All About Art

Creating the Shopify of Auctions with Tom Best, Founder of The Auction Collective

In this episode, I sat down with Tom Best, founder and CEO of The Auction Collective.

Tom came up through Christie's Auction House, where he spent six years as an auctioneer and contemporary art specialist, before doing a stint in humanitarian aid and then combining those two threads into The Auction Collective.

He started his business in 2017 as a live auction event pop-up, pivoted into online auctions during the pandemic, and has since grown into what Tom describes as the Shopify of auctions — a white-label platform that lets artists, charities, and organisations run their own auctions without having to approach a big auction house.

In this episode, we talk about how all of that actually happened, including the iterations, the pivots, the decisions around hiring and building a team, and what it looks like to raise investment for a business sitting at the intersection of tech and the art market. We talk about what it means to take a concept like Shopify and apply it to the art world, and whether that model translates when you apply it to an industry that is as relationship- and trust-driven as the art market.

This was such a transparent, fun, and eye-opening episode when it comes to auctions, start ups, and the art world. Thank you Tom for coming on the podcast!

You can follow The Auction Collective on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/theauctioncollective
and find out more at https://www.theauctioncollective.com/

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If you love what we do, support ALL ABOUT ART on PATREON!  ⁠https://www.patreon.com/allaboutart⁠
Keep up to date on Instagram @allaboutartpodcast  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/allaboutartpodcast/⁠ 

ABOUT THE HOST:
I am an Austrian-American art historian, curator, and writer. I obtained my BA in History of Art at University College London and my MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. My specializations are in contemporary art and the contemporary art market along with accessibility, engagement, and the demystification of the professional art sector.

SOCIALS: 
Instagram⁠ @alexandrasteinacker https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasteinacker
and LinkedIn at ⁠Alexandra Steinacker-Clark⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-steinacker/

This episode is produced at Synergy https://synergy.tech/the-clubhouse/the-podcast-studio/ 

COVER ART: Lisa Schrofner a.k.a Liser⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.liser-art.com/ and Luca Laurence https://www.graffitikunst.at/

📺 The Television Series the Art World Can’t Stop Talking About: THE BIG DEAL with Steph McGovern

A new television series has come out this month, and the Art World™️ has been TALKING about it! 👇👇👇

“The Big Deal is a high-stakes, six-part competition where seven pairs of amateur, aspiring art dealers battle to spot talent, pitch to buyers, and turn a profit in the contemporary art market to win £50,000 in British art.”

Some felt as though the BBC had brought many negative sides of the art world into the spotlight, and some felt like it was great to have the art world represented on such a big, mainstream stage. (A lot of discussion happening over on Jeff Magid’s and Carrie Scott’s Instagram pages if you want to have a look for yourself). So, naturally, when I got the chance to interview the HOST of the show, Steph Mcgovern, I jumped at the chance.

Steph is someone who has spent her career making complex, often intimidating subjects accessible to everyone - she started out as an economics journalist, spent eight years on BBC Breakfast, presented over 250 episodes of Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, and now co-hosts The Rest Is Money Podcast with Robert Peston.

In this episode, we talk about the show, what Steph learned from making it, and what surprised her most about the art market when she dove a little deeper. We also talk about her dad’s career as a sculptor, the art she collects herself, and what it looks like to move across formats and industries over the course of a long career in television. We get into what it takes to feel at home in front of a camera, and what Steph would tell anyone who wants to build that kind of confidence for themselves. And we talk about what it means to walk into a world - whether that’s the media industry or the art market - feeling like an outsider, and how you can navigate it to the best of your ability.

The book recommendation from Steph: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/200740797-the-final-act-of-juliette-willoughby

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If you love what we do, support ALL ABOUT ART on PATREON!  ⁠https://www.patreon.com/allaboutart⁠

Keep up to date on Instagram @allaboutartpodcast  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/allaboutartpodcast/⁠ 

ABOUT THE HOST:
I am an Austrian-American art historian, curator, and writer. I obtained my BA in History of Art at University College London and my MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. My specializations are in contemporary art and the contemporary art market along with accessibility, engagement, and the demystification of the professional art sector.

SOCIALS: 
Instagram⁠ @alexandrasteinacker https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasteinacker

and LinkedIn at ⁠Alexandra Steinacker-Clark⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-steinacker/

This episode is produced at Synergy https://synergy.tech/the-clubhouse/the-podcast-studio/ 

COVER ART: Lisa Schrofner a.k.a Liser⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.liser-art.com/ and Luca Laurence https://www.graffitikunst.at/

In this episode, I sat down with Courtney Johnson, career strategist, social media expert, and author of ⁠Career Cheat Codes.⁠

Courtney is someone who built an audience of millions by loudly and openly sharing some hard truths about career advice:
Working hard in silence is not a strategy, and it won’t get you extra “humility” points.

Visibility is a skill.

Knowing how to make the right people aware of what you do is just as important as doing it well.

Her “Problematic Career Cheat Codes” series went viral on TikTok before becoming a book, which is itself a masterclass in the very principles she writes about.
In this episode, we talk about what personal brand actually means for people who would never describe themselves as content creators and about how the art world might be one of the industries that needs this conversation most urgently. We get into the unspoken rules of competitive, gatekept industries, how to convert visibility into opportunity, and what it looks like to build a career with intention rather than just accumulating experience and hoping someone notices. We also compare notes as two authors who have recently released books on career-building in very different worlds, which made for a conversation I found incredibly useful not only for listeners but also for my own thinking and growth.
I think this episode will resonate whether you work in the arts or not, and if you do work in the arts, it might reframe a few things you’ve been told in terms of what it means to go down predetermined paths or what it means to create your own from scratch.
Thank you Courtney for coming on the podcast!

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If you love what we do, support ALL ABOUT ART on PATREON!  ⁠https://www.patreon.com/allaboutart⁠

Keep up to date on Instagram @allaboutartpodcast  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/allaboutartpodcast/⁠ 

ABOUT THE HOST:
I am an Austrian-American art historian, curator, and writer. I obtained my BA in History of Art at University College London and my MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. My specializations are in contemporary art and the contemporary art market along with accessibility, engagement, and the demystification of the professional art sector.
SOCIALS: 
Instagram⁠ @alexandrasteinacker https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasteinacker
and LinkedIn at ⁠Alexandra Steinacker-Clark⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-steinacker/

This episode is produced at Synergy https://synergy.tech/the-clubhouse/the-podcast-studio/ 
COVER ART: Lisa Schrofner a.k.a Liser⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.liser-art.com/ and Luca Laurence https://www.graffitikunst.at/

Yorkshire Sculpture Park is one of the most distinctive arts institutions in the UK, and indeed in Europe, being the largest sculpture park on the continent. Set across 500 acres of West Yorkshire countryside, it has worked with over 1,000 artists across its 49-year history, and the landscape itself is as much a part of the experience as the work within it.

In this conversation, Alex takes us inside what it means to programme at that scale and in that context.
We talk about
her path to the role, including her earlier time at YSP and what brought her back
and what makes programming in an outdoor setting so fundamentally different from working in a traditional gallery or museum
We get into
how YSP builds and sustains its artist relationships over time
how accessibility plays out when your gallery is essentially a landscape
and how the broader conversation around land, ecology, and heritage has shaped the curatorial direction of the programme.

I had a wonderful time up at YSP, so a huge THANK YOU to the team there as well as the lovely team at Sutton for getting me to the sculpture park, allowing me to walk amongst the adorable sheep 🐑, and experience the wonderful ways of outdoor art. ✨👉 I 1000/10 recommend making a trip to West Yorkshire to experience it for yourself! 👈✨

You can follow YSP on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/yspsculpture/?hl=en

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If you love what we do, support ALL ABOUT ART on PATREON!  ⁠https://www.patreon.com/allaboutart⁠

Keep up to date on Instagram @allaboutartpodcast  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/allaboutartpodcast/⁠ 

ABOUT THE HOST:
I am an Austrian-American art historian, curator, and writer. I obtained my BA in History of Art at University College London and my MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. My specializations are in contemporary art and the contemporary art market along with accessibility, engagement, and the demystification of the professional art sector.

SOCIALS: 
Instagram⁠ @alexandrasteinacker https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasteinacker
and LinkedIn at ⁠Alexandra Steinacker-Clark⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-steinacker/

This episode is produced at Synergy https: //synergy.tech/the-clubhouse/the-podcast-studio/ 

COVER ART: Lisa Schrofner a.k.a Liser⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.liser-art.com/ and Luca Laurence https://www.graffitikunst.at/

Arts Leadership & Institutional Innovation - Inside the Yale Schwarzman Center with Rachel Fine

In this episode, I sat down with Rachel Fine, Executive Director of the Yale Schwarzman Center in the United States of America.
Rachel is someone who came to arts leadership without a roadmap, as I think most of us do. She trained as a pianist and found her way into arts admin almost by accident, through gaining experience in different areas.

So, in this episode, we talk about what the Yale Schwarzman Center actually is and does, both on a local and international scale, because I do think it allows us in the industry to think more widely about community and culture - especially as I was coming to this interview from a more fine art angle, and she was coming at it from a musical angle.

I ask her about what her role as executive director entails, and she goes into depth on what it means to run an institution of this size. We spend a good deal of time talking about career paths and how Rachel fell into arts administration, why fundraising is more central to arts leadership than people like to admit, what the financial reality of this field actually looks like and if you can have a stable career in it, and where someone who wants to work in the cultural industries should start.

Thank you Rachel for coming on the podcast!

You can follow the Yale Schwarzman Center on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/yale_schwarzman/  and find out more at https://schwarzman.yale.edu/

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If you love what we do, support ALL ABOUT ART on PATREON!  ⁠https://www.patreon.com/allaboutart⁠

Keep up to date on Instagram @allaboutartpodcast  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/allaboutartpodcast/⁠ 

ABOUT THE HOST:
I am an Austrian-American art historian, curator, and writer. I obtained my BA in History of Art at University College London and my MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. My specializations are in contemporary art and the contemporary art market along with accessibility, engagement, and the demystification of the professional art sector.

SOCIALS: 
Instagram⁠ @alexandrasteinacker https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasteinacker
and LinkedIn at ⁠Alexandra Steinacker-Clark⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-steinacker/

This episode is produced at Synergy https://synergy.tech/the-clubhouse/the-podcast-studio/ 

COVER ART: Lisa Schrofner a.k.a Liser⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.liser-art.com/ and Luca Laurence https://www.graffitikunst.at/

Research and Creative Assistant: Iris Epstein