
And they're often, you know, they're part of the central identity, the way that people in the outside world understand the antiques market.
00:19:55
Speaker
field is often mediated through the ways that dealers present their material and talk about it.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I wonder if you could say a few words about emerging dealers today and what they look like and how they're acting and how you think that might be a little different from dealers in the past.
Connoisseurship in Decline?
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:20:17
Speaker
I think to really understand the emerging dealers of today,
00:20:22
Speaker
It's important to kind of keep in mind what happened to the field of antiques as a whole, really in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, where I had just entered the field as a very, very immature collector.
00:20:41
Speaker
And I routinely heard it shows dealers saying, you know, I used to get 30 grand for a high boy like this, and they were selling it for like $500.
00:20:49
Speaker
You know, really just gutted the antique market.
00:20:57
Speaker
And it meant that, you know, where previously dealers, you know, could enter the field, you know, 40 or 50 years ago,
00:21:06
Speaker
by effectively apprenticing themselves to small or medium-sized firms, whether that's antiques or auction houses, kind of rising through the ranks and then eventually making the jump to a larger organization.
00:21:21
Speaker
But with a lot of those smaller houses closing, it meant that
00:21:25
Speaker
there were fewer and fewer points of entry.
00:21:27
Speaker
So what we kind of see in emerging dealers is a lot of the information is drawn from online.
00:21:33
Speaker
A lot of the exposure is through Instagram, through various social media networks, really.
00:21:40
Speaker
And what I see in that is kind of a
00:21:45
Speaker
There's a lot of exposure to kind of okay to like middle grade antiques.
00:21:51
Speaker
But you know, those large houses and the really fine antiques, they never really never suffered from the financial crisis.
00:21:55
Speaker
And so the really fine stuff, it's harder and harder for emerging dealers to get access to.
FOS's Role in Enhancing Expertise
00:22:02
Speaker
So that's kind of what I'm excited about with the fine object society's programs is to get people to be able to kind of pick up and touch finer and really nice examples of things.
00:22:14
Speaker
Totally.
00:22:14
Speaker
I mean, it's such an interesting challenge because on the one hand, you know, handling the high-end stuff is, well, that's what we all dream of, right?
00:22:25
Speaker
I mean, there's a reason it's the top of the market.
00:22:27
Speaker
It's the stuff that everybody craves.
00:22:31
Speaker
On the other hand, at that level, the air gets very thin and it's no longer possible to sustain the kind of large, robust communities that I think all of us would like to see and to be a part of.
00:22:49
Speaker
And it also, you know, that, as I mentioned before, like there used to be this ladder that you could climb as a collector as you move your way up from sort of less expensive to more rarefied material.
00:23:06
Speaker
And that the middle rungs on that ladder feel very rickety these days.
00:23:12
Speaker
That causes problems on the consumer side.
00:23:15
Speaker
It also causes problems on the connoisseurial side, because of course the way that we become experts is through prolonged exposure to huge quantities of materials.
00:23:31
Speaker
So as a dealer, you have to be handling so much of this material in order to come to appreciate the differences between good, better, and best, as it were.
00:23:44
Speaker
Ben, I just had a conversation earlier today with a fellow who's, I won't name names, but he's a very prominent dealer and collector of goods.
00:23:57
Speaker
Continental Wood tea caddies, you know, A-T, sorry, tea caddies.
00:24:03
Speaker
And I was chatting with him about a particular shape and a particular style.
00:24:09
Speaker
And he kind of asked offhand, like, all right, so how, you know, you say that a lot of these are forged, there are a lot of fakes out there.
00:24:14
Speaker
How do you tell the difference?
00:24:16
Speaker
Like, you know, what are some clues?
00:24:19
Speaker
And there was, you know, about two beats of silence on the call.
00:24:24
Speaker
And I followed up, I was like, or is it just that you've seen enough of these?
00:24:28
Speaker
He's like, honestly, I've just seen hundreds and hundreds of them.
00:24:31
Speaker
And you just then you get a gut feeling about when something's not good.
00:24:35
Speaker
And that's really the only way because any kind of set in stone rule of, oh, the fakers always do X. Well, someone's going to read that book that you write that in or read that article and then stop doing
Historical vs. Contemporary Arts Engagement
00:24:46
Speaker
that.
00:24:46
Speaker
And suddenly it's not a good test.
00:24:48
Speaker
But when you have seen huge numbers of an object or of a style, then you can be like, oh, that proportion is all off.
00:24:55
Speaker
You know that.
00:24:56
Speaker
That weird little detail that I'm so used to seeing isn't there.
00:24:59
Speaker
And those opportunities, that kind of deep exposure and broad exposure, we really risk quite a bit in losing that from the kind of general to like interested connoisseur.
00:25:13
Speaker
So, I mean, I hear these concerns all the time about the decline of connoisseurship, and I see the evidence of it myself.
00:25:20
Speaker
I mean, just the number of fakes or problematic pieces that come through major auction houses is really quite alarming.
00:25:32
Speaker
and I think perhaps under reported and under appreciated, but the chickens will come home to roost, right?
00:25:40
Speaker
I mean, the industry can't, it's based on reality, right?
00:25:47
Speaker
It has to be based on authenticity fundamentally.
00:25:51
Speaker
And if that confidence starts to wane, then you have serious, serious problems.
00:25:56
Speaker
And so I wonder, I mean, Brenton,
00:26:00
Speaker
I'll put this to you.
00:26:01
Speaker
What role do you think FOS can play in trying to address that crisis?
00:26:09
Speaker
Well, thank you, Ben, for putting the weight of the future of the industry on my shoulders.
00:26:16
Speaker
You can handle it.
00:26:18
Speaker
Well, so I mean, I have a couple of lines of thought about this.
00:26:23
Speaker
And one is that the so you're talking about a high professional level.
00:26:29
Speaker
You're talking about what happens in the premier auction houses and shows and so forth.
00:26:36
Speaker
whether or not we can trust what's happening in the field as a whole if we see an increasing number of fakes and forgeries slipping through at that level.
00:26:45
Speaker
And I don't know that I can confidently answer for what would bolster that.
00:26:51
Speaker
But I will say that training programs can only focus on so many things in the course of a couple of years of a program of study.
00:27:01
Speaker
And because the field overall has experienced
00:27:05
Speaker
We have looked for new kinds of material, sometimes material that's right under our noses, but was not attractive as a subject or study before.
00:27:16
Speaker
And because that is tied closely with changes in our society, the kinds of things that we are concerned with, becoming more inclusive, creating shared authority and so forth.
00:27:32
Speaker
Flat out truth is that you don't have, for instance, two full years of a master's program just to look at high chests of a particular kind and develop that that knowledge base.
00:27:45
Speaker
And, you know, that's a problem that I think we will all have to come together and think about.
00:27:51
Speaker
I would imagine that there is space for people to specialize.
00:27:56
Speaker
There can be broad thinkers, there can be narrow thinkers, there can be experts, and allowing for that diversity of interests and talents and pursuits seems to me to be a really important thing.
00:28:09
Speaker
There's not one size fits all, but it's really a community effort.
00:28:14
Speaker
But the other thing I'll say is that I'm not convinced that the level of connoisseurship is in all cases as low as some would say, or that the level of connoisseurship previously was necessarily as high as we would say.
00:28:28
Speaker
I think that the so-called golden age of connoisseurship and of good, better, best was characterized by a particular structure.
00:28:42
Speaker
of knowledge and dissemination of knowledge.
00:28:44
Speaker
It was a fairly top down system whereby, you know, you the people who dominate the field in one generation pass on that knowledge and we inherit the wisdom of what is the best and what is better and what is good.
00:29:03
Speaker
And that's different from the grassroots activity of actually looking at something, something with an open mind and with curiosity.
00:29:10
Speaker
And ironically, one of the enduring documents from that earlier period is Charles Montgomery's set of 14 points of connoisseurship from the early 1960s, which many of us know very well because it remains current.
Storytelling and Antiques: Engaging New Generations
00:29:25
Speaker
And it is actually a prescription for how you could look at a thing and consider every aspect of its being, whether it's the construction, the construction,
00:29:34
Speaker
um you know finishes on the surface the form the you know line proportion etc um and so I think that if we can construct um ways of engaging in uh our current time that feel organic to the way that life works today that are equally um as um impelled by curiosity I think we'll go a long way toward um spreading a kind of grassroots
00:30:03
Speaker
connoisseurship.
00:30:04
Speaker
In the classical music world, we tend to think of a certain way of engaging at a concert or an opera with canonical works, which is that we sit very quietly and we listen with great reverence and great care.
00:30:19
Speaker
And the reality is that when Haydn and Mozart, for example, were
00:30:23
Speaker
reigning supreme, concert life was totally different.
00:30:26
Speaker
It was raucous.
00:30:27
Speaker
People moved around, they ate, they drank, they talked, they were concerned with social matters.
00:30:33
Speaker
They engaged with the performers.
00:30:34
Speaker
And if they really loved a movement of a symphony, they would make a raucous and it would be repeated there on the spot.
00:30:41
Speaker
And there's something really wonderful about that.
00:30:44
Speaker
It's an opportunity to be very present with the experience as opposed to coming to it with a preconceived sense of how you're supposed to engage.
00:30:57
Speaker
And so I think the Fine Objects Society is very much on the track of offering that kind of experience, the same kind of experience that in the early days of collecting Americana,
00:31:07
Speaker
You know, people were making up the rules as they went.
00:31:10
Speaker
They were getting in their automobile, you know, and driving out into the country and stopping at a house that looked interesting and, you know, meeting the person who lived there and maybe ending up in the attic discovering some treasure that had been forgotten for a generation.
00:31:24
Speaker
So that kind of movement and variety, I think, is going to be healthy for the field.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, so maybe we can help people be a little bit less well-behaved, so to speak.
00:31:38
Speaker
I like, I mean, the old joke about Albert Sacks' book, which everybody calls good, better, best, is that it really should have been called good, better, best, and in stock.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:51
Speaker
Certainly a lot of those old evaluations of the quality of material was not entirely unbiased, I think we could say.
00:32:00
Speaker
I mean, along these lines, I don't know.
00:32:04
Speaker
Bailey, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about or share some of your thoughts about the kinds of passions that we can activate in audiences, perhaps new audiences, perhaps people who are already interested but haven't engaged at the level that we would like them to.
00:32:27
Speaker
I mean, how can we...
00:32:29
Speaker
share our excitement and enhance it and really motivate people to be, you know, to devote more of their attention and more of their consideration to this field.
00:32:47
Speaker
I think that the main thing that we can do as dealers, as museum professionals, auction houses, whoever in this field, is just to talk about the histories and the stories behind specific objects.
00:33:07
Speaker
I think that
00:33:09
Speaker
part of the old sort of collecting generations of the 20th century, there was just a very small amount of people who already knew what there was to know about something.
00:33:22
Speaker
And so maybe today, some dealers might not be as interested as elucidating the backgrounds of things.
00:33:35
Speaker
But I think that, you know, if you're just speaking with anyone, even if they're not initially interested in antiques,
00:33:44
Speaker
At least what I found professionally in my job is these stories apply to our lives today.
00:33:55
Speaker
There's themes about environmentalism or feminism, things that are, of course, very topical.
00:34:04
Speaker
These things really relate to younger generations, and I think this is just a great entry point for them to...
00:34:13
Speaker
sort of engage with these objects that seem so maybe initially kind of on a pedestal or sort of like, you know, tchotchke maybe.
00:34:26
Speaker
So yeah, I think that the storytelling aspect is just the most crucial access point for today's collectors.
Inclusive Museum Practices
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, well, you're speaking my language there.
00:34:40
Speaker
And I wonder, I mean, certainly storytelling has become much more important in how museum curation is undertaken today.
00:34:50
Speaker
If you look at everything from permanent installations to special exhibitions, they're so often now oriented around a particular story.
00:35:03
Speaker
And that's
00:35:06
Speaker
To me, frankly, that's a lot more interesting than a kind of encyclopedic collection of examples of X, Y, or Z put next to each other.
00:35:16
Speaker
I mean, I like that as a specialist, but...
00:35:21
Speaker
If it's an area that I'm not already an expert in, those kinds of presentations are really a lot less meaningful to me compared to someone who is taking their connoisseurial knowledge and crafting it into a
00:35:43
Speaker
into a narrative that really connects with me emotionally.
00:35:46
Speaker
And Sarah, I mean, as someone who's been immersed in the curatorial world, I wonder if you could speak for us about changes in the curatorial mindset on a large scale that we're observing today.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, well, museums broadly have really been under a microscope for the past few decades.
00:36:10
Speaker
And I think
00:36:11
Speaker
particularly working through the pandemic and the protests around George Floyd, I mean, increasingly the cultural field broadly has sort of dealt with a reckoning, very necessary one at that.
00:36:24
Speaker
And so there have been very widespread efforts to be more inclusive, more diverse and create greater access across the field to mixed degrees of success.
00:36:36
Speaker
And so,
00:36:39
Speaker
You know, it's a complicated question.
00:36:40
Speaker
I think you're right, Ben, in that there are definitely new narratives being brought into place or the old sort of canonical narratives are being broken down and questioned and rewritten to some extent with with the.
00:36:56
Speaker
Lens being that narratives are always being rewritten depending on the contemporary cultural context and even individual context by which we're approaching them, which is a really necessary shift so broadly speaking, I think.
00:37:09
Speaker
Museum exhibitions are a bit more inclusive they're a bit more easy they're easier to relate to as well, I think, to there is.
00:37:17
Speaker
Definitely more consideration for the contemporary emotive mindset to sort of connect to it, as well as creating ways to be more participatory, more engaging, more tactile through sort of like crowdsource endeavors and participatory endeavors where the visitor actually becomes a generator of content.
00:37:39
Speaker
So those are really exciting projects to see.
00:37:42
Speaker
I think still some of the problems come from
00:37:45
Speaker
this idea of the curator being this sort of lone genius who is responsible for all this brilliance from their pedestal.
00:37:52
Speaker
But we all know those of us who work in the field, we know that's not the case.
00:37:56
Speaker
I think that's a very productive narrative for fundraising, possibly.
00:37:59
Speaker
But otherwise, curating is a very collaborative endeavor.
00:38:03
Speaker
It takes so many different minds and perspectives and ideas to create a really rich cultural exhibition and thinking
00:38:14
Speaker
through my own experience and revisiting a bit of the previous conversation in terms of how I came to the commercial side of antiques from the cultural side from museums was because I was hired to be the curator of a Shaker Village Museum here in Massachusetts.
00:38:34
Speaker
And therefore, I was responsible for the stewardship of over 10,000 objects and nine historic structures.
00:38:40
Speaker
However,
00:38:41
Speaker
I was never going to learn about any of those materials in a deep and meaningful way that had any sort of connoisseurship or real in-depth knowledge without a mentor.
00:38:52
Speaker
And I found that mentor in the commercial side who had worked with this stuff, had done well over his 10,000 hours working with this material hands-on.
00:39:01
Speaker
And so it was through that mentorship that I actually learned about the material that I was previously responsible for in a museum context.
00:39:10
Speaker
I'm curious to hear about how you think the Rolodex might play into that sort of transmission of knowledge to the next generation or to those who are curious.
00:39:21
Speaker
But more than that, I think for me, what really opened up was this idea of expertise and where it comes from.
00:39:28
Speaker
And it is very broad.
00:39:30
Speaker
It's from people who have collected it and lived with it for decades.
00:39:35
Speaker
They could be some of your most valuable resources
00:39:39
Speaker
in the field of antiques and Americana, just because the system of expertise from educational program to cultural institution is not necessarily the best education or best way to really deeply know about these materials in this field.
Artisans Bridging Past and Present
00:40:00
Speaker
And so, as Brendan said, I think we have the capacity here with Fine Object Society to sort of crack that open a bit and
00:40:09
Speaker
root around and sort of examine it and potentially build new pathways for knowledge and expertise to be developed through the networks that we're cultivating through fine objects.
00:40:22
Speaker
Well, you've teased the Rolodex again, and I think we should get to that in just a second because it is one thing that I'm very, very excited about.
00:40:30
Speaker
But I wanted to ask Ben, I wanted to ask you one more question before we get to the Rolodex and then close out.
00:40:39
Speaker
Because we've been talking largely in the context of antiques, but of course, you know, the definition of antiques, well, there's a legal definition, but the colloquial definition is pretty fuzzy.
00:40:52
Speaker
And what you actually mean when you say antiques can be a little ambiguous.
00:40:58
Speaker
And actually, you know, one of our first events with Fine Objects Society was at a contemporary gallery showing works by contemporary artists.
00:41:09
Speaker
And so because your gallery, Ben, includes contemporary work, despite your background and experience with antique material, I wonder if you could say a little bit about how you think contemporary makers fit into the antiques ecosystem.
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:31
Speaker
So my background is in, I was a historian first and then worked in historic restoration in the area around Philadelphia.
00:41:41
Speaker
And what I routinely was frustrated by was kind of accessibility of materials in a traditional method, executed traditional methods.
00:41:51
Speaker
But what
00:41:54
Speaker
I'd always kind of, you know, antiques were one thing and reproductions were another, as they should be.
00:41:59
Speaker
And then I was actually, I was writing one of the first pieces that Pip, my wife and I wrote for the magazine Antiques was on the, we got, we were asked to write a piece on the history of the Windsor chair, you know, in a tight, it's supposed to be 700 word article, which was not going to happen.
00:42:16
Speaker
And so we wrote, uh,
00:42:18
Speaker
you know, cribbing as little from Wallace Nutting as we could and trying to find other sources.
00:42:23
Speaker
And I was like, well, I, you know, I guess I want to talk to because we were talking about the history of how the chairs were made.
00:42:28
Speaker
And I want to talk to someone who makes them the same way, because how else am I going to find this out?
00:42:34
Speaker
Because Nutting didn't write about that.
00:42:36
Speaker
He just wrote about, you know, the differences of form and what was collectible.
00:42:40
Speaker
um and so i reached out to a friend whose husband her husband is now a friend but at the time he was an acquaintance and he i knew that he was a traditional windsor chair maker and uh i was able to schedule an interview at his workshop where he was you know he said he's i'm just a hobbyist you know it's not a big deal and i go and i he's working on one of the most beautiful pieces of art i've ever seen in my life which is this um astonishing windsor chair that he makes it's about 100 man hours per chair
00:43:09
Speaker
And as I'm interviewing him, I remarked something, I'm like, you know, Windsor chairs are beautiful, but they're so fragile, they're so brittle that I'm always somewhat afraid to sit on them.
00:43:19
Speaker
And he kind of looks at me curiously, he's like, well, it's just because you're sitting on old ones that are dried out.
00:43:25
Speaker
And he grabs the chair that he's working on and wrenches the back razz, you know, the full back of it.
00:43:34
Speaker
And it turns about 90 degrees.
00:43:37
Speaker
And then he lets go and it flips right back to its original spot.
00:43:42
Speaker
And in my tape recording interview, I was doing it.
00:43:44
Speaker
There's about five minutes of me going.
00:43:46
Speaker
Because my brain was just like, I've never seen a chair move like that.
00:43:55
Speaker
And he's like, well, you've seen wood move like that.
00:43:57
Speaker
You've seen trees move in the wind.
00:44:00
Speaker
And the way the Windsor chairs are made are the kind of pieces, the portions that are not supposed to sit perfectly solid and not move.
00:44:07
Speaker
So the seat of the chair doesn't move.
00:44:10
Speaker
That's a solid piece.
00:44:11
Speaker
But the back, it's all made from green wood that's never cut.
00:44:14
Speaker
It's shaved down.
00:44:16
Speaker
So the long fibers of the wood are left intact.
00:44:19
Speaker
So they have all of the kind of strength and elasticity of them in their branch form.
00:44:27
Speaker
And they'll last like that for about 150 to 200 years.
00:44:30
Speaker
So the antique ones, which, you know, federal definition of an antique is 100 years old outside of the automobiles where it's like 20 years.
00:44:38
Speaker
But, you know, by the time that something is really an antique, so like, you know, and I see like a Georgian Windsor or something, it's already like it's past use.
00:44:49
Speaker
It is just a piece of art at that point.
00:44:52
Speaker
or it's been kept in a very damp location or something, some miracle like that.
00:44:56
Speaker
But so I'd only been seeing them dried out.
00:44:58
Speaker
And in reality, they were the ergonomic office chair of their day.
00:45:03
Speaker
And that piece of information would have been wholly inaccessible to me.
00:45:10
Speaker
as a collector and as someone who's writing about these pieces, not as a collectability, but as the piece themselves.
00:45:16
Speaker
Had I not seen a contemporary maker, had I not been talking to a contemporary maker who could wrench his own sharing?
00:45:21
Speaker
Like, what are you talking about?
00:45:22
Speaker
They bounce all over the place.
00:45:25
Speaker
And so I think that there's this wonderful lens of contemporary makers who are insistent on using traditional methods where it's not, you know, I love Colonial Williamsburg.
00:45:34
Speaker
It's great, but it has a, I don't even want to say hokey because it's by design, you know, the purpose is it's an educational living museum.
00:45:42
Speaker
Whereas like contemporary makers doing things in the traditional method, it's still a beautiful chair that is, you know, you can order them and have them in your own home and they're stunning.
00:45:51
Speaker
And it's not like having a cooper where it's functionally an almost extinct trade.
00:45:57
Speaker
It's just finding people who build things in ways that will last 100 years.
Connecting Collectors: FOS Rolodex
00:46:04
Speaker
So I think there's a really great way that contemporary makers can be brought into the antiques trade of just illuminating how these things were made, what actually went into them, and how they were really used.
00:46:20
Speaker
And all of that are kind of their data points that are often absent in the collector and then just the antique enthusiast who doesn't see them as they were.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:33
Speaker
So I want to close out by talking a little about what's on the horizon for FOS.
00:46:41
Speaker
But I think it's time to finally follow through on our promise to talk about the Rolodex, which is one thing that I'm very excited about for the future of the organization.
00:46:53
Speaker
And Ben, since you're heading that up, would you like to just give us a quick idea of what that's all about?
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah, so the Rolodex is an initiative that we are putting together to essentially, in a non-copyright infringy way, introduce a sort of on-demand antiques roadshow for folks.
00:47:16
Speaker
So, you know, interested collectors or people who are like, you know, I've got this, say, candlestick with, you know, a coat of arms on it.
00:47:24
Speaker
I want to know what that coat of arms was or, you know, who this belonged to or, you know, what these hallmarks are, something like that.
00:47:31
Speaker
is that they can reach out and we'll put them in touch with either members or interested parties who are experts in that field who can answer their questions.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:42
Speaker
And I mean, I think this could be helpful for so many different circumstances, right?
00:47:47
Speaker
I mean, maybe you have something that you want to know about.
00:47:50
Speaker
Maybe you want to find something that you're not sure where to locate.
00:47:55
Speaker
Maybe you're, you know, an interior designer looking for something for a client, but you don't know who you can trust in that field or who has the best material.
00:48:06
Speaker
You know, there's so many different use cases where just having a
00:48:11
Speaker
trustworthy network would be so wildly helpful.
00:48:17
Speaker
I mean, I know just for myself, and I pride myself on being fairly well connected across the antiques industry, but even so,
00:48:27
Speaker
There are times when I don't know who to contact for this problem or that question.
00:48:33
Speaker
So I think putting this together is going to be both a lot of fun, but it should also bring, I think, a huge amount of value to the world, I hope.
00:48:47
Speaker
What else are you all excited about in terms of the future of FOS and where we go from here?
00:48:54
Speaker
I look forward to what I think is a strong capacity to build intergenerational experiences and mentorship opportunities.
00:49:05
Speaker
And Sarah referred to mentorship in her own development as an expert and a connoisseur.
00:49:12
Speaker
In this case, we have student memberships to offer alongside regular memberships.
00:49:18
Speaker
And our range of members goes from
00:49:22
Speaker
those who are perhaps undergraduates all the way up to those who are the most senior people in the field or enthusiasts of the same generation.
Intergenerational Mentorship in FOS
00:49:32
Speaker
We all have a lot to learn from one another.
00:49:34
Speaker
And I think sometimes we get wrapped up in the idea that we will turn the status quo on its head because antiques may be seen as the province of an older generation.
00:49:44
Speaker
We're going to create an organization for younger people.
00:49:48
Speaker
But a broad tent is often
00:49:52
Speaker
the tent that can be most effective.
00:49:55
Speaker
And what goes on under that tent is a lot of exchange of ideas and perspectives.
00:50:00
Speaker
So that seems like a very strong prospect for FOS.
00:50:07
Speaker
I'm just excited to see people's stuff.
00:50:10
Speaker
Like I want to get in there.
00:50:11
Speaker
I want to get into homes.
00:50:13
Speaker
I want to go behind the scenes in auctions and galleries.
00:50:16
Speaker
I want to get in maker studios because the reasons that people collect things and are drawn to things, the reason that they make things is endlessly fascinating.
00:50:26
Speaker
And so I just, I want to see all your stuff.
00:50:30
Speaker
I love that.
00:50:35
Speaker
And Bailey, what's the best way for listeners to get involved if they're interested?
00:50:39
Speaker
You can visit our website, fineobjectsociety.org slash membership.
00:50:45
Speaker
The membership fee is $120, and that's a yearly membership.
00:50:52
Speaker
And as Brynton said, we also offer a student membership if you're interested in that.
00:50:58
Speaker
And if you have any questions, you can get in touch with us at info at fineobjectsociety.org.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:51:07
Speaker
And be sure to follow us on social media.
00:51:10
Speaker
Our Instagram is fineobjectssociety.
00:51:13
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:51:16
Speaker
Well, thank you, everybody.
00:51:17
Speaker
I mean, this has been a lot of fun.
00:51:18
Speaker
I hope listeners are getting a sense of the idea that we're grappling with some of the deep and fundamental questions of our industry and that we're wanting to open that conversation up in a very explicit way while taking concrete action to move it forward.
00:51:38
Speaker
So we would love to have your help with that.
00:51:43
Speaker
So do what Bailey said and get in touch and get involved.
00:51:47
Speaker
And we'll hope to talk to you soon at an FOS event.
00:51:56
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support from Sarah Bellotta.
00:52:01
Speaker
Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
00:52:04
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:52:05
Speaker
And I've been Millar.