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SPECIAL EPISODE 3: “It feels like being underwater”
13 Plays5 years ago
Ben and Michael, like everyone else, are stuck at home, but they aren’t a pair to shrink from silver linings. For them these include the opportunity to spend time among the beautiful things they've acquired over the years: silver candlesticks, German watercolors, maps, and portrait miniatures. And they’ve got a fate-tempting prediction for the future: “A lot of people are going to come out of this crisis thinking, ‘God, I wish my walls weren’t so white . . . or bare.’”
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Transcript
Introduction: Impact of COVID-19 on Antiques World
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
And I'm Michael Diaz-Griffith.
00:00:17
Speaker
And we're doing something unusual today.
00:00:19
Speaker
We don't have any guests, and we don't even have any objects, because this is another special episode about the coronavirus.
00:00:26
Speaker
And today, Michael and I are just going to sit back and reflect a little on what's going on in the antiques world and how this...
00:00:36
Speaker
this crisis is impacting us, impacting all of our friends in the trade, in the world of museums, in the world of collecting, what this means for all of us, for the world we live in, and for the future of dealing and collecting and studying these objects.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yes, and we're recording on Tuesday, March 31st.
00:01:02
Speaker
So as a bit of a warning, this will be released a little bit later in the week.
00:01:11
Speaker
And so some of the things we discuss may have changed by the time you hear us.
Current Challenges: Museums, Collectors, and Dealers
00:01:18
Speaker
But hopefully, the sort of spirit of the conversation and the spirit of processing all of these challenges that we now face will still be timely and relevant.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, things are certainly moving quickly, and it's hard to keep up in the news.
00:01:31
Speaker
But, you know, I think we're starting to see the contours of what we're facing, at least in the short term.
00:01:38
Speaker
And we can talk a little about what's happening right now in the world of antiques.
00:01:44
Speaker
And then, you know, I think we'll save our speculation for later in the episode.
00:01:51
Speaker
But we do want to talk about how we see the future in this moment.
00:01:56
Speaker
knowing full well that things will change in the coming weeks and months.
00:02:02
Speaker
But Michael, how are you keeping yourself occupied these days?
00:02:09
Speaker
Well, I think for many of us, a crisis actually brings on more work.
00:02:13
Speaker
And, you know, whether that's making alternative plans because all of your old plans have gone bad, or whether you're, you know, a parent and you're having to work from home with your kids by your side.
00:02:29
Speaker
You know, I know that some are feeling bored and...
00:02:34
Speaker
I am sorry for them, but I'm also a little bit envious because I feel like I've been almost frantic with work since this crisis began.
00:02:43
Speaker
Again, that's a good problem as well, because I think we all know people who've been laid off.
00:02:48
Speaker
But in our world, I think one of the first impacts to be felt very deeply was the cancellation of events.
00:02:57
Speaker
and fairs.
00:02:59
Speaker
And it really struck me early on as someone who's been very involved in the world of fairs over the past decade that these events are even more central perhaps than we had given them credit for being.
Fair Cancellations and Online Transition
00:03:15
Speaker
You know, I think that
00:03:18
Speaker
you, Ben, are in the lucky position of still working in a gallery that has a shopfront.
00:03:25
Speaker
And it's a very cute shopfront and I love going in.
00:03:28
Speaker
But increasingly over the years, as we know and as we've discussed on this podcast, dealers have been forced to close their shopfronts.
00:03:40
Speaker
And so fairs have taken on this critical importance that they simply didn't have in the past.
00:03:46
Speaker
So to then see this cascading cancellation of all of the fares, I think has just been, it's been really unfortunate for the organizers and the beneficiaries of fares that have a charity component.
00:04:00
Speaker
But more than anything, it's just, it's brutal for dealers who rely on these venues for sales.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, and the real problem here is not just canceling one or two fares, right?
00:04:10
Speaker
Which would present its own difficulties.
00:04:13
Speaker
But the notion that there are no fares on the calendar.
00:04:17
Speaker
I mean, even in the autumn, right, it's not reliable to schedule anything for the foreseeable future.
00:04:27
Speaker
We don't know when we'll be able to start opening things back up again.
00:04:32
Speaker
But for the foreseeable future, these dealers, Michael, as you say, who don't have shopfronts,
00:04:39
Speaker
They can't rely on being able to drum up business in a public forum like an antique show at any time in the coming three, six months, maybe more.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, and this raises the question of the internet and the digital challenge that those who haven't already gone online face in getting their businesses online.
00:05:04
Speaker
But I think we'll have a lot of time to discuss that over the course of the podcast.
00:05:10
Speaker
But, you know, even just in terms of those canceled fairs, one of the, you know, as a former fair organizer, I think something that
00:05:22
Speaker
hasn't always been to the fore in the discussion is the risk that fares shoulder in signing leases, even in the best of times.
00:05:33
Speaker
And there's, of course, insurance to help offset various catastrophes under the force majeure clauses that we all have in all of our contracts, but they don't cover coronavirus.
00:05:47
Speaker
And I've been hearing talk about how
00:05:50
Speaker
You know, while that while insurance against COVID-19 obviously didn't exist, you know, two weeks ago, it is likely to exist in the future, but for a price and it's not going to be cheap.
00:06:05
Speaker
So, you know, all of the calculations.
00:06:10
Speaker
that the fares will have to make around whether or not to venture an autumn date are just really interesting to think about.
00:06:20
Speaker
And, you know, I really feel for everyone who's responsible for an event in that season, who's going to be thinking about whether to cancel or not, knowing that dealers rely on those events, but also, you know, because of their own fiduciary,
00:06:34
Speaker
responsibilities um you know having to make really tough decisions to protect their organizations from financial loss it's it's just very complicated and i think we've seen in the broader art world fairs all you know they've announced dates for the autumn this hasn't happened so much in the antiques world but it has happened in
00:06:59
Speaker
you know, with fairs like the Armory show or the Basel shows, they're announcing dates.
00:07:04
Speaker
And that creates confidence among their exhibitors
00:07:09
Speaker
and maybe a bit of a feeling of certainty in parts of the market, but those organizers don't know that they'll actually be able to pick up on those dates.
00:07:20
Speaker
Well, and the other aspect of that is even if the public health situation has advanced to a place where it's possible to have an event like that in the autumn, that doesn't mean that the economy is going to be in a place where any show is going to be successful.
00:07:33
Speaker
And although it creates a sense of confidence, perhaps today, the risk of running a show at which nobody is doing any business is a huge risk in itself because these shows are very expensive for dealers.
00:07:49
Speaker
So, you know, in many cases, I think it would really just be better to forget about the idea that you could predict when things are going to look up to the extent that you could have a successful show.
00:08:08
Speaker
Nobody knows that right now.
00:08:09
Speaker
You know, I mean, economists don't know what the damage is going to look like or what the recovery is going to look like.
00:08:19
Speaker
Epidemiologists don't know what the curve is going to look like.
00:08:26
Speaker
We don't have data, and we've never been in this situation before in the modern economy.
00:08:30
Speaker
No.
Organizational Leadership and Crisis Navigation
00:08:31
Speaker
And I think –
00:08:33
Speaker
I was on the inside of the decision making process around the cancellation of the Philadelphia show, which I was working on press and PR for with great enthusiasm.
00:08:46
Speaker
And I was also helping to design
00:08:50
Speaker
what would have been a really fabulous loan exhibition curated by Alexandra Kirtley.
00:08:56
Speaker
And, you know, in those- From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
00:09:00
Speaker
From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
00:09:02
Speaker
And let's hope that that loan exhibition eventually, you know, that it lives to see the light of day.
00:09:09
Speaker
But, you know,
00:09:11
Speaker
the initial instinct was to postpone the show, right?
00:09:15
Speaker
As some in the contemporary market have done.
00:09:19
Speaker
And when fairs do that, they often don't release deposits, right?
00:09:23
Speaker
They, you know, they hold the deposits.
00:09:25
Speaker
And as the decision was made to cancel the show, you know, and this is true for many events in many different contexts, you know, it's partly because,
00:09:39
Speaker
We all know that we can't predict the autumn, but it's also in many instances a way of returning deposits to folks, right?
00:09:47
Speaker
And saying, you know, listen, we don't know what's gonna happen and we can't in good faith hold onto your money.
00:09:54
Speaker
And I think that the importance of handling this type of situation
00:10:04
Speaker
with that level of care just can't be overstated in the antiques market because we know how difficult everybody's margins are, right?
00:10:11
Speaker
I mean, even in the best of times.
00:10:14
Speaker
So, you know, I think that it's all about sort of organizational responsibility and leadership.
00:10:22
Speaker
And that's going to be important for museums, for fairs, and then on the level of galleries, you know,
00:10:30
Speaker
leadership decisions that are being made by owners who are forced to think about whether to retain staff, how they're going to, how they're going to proceed in this crisis that has a real human cost.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, and you and I have both been talking with people over the past couple of weeks to try to get a sense of how different businesses and organizations and individuals are responding and the measures that people are taking to try to cope with the situation.
00:11:02
Speaker
And I want to get to those in just a minute.
00:11:05
Speaker
But...
00:11:07
Speaker
But first, Michael, I think, you know, we've been putting out a lot of Curious Objects episodes in recent days, and that's not a coincidence.
00:11:19
Speaker
We have the time to sit back and reflect on what's happening.
00:11:28
Speaker
Tell me about your home life, Ben.
00:11:30
Speaker
I'm curious.
00:11:33
Speaker
I want to know if you're sipping wine out of any silver goblets or if you're staring at a wall.
00:11:39
Speaker
Where are you actually right now?
00:11:41
Speaker
I want to know where you're recording your side of the podcast from.
Personal Reflections and Connections During Lockdown
00:11:46
Speaker
So I'm actually sitting in the same place that I often sit to record Curious Objects material, which is at my little desk in my bedroom, in my one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment.
00:12:00
Speaker
And I've never been happier to have an apartment that's full of objects that I love.
00:12:07
Speaker
I feel like I'm really getting my money's worth out of my rent these days, but I also think I'm really getting my money's worth out of the small collection of antiques that I've invested in.
00:12:21
Speaker
In the course of an ordinary work week,
00:12:27
Speaker
I might have an hour or two in the evening to sit and really enjoy my candelabra or my flatware or my beloved silver teapot.
00:12:43
Speaker
And that's nice.
00:12:46
Speaker
It's nice to take a break.
00:12:48
Speaker
From the hustle and bustle of daily work, it's nice to be able to sit down and have a meal and derive the pleasure that I can out of these lovely things.
00:13:00
Speaker
But now, now that I'm spending 23 hours a day in this apartment,
00:13:07
Speaker
I mean, it feels like a lifesaver to be comfortable and happy and rejuvenated by objects that are aesthetically pleasing to me, but that are interesting to me for any number of reasons, historical reasons and reasons of craftsmanship and provenance.
00:13:30
Speaker
And just to have that companionship in an otherwise very isolating and quiet time, it's lovely.
00:13:43
Speaker
It really is lovely.
00:13:45
Speaker
It makes me think that I ought to spend more time at home even when I don't have to.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny.
00:13:52
Speaker
I don't know if you have been having any Zoom calls or Skype calls where there's video.
00:14:00
Speaker
I'm sure our listeners have.
00:14:02
Speaker
But one of the really fascinating things about the experience of being on a visual conference call is looking or peering into people's homes and
00:14:14
Speaker
Through these videos, and I think one thing that's fascinating is, you know, without seeming too creepy or like too much of a Zoom stalker, you do get to see the sort of edges of people's domestic environments.
00:14:29
Speaker
And sometimes that means you get to see the art on their walls.
00:14:32
Speaker
And...
00:14:33
Speaker
I mean, we can discuss the business side of the internet and even of Instagram, you know, at another point in the conversation.
00:14:41
Speaker
But on this very human level, I think that it's just it's interesting to see more about how people live, right?
00:14:47
Speaker
I mean, even on just regular phone calls that would normally be very serious and buttoned up.
00:14:55
Speaker
I'm hearing my, you know,
00:14:58
Speaker
interlocutor, maybe a museum director, for example, washing glasses at the sink as they talk to me on speakerphone.
00:15:07
Speaker
Or I hear someone's kid, you know, come up to their kitchen table where the person is chatting with me and sort of demand, you know, grilled cheese sandwich or whatever.
00:15:17
Speaker
And it's, it's just, we think about sort of, um,
00:15:23
Speaker
the way that we've brought work home, but we've also brought our homes into our work in a funny way.
00:15:29
Speaker
And, you know, when I see people living in interiors that are warm and full of objects and art, it just, it's like, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
00:15:41
Speaker
And it reminds me that, you know, collecting for investment reasons, which we never recommend, but which many others do, you know, engage in, um,
00:15:51
Speaker
Doesn't take you very far in a time like this, right?
00:15:53
Speaker
Having all of your objects in a warehouse doesn't really cut it when you're in quarantine.
00:16:01
Speaker
And it also might not be much of a financial boon, right?
00:16:05
Speaker
So it's like a moment to keep your family close and your friends close, but also your objects close.
00:16:12
Speaker
And I felt the same way, Ben.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, you know, and we'll talk about this later in the episode, but I have a suspicion, a sneaking suspicion, that a lot of people are going to come out of this on the other side thinking, gosh, I wish my walls weren't so white.
00:16:32
Speaker
Or just bare, right?
00:16:34
Speaker
I mean, if you've got a white wall, cover it in beautiful pictures.
00:16:38
Speaker
That's right.
00:16:41
Speaker
I'm sure that there are some dealers, even as we speak, posting their inventory online for the first time.
00:16:49
Speaker
So they'll have an even better selection to choose from.
00:16:53
Speaker
That's right.
00:16:54
Speaker
And there's been this amazing flourishing of online resources, some of which have just been recently created and others of which have been around.
Digital Collections and Increased Podcast Activity
00:17:03
Speaker
But people, including me, are just becoming aware of them now.
00:17:07
Speaker
You know, I knew of the existence of Google Arts and Culture, and, you know, I'd gone to that website once or twice, and I thought it was a pretty nifty idea.
00:17:21
Speaker
You know, Google has partnered with a wide variety of cultural institutions, mostly museums, who have made certain swaths of their collections available digitally, and Google has collated these
00:17:35
Speaker
and made them all accessible from the central site.
00:17:40
Speaker
And now in the last couple of weeks, I've spent hours and hours just pouring through this.
00:17:44
Speaker
I mean, it's amazing.
00:17:46
Speaker
It's dozens and dozens and dozens of museums.
00:17:49
Speaker
And in some cases, you just see photographs of particular works and
00:17:56
Speaker
And a little curatorial note about them.
00:17:58
Speaker
And that's interesting enough.
00:17:59
Speaker
But in other cases, there are whole curated exhibitions put together where you can scroll through photo after photo and watch a story come together around these objects or paintings or photographs.
00:18:16
Speaker
And as someone who craves beauty and interesting objects and artistic creations, you know, what an amazing resource.
00:18:29
Speaker
I feel like, you know,
00:18:33
Speaker
Well, Shrubsell's shop is a block away from the Metropolitan Museum, and I go there oftentimes at lunch.
00:18:40
Speaker
And I've always thought, what a treat that is to be able to go to one of the greatest art collections in the world and spend an hour there any day that I like.
00:18:51
Speaker
Well, here we have...
00:18:54
Speaker
dozens or hundreds of websites available, each one of which has dozens or hundreds or thousands of images.
00:19:03
Speaker
And gosh, I mean, any of us could spend as many hours a day as we like looking through these and educating ourselves and learning about how learning about museums I didn't even know exist.
00:19:14
Speaker
I mean, you know, I spent an hour today looking through the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
00:19:19
Speaker
Oh, I love their online collections.
00:19:24
Speaker
And I would never have spent the time doing that under other circumstances.
00:19:29
Speaker
The National Museum in New Delhi, the Paris Opera is on there.
00:19:34
Speaker
They have a remarkable group of documentary photographs.
00:19:38
Speaker
I've talked about this on the podcast, but online collections have been my obsession now for like four or five years.
00:19:46
Speaker
And what's really striking to me is that
00:19:52
Speaker
you can often view the works in high resolution in the best of these collections, which, you know, almost makes up for the fact that you can't see them in person, right?
00:20:03
Speaker
Because, I mean, in some instances, you'd be separated from them by, you know, a distance of several feet.
00:20:10
Speaker
And so to just be able to, like, type in a search term, find things that are fascinating,
00:20:17
Speaker
find their stories, but also to just be able to zoom in as close as you want into the very heart of a picture or, you know, into the engraving of a silver object, for example.
00:20:30
Speaker
It's just, it's such a remarkable privilege that you sometimes don't even get when you're in an institution viewing objects in person.
00:20:40
Speaker
Um, and to just give a shout out to another kind of aggregator of digital resources that I like, uh,
00:20:47
Speaker
It's Europeana, like probably pronounced in a much nicer way in Europe where this site originated,.eu.
00:20:59
Speaker
It's an aggregator of online collections from institutions in Europe.
00:21:06
Speaker
And, you know, in the way that Google appropriately, you know, as a business in the American context of free enterprise has created Google Arts and Culture, you know,
00:21:19
Speaker
europeana.eu was co-financed by the eu but it's just remarkable you can find you know literally millions of objects and images with a single search term and get trapped in in the site forever frankly
00:21:41
Speaker
And it's, you know, it's interesting because these are just, these are kind of very basic databases.
00:21:47
Speaker
But another thing that we're seeing a lot of are, you know, virtual tours.
00:21:52
Speaker
And I've been having discussions with folks for years about whether it's, you know, cost effective or not to invest in a virtual tour of their smaller museum or of their booth even at an art fair.
00:22:05
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of people,
00:22:08
Speaker
many of us were excited about that technology and capability, but realistically wouldn't necessarily advise clients or friends or our bosses to, you know, to invest in what was at times a pretty expensive technology, a doodad, you know, that wasn't necessary for conducting business.
00:22:29
Speaker
Um, and, and yet now those virtual tours are surfacing and, um,
00:22:37
Speaker
Some of them are four years old and, you know, probably only ever got a couple hundred views when they were launched.
00:22:45
Speaker
But now they're these incredibly rich resources that thousands and more than thousands of people are looking at.
00:22:51
Speaker
So it's a kind of funny moment of vindication for forms of technology that were a little obscure or seemed a little bit extra that we now have time to sit back and really appreciate in a way that we didn't before.
00:23:06
Speaker
Let's take a quick break and then I want to come back and chat with you a bit about what we've been hearing from other people in the antiques world.
00:23:14
Speaker
More in a bit.
00:23:24
Speaker
As you know, Curious Objects is published by the magazine Antiques, the publication of record in the world of fine and decorative arts for almost 100 years.
00:23:31
Speaker
The folks at the magazine Antiques are as concerned as you are about COVID-19, and they are rolling out a series of online projects to help you cope while you're stuck at home.
00:23:41
Speaker
Check out themagazineantiques.com, where they post new and archival stories daily.
00:23:46
Speaker
One recent offering dissects the surprising explosion of cubism in Prague in the 19-teens.
00:23:52
Speaker
They've built a new page, Antiques of the Week, which showcases exceptional individual items from dealers who are still buying and selling even if their shows have been cancelled.
00:24:01
Speaker
There's also an Antique of the Day, selected by the brilliant editor-at-large Glenn Adamson, who was my guest on Curious Objects back in June of 2019.
00:24:09
Speaker
The Antique of the Day is posted on the magazine Antiques Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
00:24:16
Speaker
And if that's not enough for you, they also have a weekly newsletter called The Wandering Eye.
00:24:20
Speaker
That's a compendium of topical, antiques-focused articles from across the web.
00:24:24
Speaker
It's a great read.
00:24:25
Speaker
And last but not least, subscribe to the magazine and get the upcoming May and June issue of the magazine Antiques delivered to your mailbox.
00:24:33
Speaker
That way, you are also supporting the United States Postal Service.
00:24:37
Speaker
Because, after all, there's nothing more comforting than curling up with a good magazine while you wait out the end of the world.
00:24:59
Speaker
Welcome back.
00:24:59
Speaker
And Michael and I are going to take a few minutes now to talk about what we've been hearing in the grapevine and from our friends and contacts across the world.
00:25:09
Speaker
And what better place to kick off than the firm that I have an intimate relationship with, Shrub Soul, where I work.
00:25:21
Speaker
And, you know, it's interesting to see...
00:25:27
Speaker
the effect that uncertainty has on a small business.
00:25:32
Speaker
We are staying active.
00:25:36
Speaker
We're all, of course, working from home, but we're actually working there.
00:25:41
Speaker
Turns out, as you've experienced, Michael, the coronavirus has actually, in some cases, created more work, not less.
00:25:52
Speaker
We've taken advantage of the opportunity to
00:25:57
Speaker
reach out to our clients in new ways, as listeners are aware from the special episode last week in which we featured a storytelling email that was part of a series that Shrobsle has been doing.
00:26:10
Speaker
But the shop is closed and the pace of business is much slower than it typically is.
00:26:22
Speaker
Most auctions are not happening, which means we're not buying very much.
00:26:31
Speaker
There are still clients out there who are interested in acquiring things, but it's a small fraction of what we're accustomed to.
00:26:41
Speaker
So both the buying and the selling sides of the business are dramatically reduced.
00:26:50
Speaker
So at this point, we're doing clerical work.
00:26:54
Speaker
There is, of course, a lot of clerical work involved in trying to sort through the economic situation, the tax situation, what we can expect from the $2 trillion stimulus package that Congress passed a few days ago.
00:27:12
Speaker
I'm trying to sort through what's in that, what it means for small businesses like ours.
00:27:20
Speaker
So again, you know, keeping ourselves busy, but essentially we're doing our best to freeze the business in a stasis.
00:27:31
Speaker
I think a lot of businesses across the country, and not just the antiques world, but across different fields, are in this situation of basically battening the hatches and trying to keep things more or less...
00:27:49
Speaker
you know, cast in amber until such a time as we can open our doors again.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I've heard similar stories from a lot of other dealers.
00:28:01
Speaker
You know, people are making sales here and there, but it's mostly a time of dormancy.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, and, you know, everything we do is anecdotal, which is part of the charm and the fun.
00:28:16
Speaker
of the antiques world.
00:28:17
Speaker
So, you know, just as some auctions have been canceled, some have continued in an online
Market Resilience and Buying Opportunities
00:28:24
Speaker
format.
00:28:24
Speaker
And I've looked at sell through rates in some of those auctions that remained on the calendar and they were good.
00:28:31
Speaker
You know, the sell through rates were solid.
00:28:34
Speaker
People were buying the values that were achieved were not very good.
00:28:38
Speaker
Right.
00:28:38
Speaker
So proof that it's, you know, if one is in the mood to buy,
00:28:44
Speaker
in the spirit of our special episode with David Shorsch, you know, it's likely to be a good time to do so in the coming downturn or continued downturn that we're likely to face.
00:28:58
Speaker
But, you know, I want to believe that galleries are going to be able to cast themselves in amber, but I just got off the phone with a former colleague who told me that...
00:29:13
Speaker
in her gallery, almost everyone had been laid off except for her.
00:29:18
Speaker
And I think that, you know, we are going to see similar things happening.
00:29:26
Speaker
Interestingly, in the antiques world where people have contracted over the past two decades of downturn, some businesses may be a little bit insulated, right?
00:29:35
Speaker
Because if you've given up your store front, you don't have that overhead.
00:29:40
Speaker
If you're working out of your home anyway, you're kind of operating...
00:29:45
Speaker
in as cost-effective way as you can in the first place, right?
00:29:51
Speaker
So I'm hoping that kind of insulates people from the really serious losses that, you know, rent payers face.
00:30:01
Speaker
But I think that the larger galleries, you know, maybe not so much in the antiques world, but in the art world broadly, are going to be laying off people and...
00:30:13
Speaker
know in the market generally um i'm sure we'll continue to see sales and some auctions that continue online that do all right but as we know you know the sort of confidence in the market and in the economy at large has has everything to do with whether dealers can really succeed and in their businesses and
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's not likely that we're going to see that kind of confidence for a while.
00:30:42
Speaker
I was actually, you had this wonderful interview with Karis from Charles Ede a couple of episodes ago.
00:30:51
Speaker
And her colleague at the gallery, Martin Clist, described the atmosphere at Tafaf in Maastricht as if everyone were underwater, you know?
00:31:03
Speaker
So it's like, I think they had...
00:31:06
Speaker
you know, a reduction in attendance by X percent, but there were still people there.
00:31:11
Speaker
As we now know, they were giving each other coronavirus, which is a whole other story.
00:31:16
Speaker
But, you know, he describes the collectors who showed up, never mind the ones who canceled their trips, the ones who showed up as kind of moving in slow motion through the space.
00:31:28
Speaker
And I thought that was a sort of, I mean, it's kind of an eerie description, but...
00:31:34
Speaker
in a rather poetic way, it sort of speaks to how a downturn feels.
00:31:38
Speaker
You know, we're here, people are looking at works, they're maybe thinking about acquiring them, but like the pace, the tone, the atmosphere is just different during times like this.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's frightening, and there's no way around that.
00:31:56
Speaker
I mean, even those of us who still have jobs...
00:32:04
Speaker
we don't know what the future is gonna look like.
00:32:06
Speaker
I was talking with a friend of mine at an auction house who said, on top of the scariness of getting sick, there's the scariness of, will I still have a job after all of this?
00:32:21
Speaker
And for many, because the antiques world is dominated by small businesses and really by very small businesses with just a handful of employees,
00:32:32
Speaker
There are a lot of business owners for whom the question is, will I still have a business at the end of all of this?
00:32:41
Speaker
But I do think that your conversation with David Schorst the other day was a really great source of optimism for me because it's a good reminder that although there are ups and downs in the economy and ups and downs in the collecting world for all kinds of different reasons,
00:33:01
Speaker
You know, what we're seeing right now is not, this is a different kind of economic downturn than a typical recession or depression.
00:33:12
Speaker
I mean, the economic impact is enormous, but it's derived from an external problem, the problem of the virus.
00:33:20
Speaker
It's not derived from a structural problem in the economy.
00:33:24
Speaker
It's not that there are fewer people or fewer factories or that we're working less hard or producing less.
00:33:33
Speaker
I mean, we are now working less hard or producing less, but it's because of an external problem, which...
00:33:40
Speaker
we hope and believe will pass given some months.
00:33:45
Speaker
And so, you know, my hope is that as we start to eventually, one way or another, get control of the public health situation, that the fundamentals of the economy are going to rebound.
00:34:01
Speaker
I'm speaking way above my pay grade here.
00:34:04
Speaker
I'm not an economist.
00:34:06
Speaker
I like being an armchair economist as well.
00:34:09
Speaker
We both...
00:34:10
Speaker
Among our many various past roles, I think policy wonk is included on the CV for both of us in slightly different areas.
00:34:19
Speaker
That's true.
00:34:20
Speaker
And these days, of course, everyone is an epidemiologist, so we can all play at that.
00:34:24
Speaker
Listen, the debates in my household about whether to fashion homemade masks or not, I mean, they spill over into the evening hours, and then we have to drink quarantinis to get over the stress of the mask-related decision-making.
00:34:37
Speaker
It's a mess.
Ethical Considerations and Online Presence
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:39
Speaker
You know, I think that there are some models that predict that the economy will sort of bounce back and that this crisis will not become structural.
00:34:47
Speaker
There are obviously doomsday predictions that it will become structural.
00:34:53
Speaker
And, you know, we just have to hope for the best in that case.
00:34:58
Speaker
I do think that one of the...
00:35:01
Speaker
This is maybe getting a little bit too deep in the weeds with this economic speculation, so you'll have to forgive me, but something else I encountered today with the collector.
00:35:13
Speaker
And I do think it's relevant to discuss this kind of thing early on and to really think through it.
00:35:18
Speaker
This is someone who is a partner in a very large firm.
00:35:22
Speaker
So, you know, he's a partner who's responsible for the livelihoods of a couple hundred people, and they're going to lay some people off.
00:35:31
Speaker
And we were talking about his collecting practice and sort of how it's being affected, and he said, you know, I'll still have...
00:35:38
Speaker
the means to collect but do i want to attend every gala do i want to um you know go to every preview in the next year and and buy and then let my collection be seen in the pages of a magazine where for the first time in my life i've had to lay off this huge number of people no i mean he's really
00:36:01
Speaker
He was really out of the mood.
00:36:04
Speaker
And I think for good reason.
00:36:06
Speaker
And I think that that conversation just, I mean, it was a very humane conversation.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I was glad on a human level that he feels so responsible for these conversations.
00:36:18
Speaker
you know, now former staffers, the problem as always for the antiques world is that, you know, we need that guy to keep buying so that you don't get laid off, right?
00:36:30
Speaker
Like this is the circle.
00:36:32
Speaker
And I think that what I keep coming back to
00:36:35
Speaker
through that conversation with David and what I'm seeing online is that it's just more important than ever that anyone who's not on the internet in this market get on the internet pronto.
00:36:48
Speaker
Get on Instagram.
00:36:50
Speaker
get on Facebook, update your website.
00:36:53
Speaker
If you can make peace with some of the online marketplaces that allow your material to become discoverable, do it.
00:37:01
Speaker
Make peace with the trade-offs that are inherent in working with those platforms.
00:37:06
Speaker
If you're not comfortable with that, just double down on your own website.
00:37:09
Speaker
But get out there and be really active in pursuit of buyers of all kinds.
00:37:17
Speaker
you know, it's finally time to really confront the challenge of cultivating new and younger audiences.
00:37:23
Speaker
It's crunch time.
00:37:25
Speaker
Like, if we lose a generation of seasoned collectors who feel guilty for the reasons this fellow today was,
00:37:33
Speaker
You know, let's catch some of the younger people who haven't lost their jobs, who found the value of being at home anew in this crisis and who want to live with, you know, meaningful objects.
00:37:46
Speaker
I mean, lean into that.
00:37:48
Speaker
And I think that there are a lot of ways that people can do that.
00:37:51
Speaker
And, you know, it's been...
00:37:54
Speaker
an honor for me to work with a lot of antiques dealers over the past couple of years addressing precisely that challenge.
00:38:01
Speaker
But I feel like even though I was a proponent of going digital a couple of years ago, um,
00:38:10
Speaker
It's no longer about whether you're sort of pro or con.
00:38:14
Speaker
It's existential now.
00:38:16
Speaker
You know, we can't, no one can afford to lose a potential sales venue.
00:38:22
Speaker
And David spoke really eloquently to that.
00:38:25
Speaker
And I think...
00:38:26
Speaker
You know, he he spoke eloquently to that as a very successful dealer.
00:38:31
Speaker
And he was talking about people like Joe Kindig and Harry Aarons, who were also very successful in business.
00:38:39
Speaker
And in the case of both Kindig and Aarons, very moneyed.
00:38:43
Speaker
But the message shouldn't be that, you know,
00:38:49
Speaker
wealthy dealers whose immediate livelihoods aren't threatened should go and stockpile stuff.
00:38:55
Speaker
I mean, that has to happen where it can.
00:38:58
Speaker
I mean, anyone who is able to buy while the market is low should do it and make wise business decisions for themselves.
00:39:06
Speaker
But I think that the kind of meta point of that conversation with David is applicable for absolutely everybody, right?
00:39:13
Speaker
And it's
00:39:14
Speaker
While we're down, while we're in a trough, we have to be as innovative and strategic and positive and forward-thinking and really optimistic as we possibly can be, right?
00:39:28
Speaker
And that's how we'll make it through.
00:39:30
Speaker
And different strategies will work for different people.
00:39:33
Speaker
I love what Shrub Soul has been doing.
00:39:35
Speaker
with your Decameron-inspired series, Ben.
00:39:38
Speaker
You know, like, another firm would not have come up with that, right?
00:39:42
Speaker
You can't hire a consultant to come in and say, hey, Tim, hey, Ben, you know, create this storytelling series inspired by the Decameron.
00:39:51
Speaker
That came from your own, you know, intelligence, from your own culture, and the conversations that you've been pursuing at Shrub Soul,
00:40:02
Speaker
But you wouldn't have gotten around to it without this crisis, right?
00:40:06
Speaker
So it's time to sort of take all of that latent talent and thoughts and ideas and really apply them.
00:40:13
Speaker
And I think that separate from some of the specific conditions that I discussed with David, absolutely anyone can do that, right?
00:40:24
Speaker
Absolutely anyone can do what you've been doing at ShrubSail this week.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:29
Speaker
Well, in the words of Rahm Emanuel, you should never let a crisis go to waste.
00:40:33
Speaker
And I think that what we're seeing right now is the epitome of a trajectory that you and I have talked about on the podcast and elsewhere for years, Michael.
00:40:44
Speaker
which is that we no longer live in a world where you can rest on your laurels, where you can coast along doing business as usual.
00:40:53
Speaker
We didn't live in that world before this crisis, but we certainly don't live in that world now.
00:40:57
Speaker
We live in a world where if you want to do business in the world of antiques, and that means if you want to be a dealer, but it also means if you want to be a scholar, if you want to be a researcher, or even if you want to be a successful collector, you
00:41:10
Speaker
You know, it's not like it was in the 80s when you could run around to a bunch of estate sales and buy some nice looking things and bring them back to your shop front and put them in the window and mark them up 50% and give someone a discount and make a good profit.
00:41:30
Speaker
You know, that's a great business model.
00:41:32
Speaker
Essentially, it's a license to prim money.
00:41:35
Speaker
That business model, it's not as simple anymore.
00:41:39
Speaker
No, and it hasn't been for a long time, but I think that people have been positioned financially to weather a long downturn as long as it didn't totally crater like it may now, right?
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah, and there's been a sense that you can cut costs, you can rent a smaller space, you can move out of a shop front and into an office, you can do all these things to keep your business afloat.
00:42:05
Speaker
But a lot of people haven't been asking the question, well, how do I future-proof?
00:42:09
Speaker
How do I build a business that has the potential to not just eek by and survive, but to thrive?
00:42:19
Speaker
And now we're in a situation where a business that eeks by is likely a business that's not going to eek by anymore.
00:42:27
Speaker
And I think it's absolutely crucial, as you say, Michael, at this moment, for all of us who are involved in this world to think very critically about what it is that we do, what we're bringing to the market, whether that's our connoisseurship or our Rolodex or our scholarly knowledge and education and background, whether
00:42:51
Speaker
But what is it about our skills and our experience and our resources that really makes us and the work that we do valuable?
00:43:00
Speaker
We're going to have to reckon with that in the coming months.
00:43:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:05
Speaker
And OK, so can I be just a little bit controversial, Ben?
00:43:09
Speaker
Please.
00:43:09
Speaker
I love controversy.
00:43:10
Speaker
We can edit this out if it gets too edgy.
00:43:14
Speaker
I, you know, I've, we've both dedicated our lives to the antiques world.
00:43:18
Speaker
We do it for love, not money.
00:43:20
Speaker
And we believe in every dealer that we know, and we want them all to succeed.
00:43:27
Speaker
I have, there has been a consistent issue that I've identified in my work with dealers to try to help them move forward and quote, future-proof their businesses.
00:43:41
Speaker
And, you know,
00:43:43
Speaker
And this issue is really at the intersection of several topics we've been discussing.
Adapting to Cultural Changes and Engaging Audiences
00:43:50
Speaker
So we believe really strongly in the importance, the interest, the attractiveness of what, you know, a 20th century antiques dealer had to offer in
00:44:07
Speaker
when the market was at its height, you know?
00:44:09
Speaker
And I still love all of the characteristics of that kind of dealing.
00:44:15
Speaker
And you do too.
00:44:16
Speaker
And in some ways, we're throwbacks, right, Ben?
00:44:20
Speaker
I mean, like, you're not talking to the vanguard of, you know, the art world right here.
00:44:26
Speaker
But as millennials, we also are forced to,
00:44:31
Speaker
to pay attention to other things that are happening in culture and society.
00:44:36
Speaker
And I think that one issue is that
00:44:41
Speaker
those who enjoyed great success just doing their thing, doing what came naturally to them, leaning into their own strengths and expertise in the 80s and 90s, have had a hard time, in some cases, accepting that they will really have to do things differently and, even more importantly,
00:45:07
Speaker
really think about the consumers that they want to communicate with and in the context of business attract.
00:45:17
Speaker
You have to actually want to create new conversations with new consumers
00:45:24
Speaker
often on terms that are maybe not quite as natural for you if you want to future-proof your business.
00:45:32
Speaker
And all we have to do is look at the fashion world, look at the broader cultural landscape to know that every corporation does this, every fashion brand does this.
00:45:43
Speaker
Yes, they may maintain their heritage in the case of...
00:45:47
Speaker
you know, a fashion brand or a heritage luxury brand, it's critical that they maintain their heritage, their perspective, the characteristics that make them unique.
00:45:58
Speaker
But they also have to constantly check themselves to ensure that they are practicing due diligence so they know where the culture is headed and
00:46:11
Speaker
to ensure that they're speaking to that culture.
00:46:14
Speaker
And I think that, you know, in the antiques world, we're not always the best at meeting people where they are.
00:46:23
Speaker
We often want people to meet us where we are.
00:46:26
Speaker
And I think a big part of, you know, our work, Ben, has been acknowledging all of the value of where the antiques world is, right?
00:46:35
Speaker
We love it.
00:46:36
Speaker
We love it exactly as it is with all of its...
00:46:40
Speaker
all of its ways and I think it's really important to emphasize that here.
00:46:47
Speaker
But we also have to look to all of those older practices, all of our expertise,
00:46:56
Speaker
and the way we do things and think about how we evolve them for people who haven't been a part of the conversation.
00:47:02
Speaker
That means younger people.
00:47:04
Speaker
It means people of color who are not as involved in the antiques world as we would like them to be and for good reason because I think the antiques world hasn't opened itself up to them in the past.
00:47:18
Speaker
And I think that this is an important time to make some big decisions about
00:47:25
Speaker
how active we are in pursuit of that new audience.
00:47:28
Speaker
If we care about objects and we care about
00:47:33
Speaker
the the life of those objects you know as we move into the future if we want them to have homes with people who love them we have to go looking for those homes we have to go um you know out in pursuit of new people who can be turned towards this amazing pursuit of collecting that we're passionate about we can't just expect them to come to us
00:47:58
Speaker
And I'll stop going on about that.
00:48:01
Speaker
But I think it comes down to, you know, on a really concrete level, I've seen folks sort of try to generate like ads for some of the trade publications.
00:48:13
Speaker
And they'll, you know, they'll truck in sort of dad humor.
00:48:17
Speaker
And I love that.
00:48:18
Speaker
I love dad humor.
00:48:19
Speaker
I love my dad.
00:48:21
Speaker
I think it's hilarious to make like stupid puns and to kind of...
00:48:29
Speaker
talk to each other in language that's comfortable and familiar and humorous in the context of the antiques world does represent a sort of fun step forward.
00:48:42
Speaker
But, you know, dad humor that's very rooted in like a specific generation sensibility isn't necessarily going to translate to a 25-year-old.
00:48:52
Speaker
So...
00:48:54
Speaker
I don't think anyone should forsake their sense of humor or what they're good at.
00:49:00
Speaker
But it's a good time to take stock and think about, okay, if I want to try to appeal to a new audience, and not to appeal personally, but to get them turned on by the material, how do I talk to them?
00:49:17
Speaker
What young person could I turn to for advice about the tone I take on Instagram?
00:49:22
Speaker
If people aren't responding to my e-blasts, how can I, you know,
00:49:29
Speaker
strategize my message a little differently to see if I get a different response.
00:49:36
Speaker
I want to see that kind of self-critical attitude not because I don't love what traditional antiques dealers are doing.
00:49:43
Speaker
I do love it and I just want to make sure that they are able to communicate with the widest possible audience.
00:49:50
Speaker
I want for us all to be able to do that.
00:49:53
Speaker
And thinking outside the box, as cliche as that is, you know, it's something that historically our field has not been very good at.
Innovative Uses of Resources and Redefining Essentials
00:50:00
Speaker
I heard an amazing example, actually from someone I was talking with a couple of days ago at the Detroit Institute of Art, who says that the museum there is actually...
00:50:17
Speaker
supplying PPE to local hospitals because they, in their conservation department, they have masks, they have gloves, they have all this protective equipment that it turns out is critically useful to struggling medical facilities.
00:50:35
Speaker
So, you know, this is not exactly within the normal purview of a museum, right?
00:50:41
Speaker
Museums are not normally asked to help in public health crises.
00:50:46
Speaker
But they realized they had a resource available that was usable in a very different context.
00:50:54
Speaker
So I just want to say kudos to the Detroit Institute of Art for taking that step.
00:51:01
Speaker
But it's an example, I think, that we can all be thinking about our place in the market in unconventional ways now more than ever.
00:51:12
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:51:13
Speaker
And I think museums have really led the way in terms of developing initiatives that speak to other audiences or that, you know, bring the material we all love into communities in a democratic, very active way.
00:51:31
Speaker
And I think we could go on and on, but I think that our colleagues in museums really...
00:51:38
Speaker
have done a lot in the realm of education and digital initiatives that we can all look to now as inspiration as we think about how the market shifts to address, you know, a sort of generational challenge of communication, right?
00:51:59
Speaker
I don't want to debase what museums do by saying that they're kind of creating templates for business, but they've been uniquely concerned with how to communicate with a wide diversity of audiences.
00:52:13
Speaker
And the magical thing is once you're in communication with a wider group of people, you're connected to what's happening in the world, in the community,
00:52:26
Speaker
in ways that can motivate action, right?
00:52:28
Speaker
Like the dispersal of the personal protective equipment that some of the really forward thinking museums have been doing.
00:52:36
Speaker
It's like you start conversations around objects and that leads you to building a broader based community, right?
00:52:45
Speaker
And that's what we need in the market in addition to the museums.
00:52:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:51
Speaker
Well, I think we should move in the direction of wrapping up, but I wanted to talk for just a minute, Michael.
00:52:58
Speaker
Again, it's very early in this crisis and there's a lot that we don't know about how the coming weeks and months are gonna look.
00:53:07
Speaker
But I don't think it's too early to start at least hypothesizing about what we might start to see as the crisis ultimately resolves.
00:53:21
Speaker
How we might understand the antiques world to be changing in response to what we're experiencing right now.
00:53:29
Speaker
Basically, how are things going to look different on the other side of this?
00:53:33
Speaker
And the first thing that occurs to me, Michael, is just that
00:53:37
Speaker
Personally, this is an experience that's forcing me to rethink what I define as essential and what I define as non-essential.
00:53:48
Speaker
And it's going to be very interesting to look at my credit card bill for this month and next and who knows how long versus previous months and recognize that.
00:54:01
Speaker
what it is that I'm foregoing that I used to take for granted.
00:54:07
Speaker
And that, of course, is a central idea in collecting, right?
00:54:11
Speaker
Deciding what you're motivated to own, what you're motivated to go and see and to spend your time with and to look at.
00:54:21
Speaker
And
00:54:24
Speaker
That's actually a hopeful thought to me, that as people are spending their time in their homes with their furniture, with their objects, that we're going to start to realize how essential a lot of the elements of daily life are, that in other times we've sort of brushed to the fringes of our awareness.
00:54:47
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:54:50
Speaker
I so agree with that.
00:54:52
Speaker
In fact, a friend of mine, Sarah Bray, who's a former co-chair of Young Collectors Night at the Winter Show and a former editor of numerous publications in New York before she...
00:55:08
Speaker
sort of semi-retired to Bermuda, where her fiancé is from, and I'm supremely jealous of everything in that sentence.
00:55:19
Speaker
She made this really wonderful post this week saying that the experience of moving to an isolated island coupled with the coronavirus pandemic have really motivated her to
00:55:31
Speaker
to make a commitment to ask herself three questions before she makes a purchase.
00:55:37
Speaker
And I should add that Sarah has always been a proponent of antiques and vintage material for as long as I've known her.
00:55:44
Speaker
But sort of more than ever, she's asking, you know, is this non-essential item that she's buying not adding more waste to the world?
00:55:52
Speaker
So really giving body to this idea of antiques being green, right?
00:55:57
Speaker
Which, you know, I like that idea for a lot of reasons, but I don't think that the way we've deployed it in the antiques world has been very successful.
00:56:09
Speaker
It's just been too... We've only had the catchphrase.
00:56:11
Speaker
We haven't really had the practice of asking this question that Sarah has outlined.
00:56:17
Speaker
Is this non-essential item not adding more waste to the world?
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:22
Speaker
Two, does this non-essential item support a small business or entrepreneur in my community that I can directly know or trust to be ethically employing or empowering artisans or, in the case of the antiques world, local talent?
00:56:42
Speaker
You know, like people like you, Ben, who know a lot about silver.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:48
Speaker
And three, is this non-essential item locally made or sourced and directly impacting my community?
00:56:56
Speaker
And I can't think of anything that does all of that more in our context than American antiques.
00:57:03
Speaker
So I loved this post that she made on Instagram of all places, right?
00:57:09
Speaker
I mean, here's a millennial on Instagram doing the work we're all talking about.
00:57:14
Speaker
And it really inspires... So this is set up as sort of three questions you ask yourself before you buy post-coronavirus.
00:57:26
Speaker
And an object that you're thinking about buying in Sarah's framework doesn't have to meet all three of those standards.
00:57:34
Speaker
I like that about this.
00:57:36
Speaker
It's not a restrictive or punitive approach.
00:57:39
Speaker
It's kind of...
00:57:41
Speaker
You know, it's favorable to consumption.
00:57:46
Speaker
You're asking, does this object take off one of these three rules?
00:57:51
Speaker
And if it does, then you let yourself buy it.
00:57:53
Speaker
But I love that she's saying that this moment in her house on this island has kind of inspired her to finally...
00:58:04
Speaker
take all that she's been thinking and feeling over these last couple of years of sort of rising awareness around antiques and vintage and sustainability and to activate it in her own practice as a collector.
00:58:21
Speaker
I love that.
00:58:22
Speaker
I think that's a wonderful framework and easy to apply, but really impactful.
00:58:28
Speaker
And, you know, it's applicable to every single purchase of an antique or vintage object, right?
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:38
Speaker
So how to connect to others.
Conclusion: Positive Actions for the Future
00:58:42
Speaker
Sarah's already converted, but how to connect to all of those who have the same ethical standards, the same ideas about value, and who've maybe been moved to act on them in an even more consistent way after this experience.
00:58:58
Speaker
How to connect with them, I think, is the question of the day in the antiques world.
00:59:03
Speaker
And I don't think there's one answer, but I think every business will have to be considering the question in order to succeed.
00:59:12
Speaker
I think that's a lovely idea, and I think it's a lovely note to end on.
00:59:17
Speaker
Michael, thank you so much.
00:59:18
Speaker
This has been a lot of fun.
00:59:20
Speaker
It's making me feel a little better, actually, particularly ending on a note of optimism like that.
00:59:29
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead.
00:59:30
Speaker
No, I mean, we have plenty of work to do, but it can be framed in a positive way, and I think that's important for our mental health as we confront a crisis.
00:59:41
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:59:43
Speaker
Listeners, I hope you've enjoyed this.
00:59:45
Speaker
Stay tuned.
00:59:46
Speaker
We have plenty more content coming your way.
00:59:49
Speaker
And until next time, this has been Curious Objects.
00:59:54
Speaker
Cheers, everyone.
00:59:55
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:59:55
Speaker
This is Michael Diaz-Griffith.
00:59:58
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
01:00:00
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
01:00:02
Speaker
Take care.
01:00:03
Speaker
Bye-bye.