| Leah Oates: Please speak about your background in the arts and how you conceived Boyd Level? Jonathan Neil: I come from an academic background. Currently, I’m a few months away from finishing a dissertation for my Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia. For a little over a year now I have been writing criticism and reviews for Modern Painters and I just began doing the same for the newly relaunched Art Review. Franklin Boyd: Prior to founding Boyd Level, I was an attorney with Cravath, Swaine & Moore here in New York. |
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Connecting Artists to Collectors – Leah Oates
Leah Oates: Please speak about your background in the arts and how you conceived Boyd Level?
Jonathan Neil: I come from an academic background. Currently, I’m a few months away from finishing a dissertation for my Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia. For a little over a year now I have been writing criticism and reviews for Modern Painters and I just began doing the same for the newly relaunched Art Review.
Franklin Boyd: Prior to founding Boyd Level, I was an attorney with Cravath, Swaine & Moore here in New York. However, it was my interest in the legal and economic aspects of art collecting which led me to law school in the first place, after having been a part of the Christie’s education program.
We had the idea for Boyd Level after noticing how many very intelligent, curious, successful people still felt that they were unable to collect serious art because they did not understand the language or just assumed that every work cost several hundred thousand dollars. We also saw that, for the most part, the well-known consultants and advisors are all chasing the same elite crowd of top-tier collectors. Boyd Level fills that gap, in addition to redefining the role and reputation of the art advisor.
LO: The model that you have created for Boyd Level is like nothing I have heard before. Collectors hire you to find the work of emerging artists and you take no commission and do not represent artists. Also, you organize parties for artists and collectors to meet. You are facilitating networking opportunities for everyone based on a love for the arts without charging a penny. The model you created serves both artists and collectors. It is very generous and is not generally how things are done in the art world. What is your thinking in doing this?
Boyd Level: Most people are surprised to hear that we do not accept commissions from artists or gallerists on works sold to our clients and that any professional discount that we may receive is passed on to the client. We just feel that if one has a financial arrangement with a certain pool of potential sellers, then you have artificially set up limitations on the amount of work that you are likely to show your client. We are, however, a for-profit company. We do in fact charge our clients, but it is either a flat fee or a retainer fee. Organizing events for artists and collectors, or even solely for artists, is a way for us to expand our network so that we can better serve the collector by being aware of who is making great art—sometimes long before they are picked up by a gallery or receive serious press coverage. We do think that we’ve come up with a generous and different financial model, but that is because our aim is to make the pie larger, as opposed to just trying to take a bigger piece.
LO: Some other refreshing differences in what you are doing are that you are looking at many artists’ work by referral from other artists. Similarly, Boyd Level offers collectors a choice from many different mediums, styles and age ranges. You are open to considering many different kinds of work. With your model, you connect the artists directly to the collector and vice versa—without all the complications of gallery politics. What is the difference in being represented by a gallery versus having your work sold via a private arts consulting business such as Boyd Level?
BL: We should say up front that we are not opposed to the gallery system per se. There are a lot of excellent galleries and dealers out there, and they play a necessary and vital role in the lives of artists and collectors. The difference between Boyd Level and a gallery is that we represent our client’s interests, whereas a gallery represents its own and its artists’ interests. At the end of the day, a gallery’s purpose is to sell works of art for as much as it can. Because we do not have a financial stake in any transactions, we can advise and negotiate on behalf of our clients without worrying that we’re decreasing our cut of the sale at the same time. Likewise, we have no problem pointing our clients to less expensive works if it fits their taste. This position also makes us more amenable to gallerists and dealers because we’re bringing business to their door with no strings attached.
As far as a difference between an artist selling work through a gallery versus through Boyd Level, since we do not accept commissions from artists or galleries, 100% of the sale goes directly to the artist.
LO: Who are some of the artists you are working with? Who is your typical client?
BL: Our network of artists is continually expanding—we try to do between two and three studio visits a week. It is important for us to have as broad a network as possible, as our clients’ tastes run in lots of different directions. That said, several clients have been particularly excited by a Brooklyn-based artist named Brent Spaulding. We also currently have on loan from a collector a video work by Pierre St-Jacques that always sparks conversation. Miranda Maher’s work is highly cerebral, but definitely rewards the patient viewer. We are looking forward to seeing what Caitlin Parker and Abe Brewster, both painters, return with after their summer residencies. We’ve also been keeping a close eye on the artists being shown by Outrageous Look and 31 Grand in Brooklyn, as well as some of the galleries in Chelsea, including the Sarah Meltzer gallery.
We don’t necessarily have a typical client as they are of broad ranges in age, profession, location and experience with art. What they do tend to have in common is an innate curiosity and genuine desire to be exposed to new ideas. You get the sense that they really understand that the objects in their homes can be so much more than just place holders and nice spots of color. It is wonderful to work with someone who really hasn’t had much experience with visual art but that really starts to get excited about certain pieces—that’s when you know that it isn’t just décor for them anymore.
LO: What type of medium do you think appeals to most collectors? What kind of trends do you see for painting for instance? Do you think that there are media that sell better than others?
BL: In general, painting and photography carry the most appeal (and that goes doubly for New Yorkers, for whom sculpture can end up occupying already scarce real estate in their apartments). But, this doesn’t mean that collectors are opposed to other media. The ubiquity of flat screen televisions and streaming video content on the internet makes the prospect of collecting works of video art much easier for people to digest today than 10 years ago. From what we’ve seen, all of this has an effect on painting as an artistic enterprise, insofar as the old metaphor of the canvas as a window has been exchanged for the canvas as a screen. Many artists we’ve talked to look at their painting practices as an extension of work in other media, be it photography, video, performance, or what have you. It seems to be a very free moment, but that makes it risky as well, because there is more room for a fascination with new technology to cloud out real artistic achievement.
LO: Please describe how you go about facilitating a sale. Do you invite the collector to come to your loft in Tribeca and show them the current show at your space? Or do you arrange a studio visit with the artist? Then what happens? Please describe your process.
BL: As we don’t represent artists, nor do we have an inventory, we are not in a position to put on “shows” of work at our space. What we do exhibit is on loan from the collections of some past and current clients who like the idea of some of their work being used as examples of what they are collecting—it’s the lead by example approach, which provides us with stories about certain pieces to tell potential clients who are interested in how we operate and what we’ve accomplished in partnership with other new collectors. And frankly, it is awkward to be in the arts and not have anything on the walls.
With a new client, we talk very seriously about what they want out of a collection of contemporary art. Are they primarily concerned with finding a few pieces to enhance their living space? Are they drawn to the idea of becoming a patron to a few emerging artists? And so on. Once we’ve established a preliminary budget and conducted a site visit, we begin by assessing the client’s level of comfort with contemporary art and their knowledge of modern art history, as we think it is extremely helpful for collectors to have a grasp of how works fit within a larger historical narrative. But very quickly we are showing them a range of works, as images and in person, to get an idea of where their current tastes lie. Once we have a better understanding of a client’s interests, we take them to the studios of artists whose work we believe will meet those interests. We regard this process as an ongoing conversation in which the client is encouraged to explore and articulate what it is that they like about any given work.
When the client is ready to purchase a work, we assist in all phases from price negotiation to transportation to installation and even conservation down the road. Before the sale is consummated, we discuss the possibility of entering into a formal purchase agreement (rather than the usual bill of sale and invoice only) with both the client and the artist. In the most novel of these purchase agreements, the parties agree to include a mechanism for the sharing of future profits should the collector eventually decided to sell the work. This is derived of course from the resale royalty right (droit de suite), but offers a lot more flexibility to both parties than anything legislatively mandated. Additionally, as this right has value to an artist, the collector is usually able to negotiate an upfront discount in exchange. All in all we think that in certain circumstances, profit sharing provisions can help to better align the artist’s and the collector’s economic interests.
LO: What do you think of the New York art scene and the art market?
BL: In a word, it’s expansive. There are more artists and more dealers in New York than ever before, and though some would lament that fact, in general, we believe it is a good thing. It means more energy, more activity, and for collectors, more choices. It also means that it is very difficult to get a handle on everything that is happening at any given time. So the “scene” is now always somehow incomplete and fractional. Whether responsibility for such expansiveness can be laid at the feet of the market is questionable, but the market certainly supports it. With a seemingly ever rising market comes the inevitable fear of a crash, and one gets the sense that people linked to the art world are tracking each season’s auction sales as if they were watching a Hollywood thriller. It is as if every auction of contemporary art must now necessarily exceed the previous season’s results just to reassure everyone that things are alright. It’s exciting, but precarious. The good thing for us is that the work of genuinely emerging artists tend to be less effected by such inevitable down tics.
LO: What advice would you give to emerging or mid-career artists in terms of getting their work exhibited?
BL: Get organized and expand the network. Leave it to the adoring public to hold in its head the myth of artists as what Martha Rosler calls “romantically childlike creators.” Artists have to be savvy self-promoters. Show your work to as many people as you can, including, and probably especially, to other artists. Contacts with dealers, curators, critics and collectors will most likely come through the artists you know and who have seen your work. Indeed, many artists wear one or all of these other hats at one time or another.
LO: Who are some of your favorite artists and why?
Franklin Boyd: I really enjoy Tara Donovan’s recent work – there is a lot of installation work being done with found or everyday objects and often they still look like senseless piles of junk even though they’re trying not to be. Tara’s work has a completely different visual impact from the moment you come upon it, and really makes you appreciate what she has been able to do with these otherwise ordinary things. I guess you could say that she follows the Johns maxim that you should do something to an object and then do something else to it. She makes the most of a second step that some artists seem to have forgotten. I also think that Robert Lazzarini’s work is, for lack of a more sophisticated word, extremely cool.
Jonathan Neil: Much of my dissertation deals with Carl Andre’s work, both the sculptures and the poems, and after that level of engagement, I’d have to say that he remains one of my favorite artists. His work taught me how to think about materials and matter in a critical and serious way, and everything else follows from there. I look at Roni Horn’s work with an eye to this kind “matterist” thinking (Andre’s word), though she expands it in vastly new directions. And if you can get past his sometimes overwrought personal mythology, I think Matthew Barney’s work displays a very sophisticated sense for matter and materials, which I really appreciate.
LO: To close the interview what upcoming project do you have coming up nand how do you see Boyd Level evolving in the future?
BL: In the fall we will be hosting a series of artist critique sessions. What we’ve heard consistently from artists is that they miss some of the feedback that they received in school through their undergrad or MFA programs. Even if they have a good core group of friends who are artists and provide commentary, everyone needs a fresh pair of eyes every once in a while, and a pair of eyes that come with equivalent experience and, possibly, expertise. We’ll also be organizing a few art law seminars to introduce people to some legal concepts that can be crucial for protecting themselves and their work. Finally, we are planning a welcome back party this fall; it’s our way to thank the artists who have hosted us in their studios, and it helps us stay in touch with everyone.
Right now, Boyd Level is focused primarily on New York, but we know that there is a lot of excellent work, especially at the emerging level, being made in other cities. LA and Miami are obvious locales where we would like to see Boyd Level having a presence, but we’d also like to be in spaces such as Dallas, or Minneapolis, or Toronto.
