Pearl Lam (林明珠): Hello, this is Pearl Lam Podcast. Today I’m in New York. Sitting beside me is Tim Schneider, who has his column The Gray Market. Tim, can you briefly introduce yourself?

Tim Schneider: Sure. So as you said, my name is Tim Schneider. I have been an art journalist for at this point, well more years than I care to think about, but I I started off in the art world in my early 20s. I worked in galleries, starting off as a front desk assistant, then becoming a registrar and then doing client management, all a bunch of other different things. And then eventually I started writing about the business side of the art world from the standpoint of somebody who had been inside of it. Because a lot of people who cover the art market as journalists have not worked in it in any other capacity. And so, I hope that having the perspective of somebody who had been behind the scenes a little bit more might be might be able to provide something that wasn’t already a part of the conversation as much.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Ten years in the gallery world.

Tim Schneider: Give or take. I did a couple of stints. I worked for about 7 years originally, then I left for a little while, then I came back for about a year and a half. So all told it’s like 9 years.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): What prompt you actually to start this Gray Market column or the Gray  Market blog? Because I mean just how we were discussing imagine and you were saying that you start the blog first.

Tim Schneider: Right, right. I started, it started as a blog in 2013 because at that point I had basically no profile in the larger art world outside of the job that I had, the people that had dealt with me in that capacity. So I wasn’t, it wasn’t as if I could just step out and start pitching things to the New York Times.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): But, but you were in the gallery world, I mean, you saw it from, you know, from the really, really the bottom as a, as a front desk and all that. But after nine years, what prompted you to to change everything and then start writing? The market was so frustrating working in the gallery that you know that you want to take all your experience and whatever I mean what you have been confronting and put it in and a blog with an analysis.

Tim Schneider: Yeah, it’s a couple of different things. One, I was already, I had been writing very seriously, just in a different format up to that point. I had moved to LA after I graduated from college and I was working to be a screenwriter. So the whole time that I was working in the gallery, I was also working as a screenwriter with my older brother, who is still a screenwriter today. But after a while, I eventually reached a point where I felt like that wasn’t the best thing for me, but I wanted to write about something. I wanted to try to add something to the conversation. And I reached this pivot point where I thought, well, maybe this is something that I could do that would really kind of make more of an impact. So that was one side of it, just the general desire to to write for a living. And then on top of that, I had made a bunch of friends in LA who were artists and to hear them talk about how they thought things worked behind the scenes. In a lot of cases, it was so far outside of the reality of what it was. And so I was spending, I don’t want to say a lot of time, but certainly you’re having drinks with people, you’re just talking about how your lives are going. They’re talking about like, oh, I just need to get a gallerist. If I can just get a gallerist, then everything will be OK. I’m like, guys, I don’t, I don’t think that that’s actually the solution. Like maybe that’s going to help. Maybe certainly. But I think that there was this attitude that if you could just get represented, then that was going to take care of everything that existed outside of the studio. And I can see you kind of smiling in an annoying way over there. And I think that you can speak even better than I can to the fact that that’s just kind of that just opens a whole other door.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. And then, OK, so after all these years of working in gallery, writing about it and then you’re writing for ArtNet and then subsequently today you’re writing for for art newspaper. So what what do you see this whole dynamics about art market?

Tim Schneider: I just think it’s a fascinating space. I mean, I come from a background that has nothing to do with the formal art world. My mom was a public school teacher. My dad was effectively an IT guy at like an industrial company. And I loved art when I was growing up. I wanted to be involved in it in some capacity. But there’s a huge difference between the way that you think all this stuff works before you experience it and the way that it actually works once you get inside of it. And I’m just perpetually intrigued by how things work. I as much as I hate to use this phrase, I’m like a systems thinker and there are not too many systems out there that I think are quirkier or stranger.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Art market is opaque. We’re supposed to make it as opaque as possible, yeah.

Tim Schneider: It’s right. I mean, there are, there are so many things that you could tell people who aren’t in the art world about the way that the art market works and they would just stare at you like you’d walked off a space shuttle. Like really it is.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): It is, it is so. So we often said that, you know, an art art market holds hand in hand with the economy. What’s your comment about this?

Tim Schneider: I think that the art market in general, art economics, are always downstream of larger economics, and there are big obvious things that make that true. Just in terms of like, how’s the stock market doing? What’s the general macro?

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Like now with the interest rate going up, the art market is down. Look at the auction market.

Tim Schneider: Right. Except as, as we’re recording this, the US Federal Reserve, yeah, they’re going to lower interest rates.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Lower, but it’s but.

Tim Schneider: It’s still high.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s still high, but but there’s a hope of the interest rate being decreasing, right. So we have to see all that.

Tim Schneider: So that’s that impacts things. Then you get into smaller, even less sexy aspects of it, like tariffs, VAT, all these kinds of things. Like all of those governmental policies end up playing into the way that art or any other good can trade between countries. Especially now that as we’re talking about it’s it’s a global art world. You have to think about things that you didn’t used to have to say 34 years ago, or at least think about as much.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So when you’re first writing about art market, when you do your analysis compared to today, you’re doing analysis of the art market with a big different? Because today is really is a global impact and also there’s technology impact, there is geopolitical politics and all that affect the market.

Tim Schneider: It does. And I think that there are there are aspects of it that have changed significantly and I think that there are also aspects of it that really haven’t and probably won’t ever honestly.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Like examples.

Tim Schneider: So one of the core beliefs that I have about understanding how all this stuff works is that if you want to understand the art market, you have to understand the social aspect of it almost before everything else. Because if you strictly look at it in terms of business operations, how technology should fit into this, all these kinds of things, you’re only going to be able to get so far. Because if you don’t understand the sort of social norms, if you don’t understand how much of this is as much about giving people things to put on their social calendars, sort of charting their year around particular places they want to be, all that kind of stuff.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): OK, let’s let’s start talking about the reasons of why people connect with art right. So of course we always talk about people start collecting art beside investment beside you know, you really love art, you want to collect art. It is, it is a legacy that you want to create. Or the third is you want, because my next door neighbour or my friend bought a piece of work. So I want to be in that social crowd. Therefore I have to buy something. Maybe my ego is even bigger. So I wonder, you buy a bigger piece. I mean, that seems to be the general reason of all the collectors all over the world buying it. But you agree with that.

Tim Schneider: I think those are all very important pillars. I think increasingly you also have to talk, talk about the financialisation of it, of course.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): But the investment is, is, is today, as I always explain to a lot of my collectors and I said, look, I mean, I understand there’s 99 point, I would say point even 9% of the people are investment are really purely about investment. Very few people would buy from the heart and the soul, which is beautiful. So you know, before long, I mean even 10 years ago people are a lot less blatant to talk about, to look at the auction market what is, but today is really blatantly they just do and do and do the comparison, the numbers comparison. So I think in the whole world is doing the same thing, especially for investment purposes is especially in Asia is really hugely about that that. But now do you see this big difference nowadays compared to 10 years ago?

Tim Schneider: I’m trying to think of what little capsule judgement I could give you on this, because there’s so many things that we could talk about. I think that what you just said is really important. I think that the the willingness of people to be more explicit about the investment side of their interests in the arts that I think has been a dramatic difference over the course of the past.

Pearl Lam (林明珠) : I think it’s also private bankers now is advising a lot of clients, 10% of their asset they put in artworks. But I don’t know whether this will affect, whether this affect people buying art was based on investment. I, you know, I, I constantly was thinking about it because it’s never been such a such a big thing about private bankers advising their clients to to put 10% off their asset into artworks. Would you think that this is one of the reasons as well?

Tim Schneider: I think that that makes a huge difference. Obviously the makeup of the people who are buying the art and obviously whoever has their ear, that ends up playing a big role in what types of work get bought, how often they get bought, where things are being bought. And just as importantly, as you know, I’m sure as a dealer who has a raw referral for artists that you want to take care of how quickly they’re selling it again too. So that is definitely true. Like the speed of it, the willingness to just be upfront and blunt about, listen, here’s I’m going to invest this amount of money. I’m going to expect that I can get this much back. I don’t think that you were getting as much of that 10 years ago, that said.

Pearl Lam (林明珠) : But art is never, I mean, it’s not as liquid as as as shares. No, it’s a complete different, you know, ball game. But art can go up much, much higher than the shares, that’s for sure. But it’s always, I always thought the art market is manipulated.

Tim Schneider: Yeah, it’s and I think that it’s important to understand just how small it still is.

Pearl Lam (林明珠)  : Yes, absolutely. The numbers are big, but the people who the players are are only a handful.

Tim Schneider: Right, right.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s really a handful of players who really determine the art market.

Tim Schneider: Yes. And I think that a lot of this gets back to one of the other things that I look at a lot in my own writing is trying to step away from sort of whatever the art world thinks about itself and think about it in a broader context. Because even if we just talk about developers, so how many times have you heard this year already? Oh, the Art Basel and Art Market report says $65 billion in sales, 68 billion, whatever it is. That sounds like a lot of money if you don’t have any other reference point, The 60, five, $68 billion, that’s about the same size as the American pet food industry. That’s about the same set of signals every year. So if you think about in that context, it’s actually not very.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Much. It’s not. It’s not. Big it’s not.

Tim Schneider : And then that helps you get inside of the idea of what you just said, which is, yes, billions of dollars, but really how many people are able to sort of impact that and especially impact that in a way that’s benefits themselves? It’s supposed to. It’s the general public or whatever else, and it is very small.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Very small, absolutely, absolutely. And can you share some more, some more thoughts of of what you are, what you are thinking about this art market, especially in relationship. I know you and you publish your book you talking about technology, the impact of technology on and on the art market.

Tim Schneider: Technology is a really interesting question when it comes to this space. I think because the art world the likes to think of itself as being extremely cutting edge, extremely open minded, very creative and all these types of things. But there’s been very little sort of meaningful engagement with technology, at least on the business side. Like I think that one of the things that.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, you have come on the NFT.

Tim Schneider: Do you deal with NFTS?

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I did, you did, you did, we did, we did, we did. We did launch to NFT, but we then decided that we are really not professional enough to do to launch the NFT that we have to work with different platforms. Those platforms is specialised, they know how to to market NFT. But to do NFT is again a very different thing because NFT is not like artworks. You have and you can create credentials, you’re using institution to create credentials. NFT is purely about money making. It’s a pure money making thing and that you know that sooner or later it will it may crash because there’s nothing substantial that can support that that market.

Tim Schneider: Well, what I would say is that I think that one of the one aspect of technology and art that gets overlooked a lot is how much technology and the sort of digital landscape has changed. The amount of information that’s out there, the amount of research that people can do into artworks and just what’s going on in the art world. Social media actually has ended up being well, and I think 10 years ago about the conversation about Instagram, you know, people are looking like, oh, you can sell things on Instagram. This is going to open up this whole thing and there is some amount of that.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I know because there’s a lot of artists are selling through and through Instagram and a lot of galleries are are finding artists in in, in Instagram.

Tim Schneider: Right. And that’s what I think is more important is the kind of taste making and discovery aspect of this.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely, because it seems that before I think, you know, artists, we’re always using curations and very, I mean, having the elite taste to choose the artists. But now because of the Instagram, it’s a popular, popular popularity.

Tim Schneider: Right, right. Exactly. And you have these figures, whether they’re artists or whether they are these kind of intermediaries, whoever else, who are constantly posting about what they’re doing, who they’re seeing, what works they’re excited about. And it just immediately gets blasted out to a much larger audience than you would have ever had in the past. I mean, if you wanted to try to really expose an artist on your roster to the largest number of people in, say, 2008, let’s say, what would you do? Like, how could you get something? There’s no way that you could really do anything that would be as instantaneous as doing an Instagram post about it. And I think that that really gets underplayed in terms of how the communication and the sort of, I don’t know, the taste of the art market has changed over the years.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): But don’t you think that this is because that, you know, the art market before we’re always saying that it is very elitist and now the art market has been democratised. So especially now with the Instagram and how everything is being marketed and it’s all about popularity. And do you do you think that technology has actually democratised our market?

Tim Schneider: I think it has managed to do some amount of democratisation. I don’t think that it has fundamentally changed where the core of the business.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): But but contemporary art market has actually grown has grown really several folds since 2000.

Tim Schneider: Since 2000, but not in the past 10 years.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Of course, but 2000 to 2007 and 8, I mean before, before 2008 has grown enormously.

Tim Schneider: Right. And to me, I think that that has more to do with geography than it does with technology.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): China came in 2002, 2001 It’s not even the first decades. The second decades where the art market really grown is because of Asia, but the first decade has already grown a lot because I mean if you look at that is all master is completely the numbers has gone down, but the post war contemporary has gone up. So the art market has shifted.

Tim Schneider: Yes, yes, absolutely. And there are other things that were happening in that period of time we’re talking about too, like the number of art fairs that get held here has run dramatic during that. And again, like that’s a geopolitical thing more than it is technological.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): You were just mentioning about these social functions that are like art fairs and all that. Do you think that that is a very, how would I say that is one of the attractions for these, for these, for these people you’re not using using the excuse of collecting art that is actually joining the community.

Tim Schneider: I think that there is definitely an element of that. I don’t think that it’s really different from deciding like, oh, maybe I should learn how to play golf because a lot of deals get done on golf courses or there are a number of events outside of the art world that’s very wealthy people, very powerful people all go to. And it’s so much a networking event as anything else. Like you see people go to Wimbledon, you see people go to LA for the Oscars or whatever, Davos. I mean, all of these things are these sorts of connection points. And I think that art fairs are have definitely become one of those things. And I think that there’s probably more intersection between the art world elite and the kind of larger world elite now than there used to be a few decades back.

Pearl Lam: I also always thought that when someone wants to make their name in a society to become an art collector is much easier and also to show social networking. As soon as you became, you know, like a huge collector buying a certain amount, I mean a big price tag of a painting immediately your name is no do do do you think that this is one of the the reasons that that there are so many people is getting, you know, especially the the people whose wealth coming into and and and joining and being interested.

Tim Schneider: Absolutely. And I think that there’s there’s always been some elements of that. Even if you go back to the early 1900s, you look at the robber barons and you had people like Henry Clay Frick, whoever else coming in being like, oh, in order to show that I’m cultured and that I belong, what I need to do is to collect art. Because the other people who are already in this world and who are operating at this level, they collect art too. So I want to have the same kinds of things that they have. Then we have something in common and then I can show that I belong, basically. And I think if that’s still going on, that’s always going to go on as long as we continue to make and sell art.

Pearl Lam: Today is a global art world. So this global art world first, all of sudden, I mean, of course, I mean politics, sociology, we 10 years ago, we talk about diversity, we talk about women’s art. I remember more than 10 years ago when I came here, everybody was talking about about the women’s art has been underrated. And then all of a sudden on that trip, particularly when I was in New York, I felt that wow, I think next, next 10 years, all the museum will be constrained. A lot of women artists surely enough, yes, galleries and and all that. So the diversity also brought in African art, right? So this global phenomenon of of different culture, you know, global culture. Recognise, how do you feel about that? I mean the art movement.

Tim Schneider: I think that at its best, art really has the capacity to introduce a wider population to voices and ideas that they otherwise wouldn’t encounter. And that’s a really important aspect of things. And there’s a difference between sort of being able to show work in a museum and having it sell for a lot of money. Those are not, they’re related often, but they’re not necessarily the same thing. And I think that what we’ve seen again over the course of the past ten years or so is that there’s been a kind of merger between those two things where there has been a larger awareness that we need to sort of understand more about what’s happening outside of ourselves, whether it’s different cultures, different ethnicities, different genders, whatever. And there is a way in which I think that the people who have some amount of power in the art world have really tried to make that happen to a certain extent. And we can talk about how effective it’s been in the long run, but at at the very least there was an acknowledgement that has been an acknowledgement that we need to kind of expand the spectrum of of who gets heard, who gets seen. And I think that’s important.

Pearl Lam: I think that and I also believe in cultural dialogue, you know, to to all of sudden, to give that platform to places like African art we never seen. We, we won’t, I mean, we will never have a chance to understand the background, the history and, and all that was really exciting. And did you see that coming with these African art from Africa? Not American, I mean African American, but in Africa.

Tim Schneider: Did I see it coming? I don’t know. I, I, I don’t think that I, I didn’t have a specific prediction about it, put it that way. But I think this is another way in which, if you look at the wider cultural sphere, there were ways that you could have seen a company like if you look at, say, music, for instance, the interest in sort of global pop, for lack of a better term. Like there’s been a lot of interest, especially in the past several years, about like forms of pop music that are coming up within African countries that are then. Yes, right. Yes, Afrobeats and I’m a piano and some other things. And that gets sort of integrated into what becomes mainstream pop in the West and all those other kinds of things. And like that’s there’s no reason that should be unique to music during any other art form. I think it’s, it’s a sort of global awareness that’s out there. And so of course it was going to happen in the art world. Just a question of when and exactly how who those people are going to be.

Pearl Lam: Let’s talk about politics, right, geopolitics and how does geopolitics affects the art world. Now there’s a very strong anti China, anti China movement. So what we see is people has lost interest in collecting Chinese art. And there was a complete, I mean, if you go to auctions, I, I can only see it from, I mean, because it’s a public knowledge as an auction is, is people are losing interest in Chinese art in auctions. And also when you go to America, there’s much less, less Chinese. I mean, Chinese artist exhibition is actually, I wouldn’t even think that there is as of today any Chinese artist from mainland China exhibition in America or in the Western Europe in a main way. What do you think about it?

Tim Schneider: Well, I mean, again, I think it’s you’re absolutely right in that it is reflective of sort of larger tensions that are there. Obviously like there’s there’s effectively been a trade where trade war going on between the US and China for six.

Pearl Lam: But I always thought that, you know, art, culture, soft power, it should not be really affecting that to that extent, which is I mean, I remember one of the one of the people, one of the director of the institution said to me, you know, to show Chinese art today is politically incorrect. This is in America, which is pretty shocking to hear such comments.

Tim Schneider: Right. It’s, it’s very, it’s very reductive too. I mean the idea that.

Pearl Lam: You know, remember like, you know, a few years ago, Chinese are so hot for for such a long time and all of a sudden it’s just everybody is not touching it or looking at it in a complete different ways. For me is a little bit shocking.

Tim Schneider: Right. Yeah. And I think that maybe I’m just a little bit more of a pessimist in terms of how much those other considerations end up determining the way that things happen in the art world. Again, like even if we just want to talk about tariffs that you have to pay to import art from China or vice versa, at this point, that’s going to go in, especially when we’re in a larger economy that that is not particularly encouraging in a lot of ways Right now, if somebody’s looking at a Chinese artist’s work and I’m like, well, I’m going to have to pay an extra 7 1/2 to whatever percent to be able to get this work here. I don’t know, can my margins support that right now? Maybe I’ll look at somebody else. Maybe I’ll look at a domestic artist instead or whatever. So that’s one side of it, but what I would see in other.

Pearl Lam: I know that American artists going into China is a is huge, is a huge tax. So that is why most of the transaction is done in Hong Kong.

Tim Schneider: Right, right. And from the standpoint of Hong Kong, there is still a lot of investment into that space. Like Christie’s is in another day or two about to open this grand new headquarters that they have in Hong Kong. Sotheby’s just opened this new space there over the summer.

Pearl Lam: So it’s really pretty crazy, that place. It’s like, I mean, it’s like a shopping mall for art.

Tim Schneider: Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I, I.

Pearl Lam: I.

Tim Schneider: Get a chance to see it in person because it looks fascinating.

Pearl Lam: It’s fascinating, you know, it’s it’s completely changed your whole dynamic about art because you’ll never think that, you know, it’s like different booths and it’s not even booths. You know, you have you have sculptures, you have couture dresses side by side. This, I think it’s a, I think when your art market is down. So, so, so they’re trying different ways to see how people now is receiving, and also in Hong Kong especially, we haven’t have such a big art crowd. It’s only started I think started when we first have the art Hong Kong, which is starting from 2008. So it’s really very, very new. It’s not even 20 years, so it’s pretty funny when you see that.

Tim Schneider: Yeah. I I’m curious from the standpoint of your interactions with collectors, like do you feel like you’ve felt more of a shift in terms of people approaching art more from the almost like a luxury retail standpoint or is that yes?

Pearl Lam: Depending on the price point, yeah, depending on price point. You know, as you know, you go to antique shop, you go to shops, you just buy, buy things. They’re selling things between 5000 Hong Kong, which is, which is like how much is it is around 8 around 8000 between 7 and 8000 US to around around how much? Around 30,000 US is around that range. So people go say, yeah. He said it’s like luxury, exactly what you said. So they made it, you know, in the art gallery. When you walk into art gallery, it’s intimidating, right? So when you go there, it’s completely different. You just feel that, you know, it’s like shopping. I don’t, I really, I don’t up to now, I don’t know how I feel about it. I mean, is it the new world is changing? I don’t know. I still I have to go back several times and then I will understand a little bit more. I don’t know whether this concept when it puts in and in Western Europe or America, would it work? Maybe it will. I don’t know. I don’t know because price point is, I mean there are, there are Prince fair, right, There are Prince fair. So it’s it works more or less the same, but in Prince Fair, it’s just Prince. But there you have decorative art, you have design, you have art. It puts everything together, but in a very traditional way of hierarchy of art forms, you don’t put everything together. So this is a completely new thing, but I don’t who knows.

Tim Schneider: Yeah, we’ll, we’ll see.

Pearl Lam: Because I think the younger generation is looking at art very, very differently from how we, we appreciate art as as well. I mean, the Gen Z especially to entice the Gen Z you, you know that too. And even to visit the museum is very different because they like, they’re sort of chosen art. They’re popular art. They may not like the art, the artworks or the art that’s, that is created. They don’t even have time to read. They don’t have the patience to read. So it’s, you know, it’s  complete different from what we what we appreciate.

Tim Schneider: Right. And I think that that’s one of the big challenges the.

Pearl Lam: Huge challenges for the next generations, the Gen Z generation and the generation beyond Gen Z itself. So we really do not, I think the museum are are changing a lot to you know. And, and, and you have museum who would take in popular artists to sell tickets because if they don’t have enough funding, you have to sell tickets. So you also have immersive art that in many of the very old establishment, they wouldn’t even take immersive art. So they have to open because they want to attract, they want to entice the younger generation. I think all that is changing. So whether the art market is going to change, I don’t know. How do you think think about Gen Z and when it comes to the Gen Z who has sufficient, sufficient finance power, would they still collect the same way as our generation?

Tim Schneider: I think there are going to be some real adjustments.

Pearl Lam: I think so as well.

Tim Schneider: And that’s going to be the big challenge for me. I think that we’re we’ve been trapped in this sort of feedback in my mind where you’ve heard a lot of sellers of art say like, oh, we really need to open up. We need to find new audiences. We have to really. And that’s, that is absolutely true. But then the opposite side of it is, well, are you willing to meet them on their own terms or do you want them to just do it the same way that the previous generations have always done it? And if the answer is, well, we want new people, but we don’t really want to change anything too much about what we’re doing in order to get them that conversation is a non starter. So people are going to have to just acknowledge that a younger generation that is about to inherit a tremendous amount of wealth may not want to do things the way that the previous generation did. And I think the people who are willing to acknowledge that and to meet them halfway are going to fare a lot better than the people who are going to say, well, yes, we would love to have new clients, but.

Pearl Lam: I mean, I, I felt very, you know, and honestly, I, I think most of the galleries, they are pushing a corner to whether you are going to continue the old way. Because I, I understand a lot of new collectors coming in. I mean, with one artist we have, we have a lot of new collectors coming in and that artist is not a museum supported artist because they don’t do it. They don’t create an art based on a concept. I mean, it’s very simple. I want to make art that makes people happy. I mean in any curatorial things, everything rubbish, you know, you’re thinking of your but they attract and they attract not just people buying art the fewest coming into the galleries. No one stop looking at these these an an artwork. I mean, this is what we want. We want galleries to have more visitors, not just about buying art. I mean, of course there’s I mean. It’s all change and then you you take in these new and new collectors who buy that sort of art. Would they be more interested to look at our other artists? No interest really. None. We actually give them even, you know, a different experience. We take them around. We even have two artists talking, you know, with the artists they did like and with no, but I think it’s step by step. The older generation, because they have the very young ones who is in the 20s, they buy smaller works. Older ones, they have the money to buy, they buy bigger works. The older ones may be able to convert, but the young one, they don’t. The attention span is so short. So it’s really different. And even when we do in Instagram, right, we have like Instagram with, with the artists speaking about their own work, you see very few views, but very short videos about really, you know, action, doing lots of views. So all that you understand that, wow, you know, maybe we are, you know, maybe we have to adapt. So it’s very strange. It’s a strange world, but people who buys, who collects? A lot of people who collects, you know, seriously collecting may not even look at Instagram, right? Right. I mean, serious collector, many serious collector whom I know, they don’t even look at Instagram.

Tim Schneider: Right, right. And so you have to, you have to think about how to communicate differently to different audiences. And that requires a kind of layer of strategy that didn’t used to be there.

Pearl Lam: Yeah. So, so let me also ask you social media, yes, does social media impact on our market and, and, and if it does, what is how big do you think that it has impacted or would it grow, you know, would that that impact grow?

Tim Schneider: I think it’s had a huge impact, but again, not necessarily in terms of, oh, this is a tremendously valuable new sales channel that’s opened up, I think.

Pearl Lam: It’s not about money, right? It’s not so attention.

Tim Schneider: There’s some of that. But yes, it is largely about attention. It’s about the way that information circulates. It’s about discovery. It’s about all these things that used to be harder to do on a mass scale than what they are now. But I mean, it’s, it’s really telling too, in terms of what you were just talking about as far as who is able to get a very large audience and who isn’t. Like there are some artists out there who are not, to use your phrase. We think it’s very wise. Museum supported artists who have more followers on Instagram than like major museums.

Pearl Lam: Yes, absolutely.

Tim Schneider: And, and that I think is indicative of the fact that they are tapping into something that is fundamentally different than what’s people who are used to kind of an earlier era are tapping it too. And again, it becomes this question of like, well, do you have to do that or is it a choice? And either way, like what is it that you want to accomplish? Do you want to try to be known among the largest group of people among all age groups or whatever? Or are you just going to say, here’s an audience that I’m interested in serving? It’s a smaller audience, but it’s an audience that I understand. It’s an audience that I feel like my artists will do particularly well with, and I’m just going to stay rigorously attached to that, and that’s enough for me. That’s a choice that every art seller is going to have to make.

Pearl Lam: But if you want to have longevity, you know, we’re talking about artists longevity. I mean, if our, if the Gen Z taste has changed, the longevity of certain artists would not be, could not, could not grow. I mean the, I mean we always talk about, I mean what makes artwork important is a longevity. But if the taste level is all change, how can we, how can we preserve that?

Tim Schneider: Well, I think that institutions still matter.

Pearl Lam: Of course, institutions definitely matter, but if the new trustees going in and you know, it’s not today’s trustees, of course these younger generation would one, they become the trustees and they would have brought in a complete different taste that your museum will be changed as well. The creators will be changing as well, right?

Tim Schneider: I think that that is very probable. And but like I think every museum is probably a a sort of push and pull between those forces. Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, certainly. I’m sure you can deal with more museums every day than I. But there is that same kind of like generational tension within institutions as there is in the larger art world too. So it’s going to take a few decades. Like there are some trustees that are going to come in, but it’s not going to be like all of a sudden 20 30 shifts over and it’s like, Oh, no, trustees under the age of 40.

Pearl Lam: I think in two decades away there will be a major change, but I don’t know how how how drastic the change will be because I can see the Gen Z is completely having different tastes. The lifestyle is very different, so that will affect culture because the contemporary culture in 20 years will be vastly different from from our culture today. So we did that would I don’t know what is going to happen. Maybe maybe I always say that do do believe in this because now today is AI, right? And then, you know, we’re talking, we’re talking about conceptual art, conceptual art. You don’t need to paint yourself, you don’t need to create yourself, but all that and AI could have done it. So would that be in 20 years time having the craft to do it yourself would become more valuable?

Tim Schneider: I hope that that’s true.

Pearl Lam: Yeah, because I was thinking about it, you know, I think, you know, I mean with this whole world about hierarchy of art form, I mean with craft being put at such low value, it’s completely unacceptable. So I believe that I’m actually thinking about it. In 20 years time, all that will change.

Tim Schneider: I think it’s a big question.

Pearl Lam: Big, big question.

Tim Schneider: Huge question and I, I’m actually weirdly optimistic about this and I’m not known for my optimism in general, but but I, I think that the predictions that you’ll see out there in terms of AI is going to take over everything. It’s going to put all these hardest up jobs, etcetera, etcetera. I.

Pearl Lam: I don’t think it’s ticking about the job as a, but I think the whole dynamics will change. I think the the dynamics of not respecting craft I think is generally, I think it’s a big problem. All right. So. So to revert that is actually not a bad thing.

Tim Schneider: No. And I think that that’s to some extent already happening. I mean, the most prominent input that we’re seeing from AI, actually, let me say that again, the most prominent output that we’re seeing from AI and art is now a genre that is literally referred to as AI slop. Everyone sees it and thinks it looks like garbage because it mostly does. Like it’s, it’s like high production value garbage, but it’s, there’s no way that you’re going to look at it and be like, oh, I would rather have this on my wall than a great painting or great sculpture. So I think that that’s it’s already happening. It’s it’s sort of on some level putting us back in touch with the importance of actual human thought, human production, human excellence. And I hope that continues.

Pearl Lam: One last question I’d want to ask you. I read, I read one of your article about Birkin bags. Yes, yes, I think that was very interesting. Why don’t you just elaborate this and tell the audience about that?

Tim Schneider: So the story was about how there was a class action lawsuit against Hermes. It was filed in California over the way that Birken bags are sold. And for people who are not deep in the luxury, yeah.

Pearl Lam: If they don’t spend enough, you cannot get a Birkin bag. And even if you spend enough, you get a Birkin bag. You can’t choose. They may give you a platinum, but a Birkin bag and you have to buy it right?

Tim Schneider: Right, exactly. And this sounds an awful lot like the way that’s our.

Pearl Lam: Galleries.

Tim Schneider: Right, right, dole out the works of their most popular artists. And so I just talked to some antitrust lawyers basically to try to figure out whether.

Pearl Lam: Just to let the audience know, is is in galleries, we usually take our paintings, especially the A grade paintings. We kept it. We would keep it inside the viewing room because we want to sell it to the institutions or big collectors who can enhance the credibility of the artist. And also we sell to whoever we choose to sell to, right?

Tim Schneider: Right. Yeah. So the question was basically is this something that art dealers who do that kind of sales should worry about? And the answer that I got that was actually, you know, like there are a whole bunch of legal nuances that we could go into about this. But the gist is that at this point, there is no reason to expect that that is part of the art world that is going to need to go away for legal reasons anytime soon.

Pearl Lam: I thought of brilliant, brilliant that and that, that that you draw the parallel.

Tim Schneider: Well, like I said, that’s what I try to do and I try to look at and what else is happening that might apply to the art world that the art world isn’t necessarily thinking about.

Pearl Lam: What a great session that I have this pleasure talking to you, Tim.

Tim Schneider: Thanks so much for having me, Pearl.

Pearl Lam: Thank you.