Interview

Interviews on Art Marketing (Part III)

Maria Anna Alp (Left), Alex Guofeng (Middle), and Paul Grosse (Right)

Our third interviewee in this series on art marketing is Paul Grosse, the director of ALP Galleries (alp-galleries.com)

(Mackey) We are interested in your feelings concerning the balance between art and art marketing. For example, there are artists like Takeshi Murakami and Jeff Koons where marketing and manufacturing play a large part in their careers. And there are artists who follow the Van Gogh model who do nothing but focus on art at the expense of their careers. There seems to be a fine line that is constantly shifting between maintaining an artistic reputation and being known as a sellout.

 

Interviews on Art Marketing (Part II)

(One of Rick Osaka’s recent works)

 

What does it mean to have an artistic reputation? Is there a line between being a sellout and a savvy businessman? To further investigate this issue, I relied on the help of professionals. A survey was sent out with a list of eight questions to experienced art professionals that would bring insight to the modern role of marketing in art. These people have years of real-world experience dealing with the modern art world and all the business aspects of it. The responses I got ranged from successful art dealers, consultants, artists, curators, and more. Of course there was no one definite answer, as the answers where as varied as these people’s backgrounds. However, there was a general consensus on some issues, and all the responses added valuable and smart insight to the subject.