Transcript
Speaker: Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller.
Speaker: If you're a longtime listener and you reach back into the hazy memory of Curious Objects of yore, before, yes, even COVID-19, you may recall an erudite young gentleman who was not only a stellar guest on this podcast, but who actually co-hosted a number of episodes with me.
Speaker: And now that same young man, although we're both a little older, has written a book that I think if you enjoy this podcast, you will find delightful.
Speaker: It's called The New Antiquarians.
Speaker: And the author is, of course, Michael Diaz Griffith.
Speaker: Michael, it's nice to have you back.
Speaker: Oh, it's nice to be back, Ben.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: And thank you for that very kind introduction.
Speaker: Although I was once young and now I'm old.
Speaker: So let's see if I'm still erudite.
Speaker: Maybe not.
Speaker: Maybe I'm declining.
Speaker: Some people get more erudite with age.
Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case for you.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: My cognition is hopefully up to snuff.
Speaker: Let's test it out.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: So today's curious object, of course, is your book, The New Antiquarians.
Speaker: We're going to talk all about it.
Speaker: But first, I hope listeners will allow us a moment of nostalgia because I was just thinking about some of the interviews that you and I had a chance to do back in the day with, you know, Jennifer Tankovic at the Morgan Library where you and I took turns sitting in J.P.
Speaker: Morgan's desk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And of course, at Becky McGuire and Kara Zimmerman at Christie's, educating us about porcelain and about outsider art and Bill Traylor.
Speaker: Those were the good old days.
Speaker: They really were.
Speaker: And, you know, we were still co-hosting episodes together when the pandemic began.
Speaker: So even though it's not the warmest, happiest memory, I remember, you know, trying to track what was happening to the antiques world and to the trade in particular in those early days.
Speaker: And it's kind of a bright spot in my memory of lockdown, to be honest.
Speaker: So all really fond associations.
Speaker: That was very interesting.
Speaker: You and I had a number of conversations around that time about what was happening in the marketplace.
Speaker: And it was fascinating because, of course, well, you know, COVID was terrible in so many ways, but there were some silver linings.
Speaker: And one of those was that people were devoting so much more attention to their own lived environment.
Speaker: Precisely.
Speaker: No, and I think in the antiques trade, in the world of interior design and architecture, there was a real sort of upward tick in different categories of furniture, art, people were building, people were remodeling, you know, after lockdown abated.
Speaker: And I think it was ultimately a positive thing for anyone who deals in
Speaker: the home, right?
Speaker: Whether it's a collection that's displayed in the home or, you know, the makeup of the home, kitchens, bathrooms, it was a really positive thing for many businesses.
Speaker: And I also think so many of our friends who hadn't quite made it online finally made the leap once they were forced to.
Speaker: And it's a bit sad that it was an almost involuntary leap,
Speaker: but a leap it was nonetheless.
Speaker: And, you know, I remember we were looking at all those online fairs, which were a first in many cases for the antiques trade.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a lot, a lot has changed, but I think there's more positive that's come from it than one might expect until you really reflect.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker: And it's interesting that, you know, this was also around the same time that you and I started a group that was called in no coincidence, the New Antiquarians.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And boy, that group was fun and we should bring it back, Ben.
Speaker: I think, you know, we've been a bit busy and I think during the pandemic, we decided since we were already, you know, hosting so many sort of digital events for both your business and the magazine and the Soane Foundation, which I ran, then we decided let's not, you know, sort of add more Zoom webinars to anybody's plate.
Speaker: But at its core, the New Antiquarians was about enjoying connoisseurship in person, right?
Speaker: Going to galleries like yours, like Shrub Soul and handling objects.
Speaker: I remember when we had the meetup in Central Park
Speaker: Sat on antique quilts and, you know, handled our own objects, shared about objects that we loved, passed them around, taught each other about disciplines that we had a specialized interest in.
Speaker: And it was really fun and it absolutely should come back.
Speaker: You know, since then, I've been a little busy with the book, but I think that I've got a little extra time on my hands now.
Speaker: Well, that's nice to hear.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, we ought to be able to ride the coattails of a book called The New Antiquarius.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's all a part of the same big enterprise, right?
Speaker: Advocating for the interest and the enduring appeal of antiques.
Speaker: Yeah, and I appreciate what you said about the digital events, which of course were numerous in those months of 2020 and into 2021.
Speaker: And digital education is a wonderful thing, but in the antiques world in particular, it's just impossible to replace that physical tactile experience as we had at Central Park or in our behind-the-scenes tour of the Hispanic Society or the...
Speaker: wonderful event that we had at Doyle Auctions, where we got to look at their offerings before one of their sales and speak with their connoisseurs about it.
Speaker: You know, that in-person interaction is what drives so much of what makes the antiques industry interesting to us.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I think it's time for us to bring that back.
Speaker: But let's let's talk about the book, because, you know, this is first of all, I just have to say right off the bat that it's beautifully designed.
Speaker: It's it's a great object in itself, which is fitting for the subject matter.
Speaker: You have the cover, the decorative elements, the photography.
Speaker: I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit about the design process for the book as a physical object.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So from the minute that I decided to do a book, I really knew that I wanted it to be experienced as an object.
Speaker: So it makes me really happy that you say that, Ben.
Speaker: It was absolutely the goal.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, there was a sense that
Speaker: we don't just want to talk about objects.
Speaker: We want to embody in the form of the book, you know, a sense of historicity, a sense of quality in the context of materials, a sense of craftsmanship and the way that it's bound.
Speaker: And so that was the remit from the beginning.
Speaker: And I was really, really grateful that Fiden and the Monticelli Press, my publishers,
Speaker: allowed me to work with my creative collaborator in graphic design, Elizabeth Goodspeed, who's just brilliant.
Speaker: She's RISD trained and is obsessed with historic archives.
Speaker: She's actually become a bit of a specialist in sourcing visual references from online archives and even has a newsletter about this called The Casual Archivist, which I highly, highly recommend.
Speaker: So from the beginning of the book's production, we were
Speaker: you know, intent on incorporating historic ornament into the sort of visual landscape of the book.
Speaker: And she went off on a mission to source the most amazing open source imagery and, you know, illustrations that you see both, you know, on the cover and on the book itself.
Speaker: You see them inside in the context of borders that we created to frame the portraits of the subjects of the book and in spot illustrations that are scattered throughout.
Speaker: And it was quite an undertaking.
Speaker: I mean, we have a spreadsheet where I have listed the sort of
Speaker: decorative sort of idioms that fit each of the subjects.
Speaker: And she has responded with some test images that she sourced from archives.
Speaker: And I've said, no, you know, she's not quite a Greek meander.
Speaker: She's more of an art nouveau, you know, back and forth.
Speaker: And, and she was just brilliant at, at sourcing those elements and stitching them together.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: We were lucky to collaborate with a really brilliant photographer on the bulk of the book.
Speaker: All but two of the chapters were shot by the same photographer, Brian Ferry.
Speaker: So from the beginning to the end, you know, it was a really small team that had creative control that was guiding the development of the book, which was lucky for me.
Speaker: I've literally just gone and signed up for the casual archivist newsletter while you were answering that question.
Speaker: It's a wise decision.
Speaker: Elizabeth is brilliant.
Speaker: So you mentioned the Soane Foundation.
Speaker: And of course, when you and I met, you were at the Winter Show.
Speaker: And now you're the director of the Design Leadership Network.
Speaker: It seems to an outside observer that your professional trajectory has drifted in the design direction.
Speaker: And so I'm interested to ask you about your perceptions, because now you're intimately familiar and acquainted with both the design community and the antiques community.
Speaker: which of course overlap to a great degree.
Speaker: But I wonder what you think the interior design community misunderstands about the antiques world.
Speaker: So, yeah, I run now a professional association of interior designers, architects, and landscape architects called the Design Leadership Network.
Speaker: And we have about 700 members and partners.
Speaker: So I am...
Speaker: deep inside the design world, it's true.
Speaker: And, you know, I don't think that it's so much a matter of the design world misunderstanding, you know, antiques or the antiques world as the overlap being partial, right?
Speaker: So there are parts of the design world that are deeply, deeply acquainted with the world encompassed by the magazine antiques.
Speaker: There are designers, David Scott, for example, comes to mind, who actually have a practice in dealing antiques.
Speaker: They are connoisseurs themselves.
Speaker: I work with many designers who sit on museum boards, who are great collectors, who work with great collectors.
Speaker: So on one side of the Venn diagram are people who are intimately connected to the antiques world.
Speaker: And then there are designers that aren't so exposed.
Speaker: or who think that antiques may be inaccessible for their clients.
Speaker: And I've had a really great time working to help expose those designers to the antiques world, you know, not necessarily in a way that feels, that the designers feel, but at the DLN we even, you know, set up gallery visits,
Speaker: museum visits as a part of the activities that we pursue.
Speaker: And I love it, you know, exposing designers who may or may not have exposure to this context to it.
Speaker: We recently brought a group through Galerie Cougel in Paris, and one of the designers said, is this a museum?
Speaker: And we said, it's all for sale.
Speaker: And it was kind of a great revelation.
Speaker: And, you know, some great relationships were forged that day
Speaker: And I think some eyes were opened.
Speaker: So, you know, there's there's a lot more dialogue that can be mounted towards that side of the design world and the antiques world.
Speaker: And that's absolutely one of my projects right now.
Speaker: And, you know, the concept of the book.
Speaker: is that we're looking at the collections of young collectors of antiques, historic art, vintage design, but we're looking at those collections very much in the context of their homes.
Speaker: So for people who love a good design book or who love interior inspiration as we might call it on social media, there's a bit of candy there that hopefully will act as a lure bin.
Speaker: And for those who are not exposed to connoisseurship at the highest level, hopefully they bite on the candy and they get drawn into our, you know, weird and wacky and absolutely magnificent world of antiques.
Speaker: That's the hope.
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker: I mean, I ask because I think that this project of sort of connecting communities, particularly communities who are interested in visual vocabulary, but who don't have the kind of, you know, connoisseurial exposure that you and I do to the antiques world, you know, that's been a mission of yours for a long time and was certainly an important pillar of what the organization, the New Antiquarians, was originally oriented around.
Speaker: And so this book seems like a kind of apotheosis of that principle where, well, so you've started to describe it, but for listeners who haven't taken a look at it yet, essentially, this is an odyssey of interiors.
Speaker: It's a peek inside dozens of homes of people who, roughly speaking, belong to our generation, your and my generation, and
Speaker: And people who, like us and like you, dear listeners, believe that it is worth investing time and care into the objects that we spend our lives with.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And, you know, I think that the most obvious differentiator for these collectors is that they're younger.
Speaker: But I also think, you know, it's notable that they're not all inheritors of generational wealth.
Speaker: Some of the interiors contain high style and even museum quality material.
Speaker: Others don't.
Speaker: And, you know, I've run, you know, a vetted art fair.
Speaker: We've certainly worked at the highest reaches of the antiques market, Ben, you and I. But it's important, I think, to embrace, you know, authenticity, condition, quality in whatever context we find ourselves in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And sometimes that's
Speaker: An interior where the person may not be able to collect, you know, silver at the highest level.
Speaker: But as you know, Ben, there's some great silver out there to be found, even for a couple hundred dollars.
Speaker: If you know how to look, if you know where to look.
Speaker: So I like that, you know, we've been able to embrace a wide constituency in terms of.
Speaker: their material ability to collect.
Speaker: And there are certainly some collectors in the book who've been very creative about pursuing their practice with limited resources in some cases.
Speaker: And that's very relatable.
Speaker: It's relatable to me.
Speaker: And I think it speaks to one of the changing currents in the antiques world, which is that
Speaker: the sort of socially competitive collecting that characterized the boom time of the 80s 90s and early 2000s has abated you know and i talk about this in the introduction to the book it's not that financiers are competing over who has the rarest english furniture in their dining rooms that has not come back and i'm very open about that so
Speaker: with a sort of class-based, socially competitive collecting habit still on the wane, the question is, where is this uptick that I'm saying is happening happening?
Speaker: And, you know, I do think it's happening among people who are independent of mind, who want to develop an interior that's particularly rich and expressive of who they are.
Speaker: It's
Speaker: it's a different probably slice of society than the one that powered the boom times at the end of the 20th century.
Speaker: And I think the book kind of illustrates that.
Speaker: It's a fresh cast of characters.
Speaker: And I think that's an interesting thing for dealers, especially to look at it, to consider, who is your client in this emerging generation?
Speaker: They may look a little bit different from the clients that you had 20 years ago.
Speaker: But not only is that, you know, okay, it's actually really, really exciting.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Not to mention inevitable.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, I think you and I are all too familiar with the pining, nostalgia-laden conversations with dealers about the golden age of antique fairs where people would line up outside the gates and
Speaker: You spend hours in line just to be sure that they were the first to get to X, Y or Z booth and snap up the best material before their friends could.
Speaker: And I understand the excitement about that, particularly when you have a financial interest in it.
Speaker: And there's something very appealing about being able to make a living just by finding good things and selling them to the most ravenous collectors.
Speaker: But I have to say, and you framed it very well, you know, good riddance to that style of collecting, because that's not, yes, it's collecting, but it's not really about the qualities of the objects that certainly that I find most appealing and compelling and motivating.
Speaker: And I'm excited to see a new form of collecting, even if it's quieter in some ways, which gives more attention to the kind of personal experience, the intimate personal relationship that is perhaps more inspiring for cohorts of you and me.
Speaker: Yeah, and you know, I do think that there are certainly trends in the antiques market, certainly in the world of vintage design, and we'll continue to see sort of, you know, trending objects, disciplines, stylistic idioms in the future.
Speaker: But one overarching idea here is that at the level of collecting and connoisseurship, the sort of
Speaker: mania over one specific type of object at a given moment, you know, weather vanes or whatever, is less likely to be
Speaker: to recur, I think, in this generation than this slightly more diffuse, much more plural sense of, you know, everything is interesting, right?
Speaker: And as a collector, you're on this journey to figure out what you are passionate about, what best expresses
Speaker: your vision of the world and what you're interested in learning about.
Speaker: And everyone will, I think, find their own path through that if they dive into collecting now.
Speaker: The internet has already sort of caused the doors to
Speaker: blow open in fashion, in interior design, and every style you could ever imagine wearing is available to wear, to surround yourself with at home.
Speaker: It's less about sort of one idiom characterizing our times now as the sheer availability of sort of almost anything you could dream of.
Speaker: And I think that that does apply to the antiques world as well as to the design world at large.
Speaker: And it's exciting, but it might mean that, you know, you don't have
Speaker: two people fighting over the same chair at an antiques show, literally trying to rip it out of each other's hands.
Speaker: In a funny way, it might spell success for dealers who are able to take advantage of that movement and maybe hard times for auctioneers who really rely on that kind of, well, competition is, of course, the definition of their business model.
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: And I mean, of course, certain items will appeal to the eye, to the spirit of a given generation or a certain coterie.
Speaker: But, you know, I think that if we're looking at this from a financial perspective,
Speaker: just as there are disciplines that have declined since the early 2000s roughly, there are disciplines that were not assigned great value during those boom times that are now being recognized in this sort of hurly-burly of the digital plurality that we live in.
Speaker: You know, I talk about this in the book.
Speaker: There are
Speaker: areas like plywood furniture from the 30s in England that are becoming more and more interesting for a young cohort of collectors, certain kinds of Victoriana that were not highly in demand when the boom time was at its apex that are very interesting to millennials and Gen Z collectors.
Speaker: And so, you know, I think that there's a lot to look at and think about both in this book and in the market right now that, yeah, it's simply different from what we were seeing during the last resurgence for antiques.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll be right back with Michael.
Speaker: But first, I always like to take a moment just to say thank you for listening.
Speaker: I really appreciate you being here with me to explore curious objects together.
Speaker: If you're enjoying the show, I would really appreciate it if you take a moment to leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever app you're listening to right now.
Speaker: These reviews are great fun to read.
Speaker: I particularly appreciated someone who said that Curious Objects is entertaining and educational and completely lacking in stress.
Speaker: That's terrific.
Speaker: I'm so glad to hear it.
Speaker: And I hope I can help you feel just a little less stressed out for an hour at least.
Speaker: If you'd like to get in touch with me, and I'd love to hear from you, you can email me at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com, or you can find my Instagram at Objective Interest.
Speaker: Let's get back to Michael Diaz-Griffitt.
Speaker: I was excited to see multiple Curious Objects guests make appearances in the New Antiquarians, including, well, of course, the very first chapter, which is about the home of Emily Bodie, who joined you and me for the inaugural New Antiquarians event at the Winter Show in the Board of Officers room back in, was that 2018 or 2019?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 2018, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is sort of the cast of characters that, you know, I've been in dialogue with about these things for the last five years.
Speaker: And obviously we've had dialogue together with some of them.
Speaker: And one of the things that I think is notable about the group is that, you know, they're not coming from the heart of the antiques world in many cases.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When I was at the winter show on the staff side, you and I talked a lot, Ben, about how I would sort of make forays out into the fashion world or the design world before I worked in it like I do now to sort of find the younger people who were in dialogue with the material culture of the past.
Speaker: And I believe very firmly then that they existed and that
Speaker: they would gain a lot from being at the winter show.
Speaker: I knew that they would gain from that.
Speaker: And, you know, Emily is one of those people who long before the runaway success of her fashion brand,
Speaker: even when she was just starting out, was articulating a very scrupulous and careful sort of position in relation to antiques and historic material, textiles in particular, obviously, that really...
Speaker: marked the sensibility of someone who should be in dialogue with the antiques world, you know, at the highest level and in the spaces that you and I have been privileged to move in.
Speaker: So she helped us launch the podcast, you know, relationship with the New Antiquarians group.
Speaker: And, you know, my conversations with her and her husband, Aaron, have continued.
Speaker: even as I've seen them gain more and more influence over a wide audience of younger people who love what they do and through them have been exposed to this passion for historic sort of aesthetics.
Speaker: You know, there are also some young interior designers, a creative director for a furniture brand in the book.
Speaker: And
Speaker: While I also know many people who are sort of private citizens and not in the design world who collect antiques, and we certainly want to give them attention, one of the things that's notable about these young people in the design field is that they certainly display their material in a way that's very interesting and often fresh and different from what we've seen in the past.
Speaker: So it was important to show their interiors because they're a register of how
Speaker: antiques are being displayed a little bit differently now you know as compared to 10 or 20 years ago and and emily and aaron kind of lead off the book in that spirit
Speaker: Yes, well, and of course, that group of sort of antiques adjacent young professionals, people in fashion, people in other design areas, you know, that is often the medium through which the vocabulary of antiques decorative arts makes its way into the general public perception.
Speaker: And I think you've been a very important voice in, as we've talked about, building bridges there and helping to grease the wheels of that communication.
Speaker: I'm mixing my metaphors, but it's very interesting to go through your book and see how the subjects range from, on the one extreme, actual antique dealers,
Speaker: To collectors, to young professionals with an interior design focus or whether it's a professional interest or a hobby or whether they're just people who, again, think, like to think about the way that they live and the objects that they surround themselves with.
Speaker: It's such a broad spectrum.
Speaker: And I certainly hope that people on the sort of staid connoisseurial side of the teeter-totter will take a look at that book and start to think a little more broadly about the world that they inhabit or that they could inhabit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and to see, you know, in a young person on the street who's wearing an outfit that has bows on it or whatever, a potential antiques enthusiast.
Speaker: You know, we talked a lot about this when when we were in dialogue with Emily, but there.
Speaker: sometimes I think we get things a little backwards and we focus on who's coming to us in the antiques world with interest in the material culture of the past.
Speaker: But, you know, instead I'm very insistent on going to people who would seem to be likely converts and sort of saying, look, did you know that you can actually learn far more about this stuff?
Speaker: everything that you're interested in and posting on Instagram about has a name.
Speaker: There are all of these cool, geeky people who are also concerned with what those things are.
Speaker: You can live with them and you can really inhabit a world that is completely enriched by exposure to those objects.
Speaker: And, you know, boy, does a young person who is sort of predisposed
Speaker: recognize when they're being approached with that opportunity.
Speaker: I see it time and again.
Speaker: We sort of overestimate, I think, what their previous exposure might have been.
Speaker: And we think young people have rejected the antiques world, but actually most have not ever been exposed.
Speaker: And, you know, as someone who comes from a very humble background in rural Alabama, I count myself among those people.
Speaker: I didn't know that there was a world, a professional world, an academic world in which my private interests could be pursued at such a high level for a really long time.
Speaker: So when people say to me, you know, my kids don't want my things, I try to remind them that even if their kids are rejecting their familial patrimony, someone else's kids won't.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Sometimes it is the case that people reject what they grew up with.
Speaker: I think that was largely the case with Gen X, not to stereotype because we know lots of antiques geeks who are Gen X, but there was a shift.
Speaker: I would say from the second half of the 90s into the 2000s, as Gen X came of age and developed buying power towards minimalism, towards mid-century modern material, which at the time was viewed through the lens of disruption rather than continuity by the antiques world, because it hadn't sort of developed enough age yet to be seen as just the latest flourishing of the antiques world.
Speaker: A lot of that was rejection, for sure.
Speaker: I mean, if you were a moneyed person who grew up with parents who were collectors of antiques, it was much sexier in 1997 to buy a loft in Tribeca and sparsely furnish it with Danish, you know, material.
Speaker: And so the sort of cyclical nature of taste and, frankly, of the family dynamic were often...
Speaker: people end up being closer to their grandchildren than their children.
Speaker: It certainly is reflected in the antiques world.
Speaker: And right now, if I were to characterize what's happened in a generational sense, we would say that those great collectors from the 80s and 90s, whose children rejected their patrimony, are now seeing that their grandchildren don't.
Speaker: So whether it's a grandchild instead of a child or whether it's someone like me who didn't grow up with antiques, but who learned that there was a world to embrace in the form of the antiques world.
Speaker: For me, it's all about being open to, to those who have the interest to express interest or who seem likely to be converted into enthusiasts instead of wringing our hands because some people won't, um,
Speaker: won't take to it.
Speaker: You know, there are just some who are never going to get it.
Speaker: And that's okay because there are so, so many others who will get it.
Speaker: Was there a, out of all of the chapters in your book, was there one interior that struck you as the most perfect extension of its owner's personality?
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: That's really, that's a great question.
Speaker: You know, I think that one of the most
Speaker: perfectly expressive interiors in that sense belongs to Pablo Bronstein, the British Argentine artist.
Speaker: It's one of the few interiors that we were able to shoot in Britain because the book was produced during the pandemic.
Speaker: And so travel restrictions conditioned, you know,
Speaker: whom and where we were able to shoot.
Speaker: And in further books, I look forward to getting more to Europe because there's a lot that's happening there that's exciting in the realm of antiques, as ever.
Speaker: But what's fun about Pablo's house in Deal is that
Speaker: It is his second home.
Speaker: And so it is a little zanier and a little more reflective of his eccentricities than his London flat.
Speaker: And he's a little older than many of the other subjects, although he's in his 40s.
Speaker: He wouldn't mind my saying.
Speaker: I hope I might be getting a phone call.
Speaker: And so he's had a little more time to...
Speaker: develop that, the expression of his sensibility that, you know, that we think about in this book.
Speaker: And he's able to do that in a very free-handed way because, you know, we're dealing with a second home.
Speaker: And actually after the book was completed, he decided to liquidate most of his collection
Speaker: with the exception of the silver sugar casters that form its heart.
Speaker: I'm so happy to hear that.
Speaker: I, of course, paid special attention to that chapter because of the inclusion of numerous antique silver objects.
Speaker: They're really worth talking about.
Speaker: I have a sort of point to make about those.
Speaker: But he did that because, you know, he has a second home, he's financially comfortable, but he's not...
Speaker: a financier, he has limited means, and he wanted to start over and do something new.
Speaker: With his collecting practice, he said something really interesting to me, which is that, you know, over time you can become a bit of a prisoner to the taste that you develop.
Speaker: And I feel that all the time.
Speaker: I'm constantly finding myself sort of ready to start over with an interior that I live in or a collection that I'm forming.
Speaker: And so I love that he's doing that, but it really tells me that
Speaker: when we shot that interior, it was kind of at the, in that collection, it was at the end of its sort of life cycle with Pablo, right?
Speaker: And in that sense, I think it's most complete, whereas many of the other interiors are closer to the beginning of their life cycle.
Speaker: And the collections, I think, will continue to grow and evolve for many, many years to come.
Speaker: But about the Silver Sugar casters, I think one thing that's notable here is that
Speaker: a lot of the collecting that you see in the book would be characterized as cross-collecting across disciplines, across periods.
Speaker: And that's just undeniably true.
Speaker: I will point out that the expression of
Speaker: of this cross collecting among millennials and Gen Z collectors is different from what we see, for example, at cross collecting fairs.
Speaker: I think sometimes cross collecting is understood as, you know, you have a
Speaker: an 18th century sideboard and you hang an abex painting above it.
Speaker: And I think that's a very inert vision of cross-collecting that gets a bit overstated at fairs and sort of in contexts where we're trying to promote cross-collecting.
Speaker: For me, cross-collecting feels a little desperate.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it does feel desperate.
Speaker: And I will go on record publicly as saying it does not appeal to younger people.
Speaker: It's a very kind of,
Speaker: It's a bit of an outdated vision of what cross-collecting is.
Speaker: The combinations you see in the book are much, much more eccentric.
Speaker: They're headier.
Speaker: They're more creative.
Speaker: I mean, it's worth looking at that and really thinking about how a dealer, for example, displays antiques with contemporary material if they want to do that.
Speaker: I mean, you should do it.
Speaker: Everyone should do it and feel...
Speaker: liberty when approaching the display of antique material, but
Speaker: it's, there's a sort of higher bar, I think, to reach now because people are collecting across genres and periods in such a creative way.
Speaker: So I think it's up to dealers, it's up to curators and anyone else who wants to be a part of that conversation to also put a great deal of thought and care and intention in the way that they conceive of cross collecting
Speaker: or displaying material in a way that creates dialogues that may be sort of new or unusual.
Speaker: But then Pablo also is a serial collector of silver in the most traditional manner of connoisseurship at its greatest.
Speaker: And I think that's notable too, because we know that
Speaker: in the sort of tragic bust of the antiques market, the top of the market remained relatively stable.
Speaker: It was really the realm of furnishings and cereal collecting that suffered.
Speaker: And one might be tempted to think, okay, the young people are bringing back collecting, but it's cross collecting now, and they may not care about connoisseurship, but that's really not true.
Speaker: Just as Abel Sloan and Ruby Woodhouse, who are also featured in the book are
Speaker: becoming leading experts in the world on plywood furniture from the 30s of all things, Pablo has become, I mean, I would say expert in this particular form of sugar casters from the 18th century that as you've seen, Ben, he's collecting in his house in Deal, Kent, which is featured in the book.
Speaker: And it's just connoisseurship at its best.
Speaker: He follows the market.
Speaker: He follows the auctions.
Speaker: He does probably fight with people at antiques fairs and pulls the sugar casters out of their hands.
Speaker: But at the same time, he's also very creative and liberated in how he talks about them.
Speaker: He made a suggestive comment that he appreciates the sort of phallic shape of the sugar casters.
Speaker: It jokes that they have a good feeling in the hand.
Speaker: I mean, you know, it's connoisseurship, you know, 2.0, but it is connoisseurship.
Speaker: And I think that I've never tried that sales pitch with with casters myself.
Speaker: I mean, but think of your future now, Ben.
Speaker: I see a trend for sugar casters on the horizon.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll stick your commission in the mail.
Speaker: To ask you the converse question, was there an interior that from the book that really surprised you when you saw it that you thought was incongruous with what you thought you knew about its denizens?
Speaker: You know, I don't think that there was a sort of mismatch between the personality of the subject and their interior.
Speaker: Most of the people in the book are friends, you know, it was produced in a very familial way, partly because it was produced during the pandemic.
Speaker: So it was harder to call people up and say, hey, can I invade your house during the pandemic to shoot it?
Speaker: There is a narrative though that I think relates to this question of surprise and my friend Camille Okio, who's in the book, is kind of the star of this story to me and it really relates to changing tastes as we move from millennial to Gen Z collectors or collectors who are in their 40s and 30s versus collectors in their 20s.
Speaker: So, you know, when we first started talking about all this stuff, Ben, I was really convinced that, you know, millennials love or could love or should love antiques because millennials actually love color and pattern and texture.
Speaker: And, you know, at the time, Lady Gaga and Gucci under Alessandro Michele with all of its color and historical referencing.
Speaker: And, you know, I just did not buy this narrative that, you know,
Speaker: David Price-Millennials were obsessed with IKEA I really felt like that narrative described what had happened with the gen X right the people who really did bring minimalism to the fore.
Speaker: David Price-Millennials were.
Speaker: something else was going on with them.
Speaker: And I, you know, constantly say, we just haven't come into our buying power.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: Millennials may have been stuck with IKEA, but that's different from loving it.
Speaker: But it's yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And what year did you graduate college, Ben? 2010.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I graduated in 2009 right into the recession.
Speaker: So, you know, I always said, cut us some slack.
Speaker: I mean, you know, we might be living with Billy bookcases, but it's just because we can't afford what we really want yet.
Speaker: And those of us who don't have parents who are collectors,
Speaker: can't just go to mom and dad's house and steal a couple of antiques, you know, it takes a little time to build up.
Speaker: And I was noticing that as popular as Ikea was, you know, perhaps in cosmopolitan centers, perhaps out of necessity,
Speaker: Millennials actually seem to be more attracted to the tat at anthropology, you know, the high street store that does a lot of riffing on historical references, etc.
Speaker: And so my feeling was there's really something here with millennials and historic ornament pattern, etc.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, the years that we were, um,
Speaker: developing the New Antiquarians group and the years in which Instagram was rising to prominence and importance really bore that out.
Speaker: I mean, we saw the sort of advent of what has been called grand millennial taste
Speaker: which can be quite dubious under certain circumstances.
Speaker: I say that as someone whose photo was printed in the New York Post at about like 12 by 18 inches with the word grand millennial, like plastered on top of it.
Speaker: It's a little embarrassing because some of it is kind of icky, you know, like,
Speaker: not good lettuce wear, but fake lettuce wear that people are buying at inflated prices online.
Speaker: But that really did bear out that, you know, whether it's vintage material that people are buying on Cherish or, you know, millennial women wearing nap dresses that are that have puffy sleeves, there was something there.
Speaker: And I'd say that a lot of the interiors in the book kind of relate not to grand millennial taste, but to this millennial sensibility that's very eclectic, right?
Speaker: Very colorful and full, you know, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, um, schemes for rooms that are packed with antiques, vintage material, art, and, um,
Speaker: personal finds that are combined in novel ways, but often, you know, in very concentrated ways that bring all of the objects into very close dialogue.
Speaker: And I think Gen Z, you know, people from sort of their early 30s down,
Speaker: more broadly speaking, have a slightly different take.
Speaker: And I think that it's a little bit calmer and cooler that there's actually a little bit of minimalism in the background, almost of the sort that you see in the work of Axel Vervoot, where...
Speaker: There are antiques and antiquities and natural specimens, but they're distributed in a way that lets the objects breathe, you know?
Speaker: And instead of the wall behind being lacquered as they are in my house, because I'm admittedly like, you know,
Speaker: at the heart of the maximalist millennial taste, there's a taste for a white wall or a beige wall or skimmed plaster walls and a couple of beautiful things displayed really quietly and almost more in the manner of a museum than a residential interior.
Speaker: And we all have references for that way of displaying things.
Speaker: you know, even Jerry Lauren's propensity to put weather vanes in front of a white wall kind of speaks to a similar taste.
Speaker: But I do think that if anything, we're seeing an increasing interest in antiques or a continued increase in interest among 20-somethings, but an evolving way of displaying them.
Speaker: And I think that there's even a narrative here of
Speaker: of kind of minimalism and antiques finally learning how to get along.
Speaker: I mean, and it's no coincidence that the Bauhaus is now over 100 years ago.
Speaker: So I think modernism is kind of entering the pantheon of the antique
Speaker: And I think that the pluralism of taste that we see on the internet is just allowing young people to be extremely free in the way that they think about their relationship to design and antiques and collecting.
Speaker: And as a result, we're seeing with someone like Camille, the dawn of a slightly more
Speaker: a slightly different taste than the one that's maybe at the heart of the book.
Speaker: And I suspect that volume two of the New Antiquarians will contain
Speaker: other expressions of that beyond Camille's apartment in Brooklyn.
Speaker: And indeed, I've just returned from Europe where I was doing a bit of scouting and I can confirm that there are some really killer collections that even 20-somethings are assembling there that contain antiquities and old master drawings and really, really special material that
Speaker: in many cases is displayed in a way that allows the objects just a great deal of room to breathe and to be seen as objects.
Speaker: So that's exciting to me.
Speaker: And I think Camille's interior, while it's a modestly scaled apartment, gives you a sense of that look.
Speaker: So for listeners or for readers of your book who find these homes inspiring, do you have any advice for how to kickstart their own new antiquarian lives?
Speaker: Well, knowing the audience of this podcast, Ben, in particular, I would say report to your nearest antiques dealer.
Speaker: And you and I both constantly tell younger people or those who are new to the antiques world, dealers love to talk.
Speaker: Dealers love to tell stories.
Speaker: And occasionally listen.
Speaker: Occasionally, yes.
Speaker: Occasionally listen.
Speaker: And by the way, I have sent younger people to dealers to talk and they have occasionally been rebuffed.
Speaker: And they've come back to me and said, actually, that dealer wasn't very open.
Speaker: And I say, you know, maybe they thought you weren't going to become a client or whatever, but the next one will get it.
Speaker: And so, you know, because the next one will be a shrub soul.
Speaker: The next one will be, exactly.
Speaker: I send those cases directly to you guys, Ben, because I know they'll have a warm reception.
Speaker: No, but in, you know, nine out of 10 cases, when I make those introductions, friendships form, clients are developed, and...
Speaker: I always think that's the best entree into collecting is get to know a dealer and learn about what's possible in terms of developing not only a relationship with objects as a consumer and then as a connoisseur, but understanding that relationships drive an enormous part of what we do, right?
Speaker: that's enormously attractive, I think, to anyone who is looking for
Speaker: something between a hobby and an obsession that you could enter this amazing sort of family where everybody is interested in things and interested in history and telling stories.
Speaker: It's just an amazing privilege to be a part of that world.
Speaker: And I do find that people who are new to this really benefit from having an early exposure to real conversation with a dealer, as opposed to sort of skimming the surface for
Speaker: you know, an extended period of time in online auctions, et cetera.
Speaker: I think it's important to make contact with the human side of the antiques world early.
Speaker: And then you make that contact often, as you and I know.
Speaker: And, you know, then I would say dive in.
Speaker: There is, I have a lot of time for
Speaker: threading about authenticity, date, condition.
Speaker: A lot of our time, Ben, is taken up with concern for those things, conservation issues, and the like.
Speaker: But for a beginner, for a novice collector, those factors don't need to play in the same way in their range of considerations when thinking about antiques.
Speaker: it's fine to buy something that's a little wonky or that has condition issues.
Speaker: And especially if you're buying at a more modest price point,
Speaker: It's just, it's not even a factor.
Speaker: It's about, do you wanna live with the thing?
Speaker: Is it still usable?
Speaker: Is it something you will enjoy living with and looking at and holding in your hand?
Speaker: We care about quality and condition and the like, but for the beginner, I think it's more important to develop a sense of freedom and comfort with objects
Speaker: and to not approach them in a neurotic way or in a cagey way because you're afraid that you're going to make the wrong decision.
Speaker: Set the amount of money that you're comfortable spending, not as an investment, but just for the pleasure of it, for the pleasure of the thing, and take the leap.
Speaker: And as you develop connoisseurship skills and deepen your exposure to the field, you can then join our ranks, Ben, and stay awake at night wondering if you've just made a bad decision at auction.
Speaker: The condition is maybe not what it's been reported to be exactly.
Speaker: And you can start thinking about all of the implications of that.
Speaker: But at first, don't even think about it.
Speaker: Just dive in and start enjoying this sort of new relationship to objects where you realize you can have them in your life.
Speaker: You can surround yourself with them.
Speaker: They can become foils for your own storytelling.
Speaker: They can become sort of
Speaker: you know, instigators of research that you conduct, if that's your interest.
Speaker: And, you know, someone like Camille in the book is a great example of a person who she knows enough about what she's collecting to make an informed decision.
Speaker: when she acquires an object, but I think a huge amount of the pleasure for her is in the ongoing research that she then conducts into the object, right?
Speaker: And when you go over to her house, she not only tells you a story about the objects, but she often tells you, gives you an update on her own research and her own understanding of the material.
Speaker: And I think that's a very...
Speaker: active and interactive way of conceiving of our relationship to things.
Speaker: And that I think can come before the more, you know, neurotic side of connoisseurship.
Speaker: which hopefully is everybody's destination because everybody needs to be as neurotic as you and I are, Ben, about objects, right?
Speaker: Well, if I'm losing sleep, I don't see why somebody else shouldn't be too.
Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker: Well, Michael, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker: It's been a treat and it's great to have an excuse to bring you back on Curious Objects.
Speaker: I hope you'll move episode two or volume two along quickly so we'll have another chance to get you back here.
Speaker: I'll do it and let's find other reasons to hang out again.
Speaker: It's been too long.
Speaker: And to anyone who's listening who says, I'm not interested in the book, buy it for a young person.
Speaker: Buy it as a gift.
Speaker: It really is to me about having a visual representation of what's possible that we want to share with young people.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: You know, I hope it's inspiring and I really above all hope that it inspires younger people to begin collecting if they haven't already.
Speaker: The author is Michael Diaz Griffith.
Speaker: The book is The New Antiquarians at Home with Young Collectors.
Speaker: Thanks for spending your time with us.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support from Sarah Bellotta.
Speaker: Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit and I'm Ben Miller.
