Meet our Guest with Alex Bass
For this issue of Meet our Guest, Guest Work Agency & Guest Club Director and Founder Alana Kushnir interviewed Alex Bass. Like Alana, Alex founded an art club pre-COVID, to fill a void in the social experiences available to her demographic interested in arts and culture. Salon 21 is focused in and around the New York area and initiates alternative social pop-ups comprising of artist talks, cocktails, and shopping. Like the Guest Club, their events combine socializing and networking with an educational purpose, where attendees learn about the next generation of emerging artists and how to begin collecting.
Alex graduated from Columbia University, Magna cum Laude, in 2018 with a B.A. in Art History and a Concentration in Business Management. She recently finished her dissertation for her M.A. in Art Business at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. She has had a lifelong passion for art and has studied a wide range of time periods and movements, as well as experience in arts education. She has held positions at major art world institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sotheby’s Auction House, galleries such as Gagosian Gallery, and startups such as Paddle8.
You’re from New York where you’re currently undertaking an M.A. in Art Business at Sotheby’s. Tell me more about your area of research. It seems to be quite a ‘live’ subject right now.
I was born in NYC and then grew up in the nearby suburbs. My best childhood memories were my mom taking me to The Met or Museum of Natural History and strolling through Central Park. I was very lucky to grow up in an area where arts and culture were accessible all around me.
I decided to pursue my MA degree in London because I had lived here all my life and did my undergraduate studies at Columbia University. When COVID hit full force in March, the school moved all classes online, so I finished my degree from home.
My dissertation was very timely, investigating the art world’s current handling and reaction to this pandemic, how it will have to respond to distancing and our increased dependence on digital communication. It was great to get to interview you for this research as well! The biggest challenge was writing about an issue that is currently unfolding. A lot of my work required looking at past art market trends and predicting what 2020 and beyond has to hold. One key finding is that the lowest end of the art market is the fastest growing, i.e. prints! We hope to bring in young collectors in this way. More generally, art institutions worldwide are going to have to invest in digital infrastructure (if they haven’t already) and come up with creative content to keep people engaged with arts and culture during this unusual time. At Salon 21, we are constantly working on curating new virtual events, and catering to the next generation of collectors – Millennials and Gen Zers.
As you know I started the Guest Club in 2018 i.e. in a pre-COVID world, with in-person art events in Australia at its core. Tell me more about your art club initiative, Salon 21. How did it come about?
Salon 21 is a passion project stemming from my love of talking about art, seeing art, and encouraging others to appreciate art. I wanted a young, fun, casual environment to socialize and engage with art and meet new artists – something which I never found in NYC or any other city. While these events started as physical gatherings, the virtual space has a lot to offer in terms of accessibility and connecting with emerging artists and collectors from all over the world.
I find it very interesting that although you are based in New York, where there are hundreds of galleries, thousands of artists, dozens of auction houses (i.e. plenty of opportunities?) in your early 20s you chose to start your own art business. It’s quite the courageous decision to make! Why did you do it?
My parents are entrepreneurs and I grew up going in their showroom playing with jewelry samples. I guess you can say building something of my own was always part of my future path. My decision to study at Columbia University and intern practically every semester of college was to get a true understanding of what the art scene is in NYC - arguably the most metropolitan and global city, especially for arts and culture - and what it lacks. My senior year of college (I guess I was 21 turning 22), I laid the seeds for Salon 21 and started designing the brand and reaching out to artists to collaborate with. Almost 3 years later, Salon 21 has kept its initial vision of creating a community for art lovers and emerging artists, but has adapted to the challenges of a pandemic and also the desires of our audience. As a startup, we are constantly intaking new info from our audience and adjusting accordingly. I’m excited to see what Salon 21 becomes as new opportunities present themselves daily! Now I’m 24 and tying up the ends of my MA degree, I really get to spend all of my time and energy on developing Salon 21 further.
As with our Guest Club, you’ve also chosen to do a COVID-pivot with Salon 21. Rather than putting it all on indefinite hiatus, why did you decide to shift to online events?
The easy answer is that we do not have a choice at the moment to gather physically. Even though people are finding ways to socialize outdoors and some are even doing indoor gatherings with testing - none of these options are foolproof - and safety is our utmost priority. I find it foolish to push the boundaries of a deadly virus… and really condemn anyone doing so.
As I have discovered through my research for my dissertation and have experienced through attending virtual events, the digital sphere provides unlimited opportunities for a growing business and community. Our reach has increased two-fold and our events are attended by art lovers across continents. For the time being, virtual events are all we can do - but even post-COVID, interacting in this way will still be a large part of how we socialize, as it already was. We are at a crossroads where traditional, physical art experiences are migrating towards a web-based environment. The onset of a global pandemic in early spring has forced structural changes upon the art world affecting traditional practices and methods of socialization. As such, businesses and institutions must invest in digital infrastructure to adapt and survive.
With virtual platforms dominating communication, we must find ways to virtually replicate or reinforce our physical networks through digital communities. Further adjusting to the current landscape, experiences are now mediated by screens, irrevocably changing the way consumers engage and what we currently value. Evaluating the way communities have evolved during the beginnings of COVID-19 has illuminated opportunities for businesses to make necessary adjustments, or even overhauls, of prior operating practices. Perhaps this is a reckoning that long-standing models were unstable to begin with. The pressure to innovate is now unavoidable.
Who are some artists you are closely following of late, do you have any tips?
Continuing my last thought, one of the platforms that is most beneficial to the art world is Instagram. I’m constantly scrolling and coming across extremely talented artists. This platform is essential and part of how the art world is currently democratizing as artists can promote themselves and smaller galleries can gain relevance and a community of followers.
The artists who are making the most important work at the moment are those engaging with the current climate. As French philosopher Albert Camus writes in his piece “Create Dangerously,” the artist’s raison d’être is to progress society by disrupting the system. To be an artist and “create today is to create dangerously.” Art history is a time capsule through which we can visualize current events over the course of centuries. The artists who are engaging with contemporary social issues and the ways in which tech is mediating our experience with art are the ones I’m watching.
In Australia the majority of art collectors collect Australian art and buy and sell within the Australian art market. What do you think of this approach?
I think it is great for your country to embrace its history and invest in local artists. That is an amazing way to create community. I think the next step is to translate that into a global appreciation for Australian art and not look at it as an insular genre or market. Maybe this is something GWA can educate us on!
What other approaches to collecting would you advocate for emerging collectors?
Start investing in art now! All art market research indicates that it is resilient to major economic downturns and a current pandemic like this one, as art really doesn’t lose its store of value. The best way to begin collecting is to start with what you’re attracted to immediately. Prints are a great way to start building a collection for little cost. While art is an investment, only thinking about it in financial terms never made sense to me. You have to love the work you purchase because (in my opinion), the idea is to live with it, not just let it appreciate in value in a storage unit.
There are a lot of resources out there to educate you on artists, the market for those artists, art movements, trends, etc. Hopefully Salon 21 can be an educational source for young collectors as a go-to resource for information and art!
Guest Club and Salon 21 have some exciting collaborative content planned. Follow us on our socials @salon.21 @guestworkagency to keep up to date with our developments.