“DO we really want to go back to the way things were?”
The founder and director of Makati-based contemporary art gallery Silverlens, Isa Lorenzo, posed the question in an online panel discussion last week, titled “How will galleries market and sell artworks?”
“There were a lot of a lot of things that were going on which were just so time-consuming and energy-sucking, but it really wasn’t about the art.
Now is the time to reach new civility, a deeper respect, deeper appreciation for the artists and what they do, and that, I think, will weed out all the people who are speculating and really bring forth the true collectors and real audiences,” she said.
“This is a time to rebalance.”
The group discussion was part of the first edition of “PIVOT | The Southeast Asian Art World Beyond Covid-19”, a five-day online conference that ran from June 15 to 19, organized by Southeast Asian art news site Art & Market.
PIVOT featured topics about the altered art landscape as governments across the region begin to ease restrictions cautiously. The talks, which can be viewed on www.artandmarket.net/pivot, included a range of discussions, from the evolution of art collecting agendas to the new approach of artists to their practices.
Together with Lorenzo as panel speakers on the pandemic’s impact on galleries were Richard Koh, founder and director of Richard Koh Fine Art, a contemporary art gallery with spaces in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore; as well as Ursula Sullivan, codirector of Sullivan+Strumpf, an Australian
gallery that presents the work of established and emerging contemporary artists in the Asia-Pacific region. The talk was moderated by Jefferson Jong, director of Art Agenda.
DIGITAL MIGRATION
Shifting into the online realm has been vital for Sullivan+Strumpf, particularly in the remote management of its spaces in Sydney and Singapore, and in market engagement, according to Sullivan.
“All of a sudden, I had to be this digital guru, which I’m not,” said the gallery director, whose Sydney space is temporarily open by appointment only, while the Singapore gallery remains closed by government order until further notice.
Another aspect of Sullivan+Strumpf’s digital migration is the launch of “New Digital Strategy.” Introduced in place of the lack of access to physical space are online exhibition viewing rooms, short films and artist podcast interviews and Spotify playlists. Sullivan said that feedback has been positive thus far. So much, in fact, that some guests told her that the new strategy is better than coming to the gallery, as the new layers of this art experience open up another headspace for them.
“We couldn’t have done this a year ago because the technology, attitude, etc., were not there, but now they’re here, and now we can embrace them and work at this other level that we’ve never done before,” Sullivan said. “This new level offers a lot more to the collectors, to the artists, to the galleries. It’s been very democratizing.”
Unlike Sullivan+Strumpf as relative newcomer to the digital realm, however, Silverlens has been doing social media since 2013. They have also tried to migrate digitally as early as five years ago, but never really followed through.
“Because there was no need,” Lorenzo said. “Everyone still came to the gallery or called us, so it was a very much a face-to-face relationship.”
As it did with most things, the pandemic changed that dynamic, and Silverlens was forced to refocus on their online platforms. Lorenzo noted that, to her surprise, the gallery’s viewership “has grown quite considerably” and they are still selling “without doing anything.”
“As what Ursula said, people are bored. They want something to do, something to look at. They’re tired of the news,” Lorenzo said. “So what do we do? We remember all the stuff we needed to do, how to make this whole thing meaningful, and took it from the point of view of the artists.”
Silverlens launched the #AtHomeWith series, where they asked their artists what it’s like to be in lockdown. The artists responded by photographing their studios and themselves, as well as writing their own text and telling their own stories. The project morphed into the gallery’s recent online-only group exhibition, titled Anticipating the Day, which ran from June 2 to 20.
The show, according to Lorenzo, yielded the highest click rate in the gallery’s social media history, and produced the most inquiries for a show.
Jong, the panel moderator, noted that the exhibition’s success may have been a “combination of cabin fever and the presentation of what is not usually shown before: the life of the artist.”
“Whereas previously, you see the finally product, the artwork,” he said, “there is a shift now that you focus on the life of the artist.”
CLICK-AND-ADD-TO-CART PHASE?
Establishing an online presence may be the way to go for galleries moving forward, but some consumers still prefer to see the artwork in person before making a purchase.
One example is Koh, who, aside from running the Richard Koh Fine Art galleries, is a buyer and collector for himself and others. He said his group didn’t even send a PDF or e-catalog to a single client in the past months, citing that as a collector himself, he receives so many online materials that he doesn’t even look at it anymore.
“What we did for our gallery artists was more of a visibility thing,” Koh said. “It was more on awareness, but nothing about selling anything.”
He explained that “buying art is not going to eBay or Amazon,” in the sense that art is not just a product.
“If you’re buying to decorate a house or put on a wall, that’s fine, right? But when it comes to the bigger numbers, the more serious works, you do need to experience it, unless you’re really, really familiar with the artist’s practice,” he said.
“I don’t think we’re at a click-and-add-to-cart kind of phase,” Sullivan added.
“Not yet,” replied Kho.
Sullivan continued, “And I don’t really want to go there.”