Transcript for Episode 003 – Art Consultants, Louise Beer + Alena Onishenko, PragArtWorks (Prague, CZ)

Published July 22, 2019

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/contemporary-fine-art-podcast-with-art-consultant-prag-art-works-prague-cz/

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

 

Matthew Dols 0:12
Welcome to the wise fool. I’m Matthew Dols, your host. Today my guests are Louise beer and Elena on ushanka of Prague artworks.com, an online art consulting firm based in Prague, Czech Republic. In our discussion, we touch on installment plans for purchasing of art, studio envy, commissions, professionalism, addiction, and certificates of authenticity.

Louise Beer 0:46
So I’m Louise beer. I’m the founder of prog artworks. And I’m with me,

Alena Onishenko 0:53
my name is Elaine Onishchenko, it pronouns with s h. And we’re working with Louise, on several projects. And

Louise Beer 1:03
we are an online gallery. And we started with, I would say, when we started a few years ago, we were about seven artists. And now it’s grown to over 60 artists in many mediums. I would say that we’re doing from painting to sculpture to glassmaking to

Alena Onishenko 1:34
installations as well. And we don’t we don’t always Yes, but we know the artist who does.

Matthew Dols 1:41
This particular company prog art works began when

Louise Beer 1:45
it began. Three years ago. We we’ve been actively doing pop up exhibitions for the last two years, I would say. And we have done about three a year. And between art Prague and our own pop ups. It’s been quite successful. We have seen something because we have a niche market that we have worked on, which is with an expat community in Prague, international community of French community and with the diplomatic community as well. So combined together with in the mix with some business people and of course, some of the Czech community. We’ve been able to bring a new awareness, I would say to to Prague,

Alena Onishenko 2:43
yes, it’s different approach to the selling of art in a way in Prague, because there are galleries here, there are individual artists. But we what we do will combine the artists together. And we’ll hold them together because there are no such thing as group exhibitions here. Where you can buy except art. Yes, yep. where I go. galleries. Yes. So this is different business. So we do because our prices are cheaper because we don’t take that much commission as a gallery do.

Matthew Dols 3:19
Okay, so what is your commission structure? What’s your relationship? Well,

Louise Beer 3:23
because we are not we’re not. We’ve been very privileged not to pay for the space, we are actually what we’re doing is we have we’re trying to keep it as low as possible. So we try and cover our expenses. And and that’s, that’s basically what we’re doing. So it’s really we’re really there for the artists, it’s, I know, it’s like I don’t want to say, you know, we’re making a bit of money, but it’s not. It’s not the we’re not taking 50%

Matthew Dols 4:00
Yeah, that’s really what it’s getting. So it’s not a 5050 No, no. Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard there’s been a number of other things that have been told to me recently, as far as even like, some galleries will buy artworks outright. Yeah. And then resell the artworks at basically whatever price they choose, which is a very interesting, dynamic, and never really heard of that before. So 5050 6040 7030 all the way to buying out rights. I mean, I’ve heard the whole spectrum already. So you all fall within where what do you what do you choose to do? Is it different? Is each artist different?

Louise Beer 4:34
No, it’s basically the same but it’s, it’s it’s not just put it this way. It’s we’re not taking a lot self because I don’t want to say something for the artists but we’re helping them as much as possible. So

Matthew Dols 4:50
Okay, fair enough. There’s certain things that are still true. Alright, well within that, how about the idea of like exclusivity versus non exclusivity? What if

Louise Beer 5:01
it doesn’t exist? Does it? No, it

Alena Onishenko 5:03
doesn’t even now what we tried to do that the last exhibition we had we demand and we we asked artists for the piece three months exclusivity. But since we don’t store the art in our places, so we don’t know what artists does with the, with the piece, we could not control it. So we say it on the paper. And if the information will get to us, somehow someone will buy we know, then we can claim it. But other than this, it’s untrackable, unfortunately. So there is exclusivity, but there is no specific, you know,

Louise Beer 5:37
and because of that make you feel? Well, you know, we work hard at what we’re doing. And it’s very hard. I think that piercing the check market when you’re an expat, and don’t speak Czech. Well, Elena speaks Czech, but I don’t I yes. And I think that in my case, I think that it makes it different. Because there’s maybe a lot of nuances that I don’t get, and I’m, I’m driving my own bus if you want, and I’m not looking at the others, because I can’t compare myself to the others because I’m not Czech. So that’s my first way is that I’m just going and when we started this online, gallery platform, because then we brought our website really up to speed, we spent a lot of money on it, we use it a lot

Matthew Dols 6:31
as a tool I’ve seen you do a lot of like online videos,

Louise Beer 6:34
and and we do as much as we we move that we try and use that as much as possible. Last year, actually, we had our whole website on continuous video, so that we could showcase all our artists, and we had benches like in a museum, so people could sit down and actually watch all the the pieces. So and that we got a lot of very positive feedback. So so we’re using that as we are like all the other social media that Elena is, is in charge of I will say that she’s it’s her mirror. So

Matthew Dols 7:19
I mean, that’s that’s a great thing that a topic that I keep asking people about that I keep wondering about because I’ve had my own successes and my own failures with social media. And so I’m always wondering, like, How well does it really work for you? Like, you know, a on the one hand, like how much time you actually have to put into it? And B does it really does that? Does the the positive actually become a net? Like do you do? Do you actually get some enough of positive response from social media to be make all the time and effort that’s put into it worth it?

Louise Beer 7:51
It’s a good question. I mean, I think it’s too soon to tell. But for instance, last week, we got somebody from Los Angeles that found us on social media buy the painting. And I don’t think that we would have had him otherwise, if he hadn’t seen the website if he so if you’re clicking, I don’t know, art galleries, or whatever it was. So I don’t know how I still don’t know how to feed back the feedback of knowing how, like how quick prog artworks actually comes on to, you know,

Matthew Dols 8:27
you can pay people

Louise Beer 8:29
to tell you yes, yes, yes, yes. But we’re not there yet. But, but, but the fact is, is that, yes, we are getting, I’m not saying that we’re getting them every week, but but it’s there. And that people that actually that we know that we see in town that and they’re like, Oh my god, you guys are so busy. You’re so so you, we always get this feedback, a very positive feedback. Well,

Matthew Dols 8:52
there’s this this sensibility in this region, I feel like, like, my wife is Czech and I feel like this is me. She keeps saying this kind of thing to me about like, being humble and not like drawing too much attention to yourself and like getting jealous and people end up getting jealous. Yeah, I mean, these are this is a very much a cultural thing. And basically, like, I feel like the idea is like, if you go out here and do a lot of things and draw a lot of attention to yourself, then a lot of the people in this culture don’t like that. Is that true? Probably

Alena Onishenko 9:23
they don’t. But we when they don’t like it, we try to be even more active.

Matthew Dols 9:30
Why don’t they like what did where does that even come from?

Louise Beer 9:33
Maybe we’re stepping on people’s toes. Maybe we’re disrupting we don’t know, but I’m sure that we’re doing but we’re doing things that have never been done before proc in proc

Matthew Dols 9:46
Yes. Like

Louise Beer 9:48
No, no, of course. But you know, to have a sponsor such such as ours, like emo finance, that actually will give us the space and now we’re going into

Alena Onishenko 9:59
three Three in the 30,000 square meters.

Louise Beer 10:01
So that’s 30,000 square feet.

Alena Onishenko 10:04
That’s a lot. That’s huge. And they, they also support us with the reception and you know, media. And

Matthew Dols 10:12
so you have some sponsor?

Louise Beer 10:14
Yes. Yes.

Matthew Dols 10:15
Who is this? Tell us? How did you get this month? I mean, part of this whole idea of this podcast is basically trying to see like, different ways that people have either failed or succeeded. As as assistance as advice as as input on like, how could we all make?

Louise Beer 10:32
Well, you know, everybody wants that million dollar question. Absolutely. But I have to say that I have been extremely lucky in one well, meeting very nice artists, artists that I get along with, I think I spoke to you about this last week, that you know, that I have the you have a human connection. It’s not just something like, Okay, I’m coming into your gallery, I’m going to pick this this this and you know, for the next show Elena’s exactly like that, like you have, we need some kind of connection. And if and these are with the artists that we’re working with, so that’s like the first thing. Our collectors are all people we know, well, I don’t like strangely enough, we don’t have a network of people we don’t know

Alena Onishenko 11:25
that we start getting to know people, you know, like, but it’s three, four people who, you know, who are actually outsiders,

Louise Beer 11:32
okay, outside of the net, everybody that buys from us, we know. So that’s already another strange factor because it’s I don’t want to say strange, but it’s, you know, it’s in in a comfortable room.

Matthew Dols 11:45
Oh, no, I’m I do reviews online for a thing called lens culture, photographers things. And people are constantly saying, How do I sell more? How do I connect more? How do I get more sales? And I always tell them, it’s go out and meet people. That’s right, you have to be at the events they have to meet you make more sales are done with handshake, then any email amount of emails or social media, still, of course. So like, you have to put in the the the face time and then the glide ending basically to to make the sales and make the connections make a personal connection.

Louise Beer 12:18
Exactly. It has to be very human. I think and, and I think that we really have that. So I would say I don’t want to say over anybody else. I’m not comparing myself to any, but I’m just saying with me, with us, we’re very happy. I like the way that it’s going. I like the idea of working with an older generation of checks, that are women and men that were under communism, that had hard times that when we call a therapist and say, szarka, would you like to join us? I mean, this lady is nearly crying to be so honored to be part of our show. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s no, it shouldn’t be because she’s so extraordinary. And, and the same with the other other people of that generation in their 70s. You just think my gosh, and then of course, this emerging new, new artists, while they’re happy because they’re there, they need exposure, they need exposure,

Matthew Dols 13:23
we all need exposure. I don’t think I’ve ever met a single artist at any level of their career where they’re like, no, I really don’t need more exposure.

Alena Onishenko 13:33
But another hand, you give them exposure, and sometimes they’re not happy with exposure.

Louise Beer 13:37
Yes, because they’re not happy where they are, and they don’t want to be next to this artists, Nick. So you have that kind of ego, because everybody has. So it’s trying to work that out as well. But that, for me is a small, it’s not even an issue. Really, the issue is, you know, bringing their pieces trying to sell them. And you know, when we do a pop up, and that, for me is what’s important. And the team that works, you know, because it’s a whole team, you know, from the driver that picks up the, you know, the the pieces to the guy that’s installing that we have that’s so extraordinary. I mean, this guy could be in a museum. You know, he’s he’s just so precise, that it’s just such a joy to have somebody like this on our like, you know, onboard with us. So things like that. And Elena like all this social media and everything that goes with administrative work and accounting and you know, as you know, all of that, you know, it’s a heavy load once you sell something, but then you’ve got all the aftermath.

Matthew Dols 14:47
Oh, yeah. I mean, the, the thing that a lot of people don’t understand because like, I mean, I’ve worked in museums, I’ve worked at galleries have also been an artist in academia. I’ve done lots of crazy things. But the one thing is, it’s about relationships, it’s about long term relationships. They mean, you know, being around for a couple years here a couple years there, it’s almost not enough. Like I, I realized recently that, like one of the reasons why, like, let’s say, for me, I haven’t been able to build my career substantially better than I have been able to, is because I have been moving constantly. So like, I keep moving every two or three years to a new job or a new school or whatever I have to do for to make a living. And by doing so, I’m actually sort of biting myself in the ass because I’m not there to be building the relationships of the people be the be at the galleries, be the collectors be whoever, because everybody wants to see the person, it’s going back to like glad handing and being out there at the parties and stuff. And, you know, the, you know, when people see you, they remember that they want to buy your work when they don’t see you. They’re like, they sort of forget about you. So

Alena Onishenko 15:55
you see someone else.

Matthew Dols 15:56
Yeah. And they see somebody else is more often. And so then they want to buy that person’s work. So like, a lot of it all is really just about making sure that you’re in the in front of the people basically.

Louise Beer 16:07
Exactly.

Alena Onishenko 16:09
Exactly. So you you wait, you build your position on the mark.

Matthew Dols 16:13
Yeah. And it takes me like a lot of our young artists are always thinking like, oh, I’ve been doing this for a year. I’ve been out of school for a year, I should be in a gallery. And I’m like, really, like there’s no obligation for the artist is so spectacular, walking out of school, like, looking back on my own career. Like, if a gallery had picked me up after one year after graduation, that would have been horrible. Like I was making crap work. Yeah. I mean, no, but like, now, yeah, okay, I think I could do a gallery like now I’m a bit more mature about it. My work has been more mature and like so like, a lot of these young artists think that the stardom and sales and all these kinds of things should be happening within a year to two years after graduation or not, sometimes not even going to school. And they just think because they’re talented that they should be getting all these things. But it’s not true.

Louise Beer 17:09
No, but I think one of the great advantages of Prague in the Czech Republic is that you have these schools. There are schools like onprem, that is a six year program. And most of the artists that we’ve dealt with are graduates of this school.

Matthew Dols 17:29
That’s a great school. So when it’s free for check says yes, yes,

Louise Beer 17:32
exactly. Yeah. sucks for me. Yes. It’s a so so that’s, that’s one of the great things with these emerging new, this new generation of artists, and that they have a chance to go to school to have good teachers. I mean, this is mentors and mentors. Yes. And that they can make a living being an artist. It’s not by Absolutely, yeah. Okay. I mean, normal. No, the rest of the world. No, it isn’t. But here, wouldn’t you agree?

Alena Onishenko 18:09
Okay, maybe not even 100%? Yes. But the older way that we know, even the

Louise Beer 18:15
older Yes. And the guys that we know, that are in their 40s 50s, they live off their art. So they don’t have a second job.

Alena Onishenko 18:23
So they have some projects as well, you know, like, but still connected to their art, like David.

Louise Beer 18:30
Or, but you know, you we look at Dan Trentino. Now, he’s at docks this week, he’s got three rooms, at the I mean, you just want to kiss him and hug him and say, you know, Bravo, because it’s so fantastic. And with his partner, Peter motika, and he’s in LA, and they work together on on each piece, and they’re like a duo. And I mean, you know, we’re so happy to see this success and their guys in their late 40s, early 50s. And it’s, that’s my generation. Yes, yes. Yes. So and that’s what you wish for everybody really?

Matthew Dols 19:08
Well, that’s the idea of this podcast is to try and share some information so that every, you know, like, When, when, when tides rise, all boats go up with the castle. Like, if everybody gets a little bit more knowledge than we all will be doing.

Louise Beer 19:23
And of course, the million dollar like, again, I say the million dollar question is everybody’s that starting or that says, Well, you know, I want to buy a piece of art because I wanted to, I’m buying it as an investment and I want and I’m like, you know, so many. We’ve heard so many people that are like, Oh, yes, you you’ve got to buy this because of it’s gonna make so much money. Nobody has a crystal ball. You know, nobody has a crystal ball. But, you know, you got to go with your gut feeling. You’ve got to go with something that you like. This is you know, I started collecting Art. As you know, I was 23 years old.

Matthew Dols 20:03
I don’t know, please share for the listener.

Louise Beer 20:06
Yeah. So, you know, I was, you know, out of hotel school, you know, making I want to quit

Matthew Dols 20:13
hotel school

Louise Beer 20:15
Hotel Management, I graduated.

Matthew Dols 20:18
School hotel, no

Louise Beer 20:19
Hotel Management, I went to hotel management school and when I graduated, of course, working in the hotel business, well, you know, you’re not making you’re making. Okay, salary. But you know, if I look back 30 years ago, in the early 80s, I don’t know is the 80s years ago.

Matthew Dols 20:40
Well, yeah.

Louise Beer 20:44
So so but you know, when I started and you know, making, I don’t know, $25,000 a year, which was probably not a bad salary to start off with well, but I just think that I had been advised by one of my friends mother that owned a gallery to start collecting art. And she put me on an installment plan. And, and I was every month paying her. And I have to say that this was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because year by year by year I was buying. And then the minute I started having a little bit more money, it was buying two pieces, and then it was three pieces. And I was, I guess for my whole life, like, you know, for probably a good 1015 years, I was on an installment plan, because the pieces got bigger and bigger. And, you know, being from Canada, most of the pieces that I would that I was buying were in us. So and the exchange rate then was huge. So I remember going to the bank, and like, well, if you had to pay 1000, I was putting 1000 up Well, that was costing you 1800. Canadian, so it was so at the end, I just remember the most expensive piece, then I think it was a probably 1986 or 87, I paid Tom wesselman this piece of a 7500 US dollars. And I thought how, and I just remember, like I came home and I thought I’ve got to get this piece, but I’m like, how am I ever gonna pay it? But you know, a year later.

Matthew Dols 22:24
And that’s something a lot of potential buyers don’t even realize, like they walk in, they see a piece that’s $10,000 $5,000 and they’re like, I don’t have 5000 now, like period. Yes, exactly. I just don’t have it. But they and they never even enquire to say like, Hey, can I pay this on an installment plan?

Louise Beer 22:42
And all artists actually, you know, last week actually, we had two young girls that were that are buying, and they will have an installment plan. And we’ve told them look, you know, the end, the artist is so happy. So hot, like I can’t even tell you. He’s He’s so happy to help these kids, these young collectors that are in their early 20s. And, you know, mid 20s? And, you know,

Alena Onishenko 23:11
yes, it’s actually what we will thinking and we are planning to do here is to teach young generation to collect art, great, because people are afraid. And you know, they because they say exactly, they come to exhibition to say how much is this? 100,000? So $4,000 or no, I don’t have it. So and if you say look, okay, pay that in four times, pay it in five times, it’s okay. But you know, you will have a collection because everyone wants art at home, especially in Czech Republic, people like art, and they like to, you know, go to museums, and so they have this culture, but they’re afraid.

Louise Beer 23:53
But they you’re here the checks are raised, for instance, as a young age, like we think of our like my daughter, our daughter when she was in the French school here. They go to the theater. Yeah. And they go in at everything every theater play. Yes. And it’s in the culture since you’re very young. So you continue that your whole upbringing is Yeah, so the arts are there.

Matthew Dols 24:22
I saw some recent statistics that said there were like 300 theatre companies in Prague alone. Oh,

Louise Beer 24:28
yes. Yes. And so so that is in their culture. Yeah. Well, the same should be like I want to say collecting art, because what happens is that you have young couples that are married with a kid or, and they just bought an apartment, and they’ve just spent 9 million crowns or 11 or 12 million, and then they say, I don’t have any money.

Matthew Dols 24:50
That’s right. They go to IKEA, buy some crap stuff just to cover the walls, make it look unsustainable.

Louise Beer 24:56
And so that’s why like every show We trying to have pieces that are waiting.

Matthew Dols 25:02
Nothing personal to artists that work with IKEA. I’m sure there are some lovely works in there. But as a general whole, that’s my position. Yes,

Louise Beer 25:08
yes, yes.

Alena Onishenko 25:10
It’s usually it’s not original, this is the problem. It’s usually the brains.

Matthew Dols 25:15
I’m a photographer, my background, I’m fine with prints, like I’m okay with worse on paper. So I’m not going to knock that. But there are some very bad works at IKEA those But recently, they’ve been doing some nice things where they do limited edition run partnerships with artists. I mean, of course, they’re limited edition are like 5 million, but still, I mean, they, they, I will say IKEA has been doing better to get more creative, but it’s still, it’s still, you know, big box store artwork, it’s nothing unique or special.

Louise Beer 25:46
And I think here because there are so many so many artists,

Matthew Dols 25:51
I never gonna get IKEA as a sponsor.

Louise Beer 25:53
But there are so many artists of every jar here. And you know, you’ve in Prague alone, but you you go out of Prague, you’re, I mean, there’s, and it’s like it’s a strange thing to say, but checks, they love to go mushroom hunting. And it’s a big passion. And they, you know, they collect hundreds of mushrooms. And I think it’s like the artists, there’s, you know, everywhere you go, you you hear of this name that name, and there’s hundreds that you don’t know about. And, and you know, and they were may be known at a certain time. And then because of communism because of whatever. They they let their their things go. And I mean, we go into some of these studios. I mean, it’s like the trove of Valley Baba sometimes. I

Matthew Dols 26:55
mean, it’s just absolutely, I’ve seen some of the videos of your going into this. But I mean, these are the one thing that always astounds me when I see particularly your videos, those studios are huge. Some of them were. And how much do they pay in rent? Because there’s no way that those are cheap? Because Well,

Louise Beer 27:16
a lot of them actually have sponsors, how

Matthew Dols 27:24
I’m here, how do I get a sponsor?

Louise Beer 27:28
Some? Look, some some of them are working. They have extraordinary collectors that are helping them. We have other artists that are very, very well known and have small studios. So it’s

Matthew Dols 27:45
I but I’m looking for a big studio, where do I get the sponsors? Where do they come from? I know I can’t go to the municipality, because there it’s only you have to be a Czech citizen for that.

Alena Onishenko 27:54
Yes, yes. This is what happens with older artists, let’s say they have a lot of places from municipality like soumaya. So given them in the past, now, the only thing is that a lot of artists who came here, they struggling with the space, but you can go to Prague off.

Louise Beer 28:15
So they rent very expensive, though,

Matthew Dols 28:18
yes. My rent on my apartment with my wife and three cats is cheaper and cheaper. Then the cheapest studio at Prague. This is like I mean, they’re I mean, don’t get me wrong. Prague. Africa is great. I love it. A huge fan of it. I hope it gets very successful. But I know what you’re saying. I think we’ve already out priced

Alena Onishenko 28:42
its artists. Connections connections. Yes.

Louise Beer 28:45
You know, and this is the thing.

Matthew Dols 28:49
Wow, I heard a recent story about Prague, Africa that says that actually, they’re downsizing. They’re getting ready to renovate part of it. And so therefore, they’re actually getting rid of a number of artists. And they’re going to be only limiting the number of artists so so the potential of getting a studio there is actually probably going lower, and probably the costs of the studios are going to be going up because they now we’re going to renovate part of it. So therefore it’s more desirable. Yeah, you know, I mean, it’s the stereotypical same story is like every major major metropolitan city first the artists go into an a, an old, rundown neighborhood, then the homosexuals move into the rundown neighborhood and then all of a sudden it becomes gentrified, and attractive to live there. And then people come in and it gets really expensive. And then neither artist nor homosexual can live there anymore. Can’t afford it, because that’s that’s all we need. Like, we like the cheap places, of course.

Louise Beer 29:37
But here, there’s still there’s still there’s still opportunities. There are still opportunities, but um, you know, I’ve been here since 2002. And I can tell you it’s a very, very difficult market to drill a hole in, in the sense of it takes time. You know, you think, you know, a lot of people, but at the end, you know, yeah, we do know, but in a certain world and, you know, the galleries here, I mean, I have a lot of galleries that I have as friends, the same with museums the same, and you know, and thankfully, I have these certain connections with certain people, but the fact is, is that, um, you know, it’s a check market, and I’m not, I’m not check. So, you know, you’ll always always have that. But at the same time, I’ll say, and I’m because I’m a very positive person, I always see the good. And I see that the way that I’ve done business so far. Well, it’s worked for me.

Matthew Dols 30:49
Well, but you’re I mean, and not sound like this is some coming plan on your part. But you were smart enough to partner with somebody who is more regional than you are with a Elena.

Louise Beer 30:59
Yes, but we have a very fantastic story, because we have a common friend that lives in London, Jennifer Potter, that has known me as she she has a Czech husband, and he lived here for many, many years. And when I had an exhibition a few years ago in London, she helped me and she always kept talking about Atlanta. And, and we’re like, Okay, well, and I think she was like, Hi, yeah, well, whatever. I was like, okay, whatever. And she really kept that in. So she pushed us, actually, we just went Now, the last two days, we were in London to visit her. So. So it was

Matthew Dols 31:45
a good business move to also Well,

Louise Beer 31:47
we complement each other very well, because Elena has an MBA, she’s very, very,

Matthew Dols 31:56
very necessary in the arts. This is this is one of my big pet peeves, because, okay, I work in academia, and I’m constantly teaching young artists how to create works. But the one thing that I feel like nobody walks out of school with or any abilities, is how to run the business of the arts, they do not know how to price their work, do contracts, sign anything, taxes, like, they don’t understand any of that kind of stuff. And so like artists, and, and even creative minded people generally oftentimes need a balance, or in their relationship, their life, whatever. That is somebody who’s more business minded.

Alena Onishenko 32:35
You remember, we said, we were in the party together, and one guy says, you know that I do the thing, but you know, I have someone who’s my hard drive. So I said, Yes, Louise is a, you know, PC, and, um, her hard drive. Yeah, because she’s great with connecting with people. She’s great with keeping social and everything. And I’m good in other things, you know, being home doing stuff, and you know, have some ideas and everything. So, yes, we’re complementing each other for what she does, I could not do and what I do, she could not do so that’s why we’re, you know,

Louise Beer 33:11
a good team. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s worked. But you need to find that and, and for us, well, I don’t want to say but it just, it happened. It happened, it came in our laps, because it’s like, and our working relationship is easy. And we have a good one. This

Matthew Dols 33:32
is something that a lot of artists need, like business managers,

Louise Beer 33:35
this is what we’re trying to do with a lot of them in the sense of, it’s not like it’s selling the art, but it’s as well, because when you have a relationship with an artist, it’s much more because when you’ve sold something, I mean, you’ve got to send it away like if they’re not living here it’s got to be sent by speedier you’ve got the customs to look after the pickup the the invoicing, the all of that a lot of them couldn’t they don’t know that, you know, as far as they’re concerned is like just give me the cash and and I must

Matthew Dols 34:10
say it’s funny, I’m from the world where like I worked at the gallery so I know all about having to crate up and do all this kind of stuff. So I’m like, I’m always surprised when artists don’t know how much work and effort galleries put into making completing a sale. So like, not even just making the sale but it’s completing the sale like doing everything and then you know, the follow up the taxes, the everything else mean even even potentially, you know, paying to have somebody go and install it for them. Well, yeah, there’s a lot of a lot of the people that buy these more expensive pieces. They don’t want to be responsible to install it in there. We believe

Louise Beer 34:44
that to do and, and. But it’s it’s it’s a big, big, big job. And I think the after sale of I mean, recently, last week, I was at a collector’s home, to see a sculpture that was tailor made For their backyard, and to go and see what it looked like, and but I mean, it was, it was so magnificent, but at the same time, thankfully, it’s the sculptor is I want to say he has an engineer’s mind in a way. So with the lighting, because, you know, they wanted to have lighting and but it’s not everybody that has that that gift, I would say,

Matthew Dols 35:25
Well, I mean, that’s where it goes back. Okay, so let’s go back a little bit of a step. So like, how do you choose your artists? Because I mean, like, I’ve had conversations over the past decades with various different gallery owners and stuff. And it’s always like, you know, little things like, there’s the there’s the fabulous savant of an artist that just makes amazing work, but might be a horrible pain in the ass to work with on a professional level, you know, or they might be a drug addict, or a drunk or whatever. They might be in legal troubles. me I’ve known. Yeah, I’ve known artists that have been in business.

Louise Beer 36:02
But we tried to stay open minded. I would say that would be the first thing, but I don’t like conflict. And I like believe that. And I like to be with somebody that I have a trust, and that I have some kind of, you know, feeling that I can call I can, but I don’t want to call somebody and I and they call me back three days later, I’m not interested in that. Neither of us, I, we spend most of the time, we if, with a few exceptions, the artists that we’re working with, you call them, they’ll call you back, unless they’re traveling or there’s something you’ll get an email. But if I’m calling you for something specific, I have a client that wants something, call me back.

Matthew Dols 36:49
You know, that this is that just seems professional.

Louise Beer 36:51
Yeah. But it’s not always. So to come back to the drug addict to the you know, we’ve had the

Matthew Dols 36:57
drug addicts been extra.

Louise Beer 37:00
Careful. I know. I know. But you know, we have some serious problems. And I’m telling you some serious alcohol, alcoholism here is rape. rampid. So we’ve had whole culture that has nothing to do with

Matthew Dols 37:15
being an artist.

Louise Beer 37:16
Yes, exactly. So you know, we can go to a studio in the morning. I don’t take it personally. But we have some artists that you go early in the morning. I mean, you’re meeting somebody at 10 in the morning, and they’re already the wall. They haven’t either gone to bed, or

Matthew Dols 37:32
I but I know artists like I had a friend of mine, Dick that I went to grad school with hi big love that he made. He made magnificent paintings when he was drunk, but trying to make paintings when he was sober. No, no, no, not psychedelic. No, he actually made was based on jazz and musical scores and things with magnificent paintings. But when he was drunk when he was sober, they’re not quite as good paintings like, and it was it was a very interesting dynamic that sometimes some sort of, we’ll call it social lubrication, relaxation, you know, getting your clothes at you making your mind more free, whatever it is sometimes necessary. Like, I once had a student who actually came to me and said, I’ve been looking through the history of art, and I’m looking at like, Salvador Dali and a bunch of these other artists. And I’m wondering, is it necessary to be an alcoholic or a drug addict to make good art? And I wanted to say yes, like, or a mental instability, or something like, there is some creative people, creative people, to a certain extent, need to see things differently in some way, right? What do they do they take that, but it’s pretty

Alena Onishenko 38:41
No, but when you have a business meeting, I mean, you can in your studio, you can get drunk, you know, paint, you can smoke, whatever. But when our dealers coming to you and says, Look, I want to represent you, and you say 10 o’clock in the morning, Let’s drink to it, you know, have bottle of felanitx

Louise Beer 39:01
slivovitz A and yes,

Alena Onishenko 39:02
it’s not. It’s hard, they don’t they don’t divide the professional side of their work. And whatever you do in the studio stays in the studio. And

Matthew Dols 39:12
that’s why we’re going back to about like, artists are trained to create and be creative and be you know, push the bounds of things, whatever it is even push the limits of like alcoholism or drug use or whatever. But like they they enjoy pushing these things, but they and a lot of them and possibly myself included, like have a massive difficulty with the business side of it. Like just yeah, it could be separating it it could be being professional I mean, I think at this point, I’m pretty professional, but I’m not sure if that’s good or not good at this point for me but but like the that’s separate that disconnect between like the their creative personality and their business life. They a lot of them seem to have difficulty with that.

Louise Beer 39:58
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we had a show two years ago, where I had two artists that got, I mean, I thought they’d have to go to the hospital and get their stomachs pumped. They were so drunk. And like, really? And what are you going to do? Like? It’s the they just laughed it off. And, you know, they’re Thursday. It’s not Yes, exactly.

Alena Onishenko 40:24
And you see, because this, the opening in the past what we were doing, we had artists and the customers know your clients. And this probably when the client see this, not everyone knows about artists, they like art. But when they see that this person who are lying down in the corner created the survey, say, strange, you know, so, like, it’s, and we know artists, right?

Louise Beer 40:51
We’re dealing with business people, for instance, it’s another, it’s at another level, the people that are coming are in the community, but they’re, they’re working, I want to say there. So it’s not. It’s not like if you go to another gallery, that you have friends of an artist, we don’t want their friends, I say, Look, they can come another time during the week, whatever, anytime. But during an opening, we want to keep it to collectors, we want to keep it to potential buyers, professional and away. Yes.

Matthew Dols 41:30
So you’ve run into the scenario that like I’ve talked about with other people before about which is the that you sometimes it happens where you will actively not involve the artist in in sales, basically, like if somebody falls in love with the art piece, and they say, and they say, I want to meet the artists that you might have to go. Yeah, that’s not a good idea.

Louise Beer 41:52
Well, or he’s unavailable at the moment.

Matthew Dols 41:55
Yeah, in a politically correct way. You would say like, because it’s,

Louise Beer 42:02
what’s the point, you know, and I have some pieces of art that I should, you know, that I bought, but going to a burning stash 25 years, or 30 years ago that I bought, and I’m thinking that artist, I remember him, and he wasn’t a nice person. And I’m thinking I had the, you know, I bought the art. But do you really like you have, you don’t want to connect, you don’t want to connect it and sometimes you just like this piece, I’m not interested in knowing I okay, I know who it is so and so. But I sometimes that’s not necessary. Because I know it’s strange, because every artist has a big ego. And they want to be like, okay, it’s coming into your house it’s coming into and that you’re proud of that. Because so many artists here are not driven by money. This is another thing, another factor that we find. There, they’re just it’s not a motivation, like in other countries where you say, I would say yes, yes, it’s there is not a motivate these elaborate.

Matthew Dols 43:11
What is so what motivates artists in this region?

Alena Onishenko 43:16
I might be some kind of, because there are so many artists here so maybe every artists trying to fit in the artists community, because what happens in artists community, they they secretly don’t like each other. Oh, it’s not secret? No, no, they

Matthew Dols 43:33
don’t like each other. No.

Alena Onishenko 43:35
So but you know, so they try and always to be look at this gallery invited me. And usually we’re talking about galleries like state gallery, so you don’t sell there, you just expose yourself. So they want to be part of some group exhibition and say, Look, I was there or you know, I wasn’t docks. I wasn’t.

Matthew Dols 43:53
I mean, I’ve always said that basically, like the arts is one of the most difficult industries to be working in, because they literally from the moment you enter the arts world, everybody is looking forward to you fail. Like that’s it, nobody will support you. So I don’t care if you’re a gallerist or whether you’re an artist. absolutely nobody wants you. I mean, okay, sure, close family and friends. But outside of them, yes. Nobody else in the industry is is cares about your success will help you with your success, or in any way support you. They are just waiting for you to fail. So that they can pick up whatever the pieces of what you know. So like, if an artist fails, then somebody can buy their work cheap and then turn around and sell it for more later. If a gallery fails. That just means that so another gallery can come in and scoop up your artists that you just now lost and they can add to their roster. Everybody wants you to fail. It’s horrible. Like,

Louise Beer 44:52
but I think to come back to the artists that are not motive. I mean we have I have we have another artist If he doesn’t meet the person and has this rapport, he does not, they don’t want to sell to anybody that’s just willing to pay the money. It has to go into a good home. Or they’re worth Yeah, babies. Because this piece of art is my baby. And I want to make sure it goes into a good home.

Matthew Dols 45:21
So there’s some artists who actually feel this way they have

Louise Beer 45:25
a great attachment. And, and I’ve had people like, I mean,

Matthew Dols 45:30
there’s really ask for like a home inspection and be like, well,

Louise Beer 45:33
they’ll go for sure. Because they’ll see what well, it’s going to go on. Really?

Matthew Dols 45:36
Yes. before they even allow it to be sold. Yes. Yes. So it’s not I’m not sure if that is most cutting business thing I’ve ever heard or ridiculous. No,

Louise Beer 45:46
I think it’s really from the bottom of their

Matthew Dols 45:48
heart. I know. But like, in some ways that’s like, it’s almost like so childlike in like, in it’s almost admirable in a way like it’s like it because like now by doing that you have then made the people who are buying it might feel like the artwork is even then exponentially more precious than if they just paid money for it and walked away.

Louise Beer 46:11
Well, that’s another element if you want. And that’s another part of working and being in in Prague, because a lot a lot of the artists that we work with.

Alena Onishenko 46:27
I mean, it’s been like that. And you know, knowing Louise would say every show was usually this pop up we have usually it’s quite successful. Every artist knows that end. So you would expect that artists will approach will give you the best piece they have. So they sell it. Now they give you the garbage. Sometimes they give you some pieces from 92, which they have stored and the good pieces they would give together in Ostrava.

Louise Beer 46:55
So we were changing that a little bit, you know, but it’s,

Alena Onishenko 46:59
so it’s, so it has no, that’s why you say is no longer driven by money. Because if you’re doing by money, you say, work out always, to best works. And we’re asking for two pieces usually so give you best or make it you know, right away,

Matthew Dols 47:15
they would actively choose not to put their best work

Alena Onishenko 47:18
out. Yeah, this is the thing, they would rather be in Ostrava, because it’s a Strava. And this gallery invited them. And they give the piece there.

Louise Beer 47:28
So now the last show we had in February, we only had eight artists, compared to the last one that we had 38 artists. And you know, that sounds like a lot of fun. But what was great is that then we asked for new pieces. We asked, we said it’s a Valentine edition. And of course, that whole idea is new here a little bit to you know, because

Matthew Dols 47:51
exhibitions

Louise Beer 47:52
theme and that theme, but to think because when I was growing up, I don’t know, my parents always bought me something for Valentine’s. So I was telling, like young checks, like, you know, well, if you’re newly married, maybe your husband will buy you a small piece of art or maybe, you know, like this idea.

Matthew Dols 48:09
Interesting. You say that actually, because like I grew up in a household where my parents, they My father is a painter at this point. He’s a minister, Reverend, whatever you but he studied painting. And when they got married, they made a an agreement that every year for the anniversary, they buy a piece of art,

Louise Beer 48:26
oh, let’s see how

Matthew Dols 48:28
beautiful. So that’s what they ended up, they now have this massive collection here where

Alena Onishenko 48:33
she’ll go

Matthew Dols 48:33
on, buys their cigars and call theirs and they have a shoe golf that they bought as a it’s a print, it’s nothing special. But they it’s a print that they bought for $6

Louise Beer 48:43
Oh my gosh,

Matthew Dols 48:45
back in 1964. Because they loved it back then. And that was the price of a shingle in 1964. So, you know, it’s things like this. And they and over. So over 50 they’ve been married for over 50 years. So they bought artwork, a piece of artwork as their anniversary every year.

Louise Beer 49:01
And it just shows once again that you don’t have to be a millionaire when you’re no but a lot of people have this idea. But you have to say that it’s and if you start small,

Matthew Dols 49:12
but yeah, like I’m a fan of collecting in the way of like, paper works on paper, I think is an excellent entry to collecting. Because it’s inexpensive, not you know, even framing is not very expensive. They don’t necessarily they’re not quite as precious per se. So like when you get to be collected better or bigger or more expensive. You don’t feel so bad taking a work on paper and putting it in a different room or something like this, but like I love works on paper, but unfortunately, my wife doesn’t love all the artwork I want to put on the wall. So I end up with only like one piece in a room where I would want like nine pieces up in a room so you know that you guys are balancing act on that but but I mean there are lots of like avenues of entry so that

Louise Beer 49:56
yes, and photography is another one where

Matthew Dols 49:58
geography is tough Mark Here. Yes. And I mean, in Europe, wherever in Europe I have found I think Amsterdam, and Paris are in London a little bit, are pretty good with photography. They have good long traditions because of course photography was made in Paris or London depending on who you talk to. But But Amsterdam also has a very strong history of photography, but outside of there, it’s a tough market for photography.

Louise Beer 50:26
And Prague is because we have so well this Pawel banca was telling you about

Matthew Dols 50:31
Yeah, so I was waiting until after the pop. Because I want to make sure you weren’t upset with me. Right?

Louise Beer 50:38
Like, he’s, he’s a great photographer and as well,

Matthew Dols 50:43
to do Okay, so, blah, blah. So we’re okay. So going into that what subject matter mediums, whatever, what sell well, what don’t sell well, what’s what, what does the market look like right now?

Louise Beer 50:58
Well, we’re working with two seromas.

Matthew Dols 51:01
You don’t even know the answer to this.

Louise Beer 51:04
You can’t because it’s I think what we’re presenting the Aramis Yes. Shark szarka radova. And

Alena Onishenko 51:13
and she’s you know, she has unbelievable pieces, unique pieces, which are very recognizable, sculptural or utilitarian, very, it’s it’s usually figure but figures she only does so you if you see you know her. And she comes from the family of therapists. So her father was ceramists mother was sermons. And it’s extraordinary. And it’s just it costs nothing. Yes, it’s porcelain. And it takes her like four days to create the one piece because you bake it or bake it painted whatever glaze layers and people would come and try to negotiate with us the price.

Louise Beer 51:54
And you’re talking about a couple of 100 euros. Yeah, no, it’s and there’s another artists that we like very much in this. She does ceramic, Indra and she’s the same. And she does steel with ceramic. And it’s

Alena Onishenko 52:10
very abstract. And she stopped doing it like many four year four years ago. So

Louise Beer 52:16
it’s so you go to their house. The husband Pawel banca is the photographer and she’s doing this, these pieces with this. Why are we and and then the ceramic swords, fingers of heads and so on. And you go in their house, and they both have their own sides of the utterly. And it’s just such a great pleasure to be there because you’re in like, you don’t want to leave. And

Alena Onishenko 52:45
check market unfortunately, ceramic and porcelain as they consider it, same thing. It’s nothing. Because you know, many so many and we don’t care, as artists here to

Matthew Dols 52:57
have a

Alena Onishenko 52:58
glass are very expensive here. But they’re all abroad. No one likes them here. Yes, yes.

Louise Beer 53:03
Yes, because we have, for instance, Rudolf burdah, his, his biggest market is in Bahrain, the sheikh of Bahrain is buying his pieces. But we have Vladimir Barak, his glass pieces, everything is in the States. So, you know, are mostly in the States. So,

Matthew Dols 53:24
I mean, I was talking to somebody about this. And this makes sense is like, those kinds of pieces are things that you buy because of the experience of traveling somewhere like, like, if I live if I grew up here in Prague, I wouldn’t be buying Prague glass, because what I live in progress, I see it all the time. It’s not, there’s no personal attachment or memory to it. But if I traveled to somewhere, and I have a memory of that experience of that travel, and I buy a piece of art, it now becomes a tangible memory of a travel. So like, to a certain extent, that’s what this international market is.

Alena Onishenko 53:57
Like 20 from starting from $20,000 piece. Yeah, that’s

Matthew Dols 54:02
a bit higher than Yeah, so

Alena Onishenko 54:03
it’s not it’s not so bad.

Louise Beer 54:07
Yeah, I like bark, cheap Peck, you know, bark, cheap Peck. I mean, he passed away a few years ago, but this man architect, he’s, he did all the, the changes at the castle with President Huvelle at the time. So all the anything that you see the glass chandelier is the the style with the chairs and they have a little piece a little knob somewhere. So if you go to the Spanish Hall, it’s all his, you know, the the chair everything he’s designed. So you look at the, you know, of course, now if you go to an auction house and you see his pieces, I mean, it’s skyrocketed. So

Matthew Dols 54:52
Alright, let’s go back now because we I don’t think we actually answered the question of like, so how do you look for or find artists do So, do artists come to you? Do they send you email?

Louise Beer 55:04
A few of them do? I would say that that’s like 10%? I would say, Yes. It’s because we the people, you know, will check some of them out and But mostly, we, we had we started with the core group of 10 artists, and out of those 10 artists, it’s like, you would tell me, okay, I have so and so he’s this. I have this friend, that’s the sculptor, you should really get to know him. And I tell you, I, the both of us we do a lot of homework. And, you know, we were like, Where’s the Jacobian? The, the sculpture garden is?

Alena Onishenko 55:51
botanicals,

Louise Beer 55:52
botanicals, botanicals. You go there? Well, I mean, it’s, it’s a goldmine for sculpture, because you have so many different sculptures that are there. So I that’s how I saw the piece of Lukash rice, for instance. And so Lucas, I called them and I said, I’d like you to be part of my show. And, you know, and this guy is like, Oh, my, my gosh, so happy and but so talented. And, and the same with Andre Oliva they live far away in there was sometimes three, four hours from Prague, and you know, there. But it’s so extraordinary. They’re so talented.

Matthew Dols 56:38
Right? So, so most of your artists you get from recommendations from other existing artists,

Louise Beer 56:43
or that you know, that we’re looking up or that we find or that we see, even some client can advise, you know, say, Look,

Alena Onishenko 56:52
I know this artist, please come to Dallas.

Matthew Dols 56:55
Yes, yeah. So this goes back to the whole sort of beginning part of the handshake and getting to know people kind of thing, which is still what the art world is really based?

Louise Beer 57:03
Yes, yes. Because Don’t forget, most of the artists that we work with work, they’re not in a gallery, they’re mostly at home in their studios, working, minding their own business, doing their own thing, and many not motivated by, you know, they’re there. They’re just doing their things. So they have their own collectors, they have their own little niche. So we’ve come in and say, Look, you know, we’ll try and help you or we’ll do and sometimes I’m disappointed by the response, because I think that there’s, you know, some artists that are so extraordinary. And I’m thinking should How come nobody’s buying this piece? Because it should be. It’s not that the prices are high or that and it’s like a not, I think something that I think for sure is going to sell. And so sometimes you just you don’t know,

Matthew Dols 57:59
guess what I mean? That’s an interesting like what, you know, when you’re because you work both ends as the gallery, you’re literally the middleman in the whole process. Like, you talk with the artists, you talk with the buyers, and so like, what is the trick? Like? How do how does it work? Like what’s, how do you get the connection to happen?

Louise Beer 58:23
You know, electricity? No, it’s,

Alena Onishenko 58:30
yeah, no, Louise, first of all, Louise would go, let’s say she would say if you meet, she will meet you. And she will say you need the North at your home to say no, no, thank you. I have no, no, look, this wall need the painting here. You know, so it’s all about okay, but

Matthew Dols 58:48
that scenario assumes that you have access to a collector’s home.

Alena Onishenko 58:52
Okay, yes,

Matthew Dols 58:52
I do I do.

Alena Onishenko 58:55
Access to this person wake up one morning. Oh, she’s right. I need the painting here. Or

Matthew Dols 59:03
messaging, or you

Alena Onishenko 59:06
need some entertainment around. So you need the sculpture for if you don’t have access? No.

Matthew Dols 59:14
It’s more difficult, much more difficult. Yeah.

Louise Beer 59:17
Yeah, I’m very fortunate. And I say it. Because really, you know, the friends that we’ve made, and a lot of them, I mean, one collector that you’ll meet Tony, Rebecca, I mean, I was, I was at his house, the most beautiful house, sitting by his pool, and I said, you would need a sculpture. And, and this was two years ago, and he said, You know, that’s a good idea. And I called the ACCUPLACER. And I said, yakob, you you go and talk to him. And because it was my first, you know, idea saying this, and I said, Tony, I’d like you to help me because I’d like to post some pictures and do this and And he said, Sure, like, and because he was a friend, I didn’t want to, you know, they just did their deal. And that was it. And, and I said, I’m going to make this a big thing in my like on my website to say, Look, I’ve been to a collector’s home, and look at the beautiful sculpture that was made for this, for this collector mission work, you know, a commissioned work. And so now more and more and more and more homes or people collectors are doing this. Exactly. are doing commissioned work. And this i think it’s it’s it’s tailor made?

Matthew Dols 1:00:41
So is this something and so do you believe that the Prague artworks will be able to expand outside of this region? Or are you only staying, maybe, because they you have your friends and your friends of friends. And that’s lovely, and it’s going to sustain you for a little while. But there’s going to be a point where you’re kind of going to run out of clients?

Louise Beer 1:00:58
Yes.

Matthew Dols 1:00:59
What do you do that?

Louise Beer 1:01:00
Well, this is it. I mean, you know, we’ve already looked at like the next show we’re going to do in November, we already are going we have an artist from Budapest, we have an artist from we’re looking at different options in Europe like to say, Okay, let’s, let’s already look, not just check. And then hopefully, we’ll go and do a B analysis, not be an owl, but a show maybe in Georgia, or in

Alena Onishenko 1:01:29
Vienna art of art. First, I noticed a small booth, you know, just to expose the art.

Matthew Dols 1:01:36
That’s a whole?

Louise Beer 1:01:37
Well, we have we know,

Matthew Dols 1:01:39
yeah, that’s a whole boy.

Louise Beer 1:01:41
Well, we have to do something because there’s no expense. Yeah. But you know, at the same time we’ve got, because, you know, we’re looking at so many options, we’re looking at doing like creating an app, we’re creating this, maybe opening a small gallery, we have so many ideas. And so we know that we want to do something, I would say stay away from the app,

Matthew Dols 1:02:03
I’ve seen that have I’ve seen the app idea but done before. In San Francisco, I was there, like around the 2000s of the.com. And suddenly, there was an app made that you could buy Art Online, and it failed miserably. When it comes to like law, I mean, that’s like saying, like, here’s an app to buy a car. That’s the kind of money like people are not gonna be buying cars on a map. Yeah. When the money becomes that one, the the purchase price becomes over a certain price point. People are not going to do it on an app. Right. Right. Exactly. So like, if you want to sell like, starter works last year with the getting customer beginning collectors kinds of things. Like maybe that can be an app. Yes. You know, Sarah graphs and things along this guy, like, Sure, you can actually do those and people will buy those through. Like they’re not going to buy bronze sculpture or anything like this. Like there’s a, there’s a there’s maximum price point that people are willing to do without your hands on experience with something basic. Right. Right. Be careful with that one.

Louise Beer 1:03:05
Yes. But, you know, we’re, we’re looking at a lot of things we’re

Alena Onishenko 1:03:10
thinking of, yeah. But coming back to the sale part. I was working in together for many years. So what I learned,

Matthew Dols 1:03:19
yes, I also want to be sure to go back. What are your background? A little bit of your background?

Alena Onishenko 1:03:26
Working in the gallery for 10 years with my dad. So who is your dad? My dad is an artist as well. So I know how artists can be you know, difficult.

Matthew Dols 1:03:36
I resent that

Alena Onishenko 1:03:38
Alexander donation goes his name. Yes, his galleries gallery a coupe skirt still exists, it’s 25 years old, already. So I worked with him for 10 years. And I have to say that what happens when you sell, okay to sell in the gallery, it’s easy. Because if person come in the gallery, you can do the magic. Why? Because the people very often buy story. Second is people very often buy technique. And you know, if you say that this artist is famous, and you know, a lot of people have him. So people buy this, you know, popularity kind. So, when you when let’s say we have four pups what we’d also do we do commanded Tour, which when Why don’t we invite the experts and different kinds of people. So they learn about artists, and I have to say that it works. And let’s say next time we try, we will try to do it in Russian, maybe in Czech. So people learn about artists and you say some, you know, story and every person would click, you know, say Well, what’s

Matthew Dols 1:04:50
so interesting, you know, that’s the thing that I think was most intrigued by what you just said, which is the you can sell the story. There’s so many artists these days that like they make Beautiful objects like a stunning piece. And they have they offer no story with it. Like they just do like a one word title. And they’re like, yes. And it’s the story that sells the piece, like whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, you know, for better or for worse, there has to be have a story to it. Because otherwise, it’s simply just decor. Like, it’s exactly, it’s just graphic design or whatever. But it’s it has to have more of a story behind it. How do you get that story out of the artists? Or do you just make it up?

Alena Onishenko 1:05:35
No, no, no, no. Every artist just okay, you make up a little bit. Maybe, you know, you just exaggerate.

Louise Beer 1:05:43
But we’re there we’re sitting with these guys were you know, guys or women are, but you get to know them. So you have to have that

Matthew Dols 1:05:51
triple latest story.

Alena Onishenko 1:05:53
You say, Oh, you know, he has six water one like, wow, let’s see the season his war. Energy? Yes. I’m saying yeah, so it’s illegal in most countries.

Louise Beer 1:06:05
But we have a, you know, that’s that human, that human element that we’re talking about? I mean, there’s some artists that, you know, we’ve had before that, you know, they come, we don’t know that well. And we can see that it doesn’t work so well, either. Because they don’t know us that well. And you try them out because you like their work, or you think it’s gonna sell. But you know,

Alena Onishenko 1:06:29
you find him boring board. So how you can sell some interesting art, but from boring art. There’s no story behind it. He just want to sell Yeah,

Matthew Dols 1:06:40
the commercial oriented, or they just want to produce a pretty thing. Like that’s it. And so the artwork ends with pretty thing.

Louise Beer 1:06:49
Yeah. And, you know, we’ve had, you know, I mean, just happened recently that, you know, we put the piece because we asked the artists drop everything off, and, you know, we’re going to curate it, we’re gonna, we’re looking after the details. And we don’t want to have the artists involved in where it’s going to be. And then they’ll come and they’ll see their piece. And they’ll say, Well, why, why am I there? Besides so and so and why is it there? And, you know, so

Matthew Dols 1:07:17
what, does that matter?

Louise Beer 1:07:18
Why no, no, because it’s an it’s too close to the other guy. And it’s too close to you know,

Alena Onishenko 1:07:23
they don’t pay. So it’s, you know, we take the art and we we try to sell it. So, if you pay for the space, okay, you say I don’t like it or whatever. But

Louise Beer 1:07:35
we’re doing a lot. And I think that it’s a very, very fine line here. Because Because a collector could actually go, and they do directly to the artists to the and this is probably the biggest I would say, you know, when you when you’re when you think that you’re you’ve a trust that you have between somebody that you know, and then they go directly to the artist and have something they didn’t know them before. They see. They see what we’re posting online, and then there’s no way of controlling that. There’s no way there’s no

Matthew Dols 1:08:22
no way. I mean, like there are ways of controlling that.

Louise Beer 1:08:25
Well, I’m, you know, I’ve got we’ve got so many artists and you know, you’re not talking I mean, you might be in a in a closer contact with 10 or 15. But you’re not like calling everybody every week, all you know your whole roster

Matthew Dols 1:08:40
within that question. So like, what do you think the sort of the magic number, the right number of artists that a gallery should be representing? Because there is a point where it gets too many.

Louise Beer 1:08:51
I think that right now we’re at a point where we’ve got to decide which way we’re going to go, in the sense that either we’re going to do it’s like an art fair. And we’re going to have 50 artists, we had 37 and I didn’t think it was that difficult to manage at all. But because we’re taking at the same time, say a husband and wife, two sisters together as a father,

Matthew Dols 1:09:20
we’re gonna say a dog

Louise Beer 1:09:23
a father with his son, a father with their daughter. So, so already, when you take all of that away, you’ve probably like that 15 or 16 that are associated with somebody, and then the rest so I didn’t find it. I didn’t find that so hard to manage. Strangely enough, that side, I don’t mind. You know, but what it is, is this fine line of, you know, do we stay small and you you stay with, you know, we say okay, we’re gonna go with that. 10 artists only, and, you know, 10 artists, and that’s it. And there, they can bring 1010 pieces each and we’re gonna do the, or you make it. That’s a very hard

Matthew Dols 1:10:12
shirt. Which, which begs the question like if you had to so let’s say right now you have you said you have a 37 in your brain? So let’s say you had to weed it down to 10? How would you choose your 10? Like, what would be the characteristics? Or the qualities? I mean, like, would you look at past sales, potential sales trends in the market, past trends, the market, their personalities? Their? The the the subject matter? The medium? or How easy is it to manage? How difficult is it like, you know, what, what are some of the criteria and the factors that go into the decision of maintaining a relationship or choosing to maintain a relationship with an artist,

Alena Onishenko 1:10:52
since we’re, as Louise was saying, since we’re galler, which not thinking only about the profit, but as well as helping artists, that will be very difficult for us? Because there are some artists, which we didn’t sell yet anything, but we would like to help. You know,

Matthew Dols 1:11:08
because the good that you’re not a charity, don’t act like you’re not in it for some amount of money, you know, you need money to stay open. So you need a certain amount of money. So that’s fine. It’s a business. Don’t be ashamed.

Alena Onishenko 1:11:22
Started. I mean, she was helping artists even before the business. Yeah. And she was doing,

Louise Beer 1:11:28
and I never took a penny,

Matthew Dols 1:11:29
but it was still not a chair. Yeah. Maybe you could do that. And NGO might actually be a good way to do is

Alena Onishenko 1:11:42
because we’re sponsored also by someone. So what we can do, maybe we can have two stages. So we can have a commercial artist, which we know we sell. And we can have once a year show for young artists, you know, so you, you there’s many possibilities, since we do the pop ups, several, cut anybody we will have to do with people on the way but for different reasons of yours, you know, for no personal reasons. So because it’s difficult to work with some certain,

Matthew Dols 1:12:15
like, as a sort of a tutorial for artists basically, like what are some things that had been caused problems that have made you say, we don’t want to work with you?

Louise Beer 1:12:25
Well, first, I would say the basic, basic manners of saying thank you very much. After, you know, doing a show, printing a catalog, you know, get picking up your artwork, and bringing it back to your studio, I would say a thank you would be an A lot of them don’t know how

Matthew Dols 1:12:48
elaborate a thank you, like, literally just thank you are like flowers?

Louise Beer 1:12:52
Oh, don’t have to, but just to say you know what? And to send you an email or to say to you look, thank you, I appreciate you sharing. I think that it’s, it’s Elementary, but you’d be surprised how many do not? Oh, no, I

Matthew Dols 1:13:08
would not be surprised.

Louise Beer 1:13:10
And so when I don’t get any thanks. I’m very skeptical. And I say, you know, we have these long conversations with Elena, because it’s like, you know, I’m not interested. It’s like, I lose a little bit of, you know, and I know Business is business, but I, I need I need the I need the thank you feedback on some kind

Alena Onishenko 1:13:35
of that because you do your work. And many times we did an exhibition, and we, we were not that successful, let’s say and you say okay, we went through all this organization and everything. And people are like, Well, whatever you’re

Louise Beer 1:13:46
spending 1000s of dollars. And you know, you’re just saying, Okay, well, you know,

Alena Onishenko 1:13:52
so and they wouldn’t even showed up for a show. And, you know, during the old two weeks, we’re in a space, they wouldn’t come just to, to see how it is yeah, to say hello. So

Louise Beer 1:14:03
you’re less in tune of, you know, continuing with with them. So I would say to an upcoming artist, or even to witness that, like, you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to appreciate the fact that if you’re asked to participate, that you’re there that if we say okay, send me this work that you send it, that you you respect the deadlines of what we need, those are just professionalism. I know but but the thing is, is what you’re looking at basics is sometimes you know, you’re running around, you’re trying to make our certificate, you know, to hand over certificates. And I mean, you’re running around, and you know, we had a huge problem not long ago because, you know, you’re rushing, rushing, rushing and we had a wrong price on on on a piece of art. And then what do you do and then it’s a huge problem because then You know, you’ve got to go back to the, you know, to the, to your, to your client to your loyal collector to say I’m really, really sorry, but it’s no longer what the price I told you Sorry, it wasn’t

Matthew Dols 1:15:15
700 it was 7000.

Louise Beer 1:15:17
But that’s basically a little bit way. So and, and, you know, you don’t feel you don’t feel in a good state when you have to do something like that. So everything is a learning process as well. But, um,

Matthew Dols 1:15:31
but you mentioned something really briefly in there about certificates. This is something that’s only been coming up recently for me with that I’ve noticed a lot I would say, recently, like the past decade, that the certificates of authenticity and things along this line are very, very important. And now they’ve become

Alena Onishenko 1:15:48
they’ve become now we have two kinds of certificate. So one is certificate, which it’s like confirmation for us and for artists that we have this piece. And in case we’re selling this piece, it goes to our accounting, so accountant knows how much we paid in way because all the money goes through us. So how much is our profit? And how much tax?

Matthew Dols 1:16:16
here like you have an accountant? that right? Yes, yeah.

Louise Beer 1:16:19
And the second thing is, is that because we insure all the pieces, Oh, so that’s the other thing is we’ve never been without insurance. So we Yes, it is.

Matthew Dols 1:16:32
So that event, because I’ve done this before, like event insurance? Because also when you include alcohol, suddenly the price of the insurance goes up? No, but

Louise Beer 1:16:40
we’re doing it mostly, you know, with all the pieces. So if we have 100 pieces Last time, we had over 100 pieces. So it’s a but I would you know we want to do it we want to have peace of mind that it’s not for theft, because that I don’t there wouldn’t be any there’s but it’s for if God forbid a fire or what, or water damage or whatever. I mean, yeah, it happened. So, you know, at a cocktail party. We had an incident that a sculpture felt fell because a guy was drunk. And you know, I

Matthew Dols 1:17:17
actually had prog art that I watched somebody spill some red wine on a painting by accident. Oh, luckily, the painting was read. So a

Louise Beer 1:17:27
twist on it.

Matthew Dols 1:17:28
Yeah, what it was, it was an acrylic painting. And then it came right off. But it was just sort of funny. There’s a red wine spilled on a red painting.

Alena Onishenko 1:17:35
So and then we make this certificate of authenticity, which we make only in case when we sell the art. So we don’t do it forever. Because we Last time, we had over 100 pieces, so it’s impossible to do. So we do it when we sell then we you know, signed by author and it has all the details there. Yes. And it’s, it’s, it’s necessary. In a way,

Matthew Dols 1:17:59
I brought you all a gift, everybody that’s on the podcast, I give a gift of a piece of art. So here he and I wrote their certificates of authenticity on the back. So that’s why I thought this was the right time. You can switch them the three different pieces you can get that nothing personal, but which one?

Louise Beer 1:18:17
You know, I have to tell you that when you told me last time that you were having difficulty selling your pieces in Prague. Yeah, I went on your website to have a look and I thought you had absolutely beautiful things Matthew, so I don’t know why. So

Matthew Dols 1:18:34
I think I don’t know why either. And and that’s part of what’s making me do this podcast is like, there is something there’s there’s there’s a trick or a thing that I’m missing. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s the right connections, the right people, the right parties, the right whatever’s but but there’s some I can’t seem to get to the right.

Louise Beer 1:18:57
Well, whatever. But we’re gonna help you there.

Matthew Dols 1:19:02
This is a little hologram ca sticker. And there’s a matching hologram sticker on the print itself.

Alena Onishenko 1:19:07
Where did you get this one it awesome.

Matthew Dols 1:19:09
I ordered it online to you there’s a place that you can order them by like the 1000s for like $20. They do matching hologram numbers. So they’re the numbers and then I have a database at home that has all these numbers in there as well. So my records will show that these were donated to you all as a gift.

Louise Beer 1:19:29
Thank you very much. That’s very nice. Very, very nice.

Alena Onishenko 1:19:33
And you say you’re not business person. This is very business oriented. Thank you see, because what what is the business? The most important business is documentation. Well, I

Matthew Dols 1:19:47
met years ago when I was my first job out of college, I worked at a stock photography agency back in the day where the stock photo where it was slides and they would have just like filing cabinets. Full of slides and we we have to go through 1000s and 10s of 1000s of images to try and find an image that a client might want to buy. And we had to obsessive Li document where that slide was at all times was it in a drawer was it on somebody’s table that they were about to work with, to get shipped out to somebody? And, and then we had to, we have to have a create a database of like, like, if I’m trying to find our examples always, like if I’m trying to find a picture of a grandmother and a young child in a kitchen looking happy. Where would I look? And because we would have 1000s of files to try and find we would have to figure that out. So like, early on in my career, I got obsessive about being very organized in that way. Like if you ever want to find a piece of my artwork, I can tell you where it is. That is not a problem.

Alena Onishenko 1:20:49
Everything is an experience.

Matthew Dols 1:20:51
Yeah, I mean, I hated that job. And I hated my boss to quite to the point that I went left just to go back to school just because he was such a horrible boss. But on the other hand, I made some very good friends who are still my friends to this day. So that’s good. Yeah, there’s a trade off on that. But yeah, you learn you learn a lot of things over the course of your life sometimes whether they’re, you know, directly relevant or not as a different question. Like I mean, I’ve I’ve had random jobs, like all this audio recording knowledge that I have for as far as doing this podcast that all came from when I was a roadie, where I used to toy around with rock and roll bands doing their

Louise Beer 1:21:28
scenes. So that’s what

Matthew Dols 1:21:30
I was a roadie i was i was a roadie between New York City and Washington DC for any band that toured between there. My home base was the 930 Club in Washington DC. And so anybody who toured So, Lenny Kravitz, Beastie Boys porno for Pyros, you know, Pearl Jam, whatever, like we did festivals I did like the Tibetan freedom festival, the WHS festivals, like all kinds of stuff. So I’ve got all kinds of interesting stories. Yeah, lots of stories. Yeah. Lots and lots of people’s things that they don’t want getting out. No, no, no, no, but but you know, but I dealt with a lot of this equipment before. So like, this was not such a leap for me to suddenly want to do this kind of thing. You know, I

Louise Beer 1:22:12
think you will be very successful.

Matthew Dols 1:22:15
I hope. So. The idea of this podcast is to try to like, I feel I’m 46 years old, and I have made many mistakes in my life. I’m not saying I’m perfect. Matter of fact, I’m horribly imperfect in so many ways, as my wife points out. But we’re not here to judge my wife. But I’m horribly imperfect. And I made lots of mistakes in my career, like, I just had a student that asked me is, are you a successful artist? And I just laughed, and I was like, Oh, no, oh, no, I’m so not as successful artists. And they’re like, why not? And I was like, if I knew the answer to that, I would be a successful artist.

Louise Beer 1:22:58
But I think there’s doubt in many artists like the evil ones. I think. They’re, I think that there has to be something because that’s what keeps them going every day and painting every day. Most of them do something every single day. Oh, yeah. I think that that’s so extraordinary. Oh, I

Matthew Dols 1:23:23
have a map one of my old friends, Sean Richards, he’s this great painter in New York in I don’t know where he is living these days. But he was in North Carolina in New York. But his thing was, he went to his studio 9am every day, and he left at 5pm. Every day, he didn’t take his work home, he didn’t think about work when he was at home, he went to work, which was making his art from nine to five now. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he didn’t paint literally have a paintbrush in his hand from 9am to 5pm. But he was in the studio, thinking about our producing art researching our doing whatever. It was his job.

Louise Beer 1:23:55
Yes.

Matthew Dols 1:23:56
Well, we were he’s very successful in that way. And like, I would love that. Yes, but I need other I need money to support my household. So it’s like so if I could find a way and I mean, as I said, like this is sort of the point but this not just for me, but for everybody who’s listening is how do you find a way to make enough money to be able to devote your time to it without the stresses of other things drawing you away?

Alena Onishenko 1:24:26
So what I would do as an artist let’s say if I would be an artist, I would definitely work I mean, partly with my I would have art is a big hobby, let’s say and then yeah, but then you my wife,

Matthew Dols 1:24:42
my wife, my wife still to this day calls my art my hobby.

Alena Onishenko 1:24:46
No but you call it this way but you have you need work for specifically the skills you know you can go work as a designer, you can go work as an interior designer. I mean, if you artists you you have very big spective so you can be in any anything what’s connected to craft art anything?

Matthew Dols 1:25:07
Well see, that’s a fine line because I found okay there because it historically like Charles Bukowski, let’s take your crazy author. Do you know him? No, he’s crazy. He’s literally insane. But he made he wrote these magnificent books, utterly insane, crazy stuff. But during the day, he worked as a post office employee, most mundanes through silly things that used none of his creativity. So when he got home, and on the weekends, he was super creative, because he didn’t have to expend any of that energy at work. And then, of course, there are these lots of people these these days, who basically tried to take their thing that they’re trained in their passion and find basically some other thing that’s similar enough to it that they feel like they’re being able to use their education or their creativity. But still, but a lot of times it sort of sucks their life out of them. And by the time they get home to make their own stuff, they’ve already expended all their creativity at work.

Alena Onishenko 1:26:04
I don’t know. But let’s say my father when he was young artist, he was an artist because artists is something you are you feel inside you so you could not be something else, something else. So he was doing what he was, it was it’s we’re talking about communistic era Soviet Union, then, so he was doing Lenin’s faces. As an artist, he was doing museums, communistic, museums, some order, because the only order for artists you can get from Communist Party. So it can be you know, this or that. And he says, Look, I was an artist, I had my small studio, I was painting whatever I want, but I had a job. Because even then you artists is also a job. It is a job, you know. So it’s not only that you come to your studio, you paint and you you know, you create new stuff, you have all you have to go out and sell it. So three times a week, and three times a week you paint, but three times a week, you do a promotion for your art. So you go to all the galleries, you just knock in every door and say, Look, make leaflet go to post postcard conferences, please take it I’ll give it for free. Just expose it. This is the job of the artist, then.

Matthew Dols 1:27:23
Oh, it still is to this day. But but I’ve been here for a year and a half now I think. And I’ve done a decent job of going around to meeting people and talking to people and things like this. And the one primary thing that I get here The most common response I get is a we only represent Czech and Slovak artists. Like that is by far the most common response I get. And I’ve even had to the point where like a gallery one time said, I’d love your work. I recommend you go into Berlin.

Louise Beer 1:27:58
Yes, you said but at the same time for instance, the US Embassy have a program? Yes. Yeah. I love their program.

Matthew Dols 1:28:07
When I was in the UAE I love their program, I hope Do you know somebody there? Because I would love to talk to somebody about that program for the podcast. Yes. Because I think that that program is fabulous. And I wish more people knew about it. Yes. They had contact for you. They had amazing pieces in the in the in Abu Dhabi. Embassy. So great.

Alena Onishenko 1:28:29
For example, why don’t you approach It’s okay, you’re American artists.

Matthew Dols 1:28:33
I am an American artist. So

Alena Onishenko 1:28:34
why don’t you approach Czech Republic from different ways? So why don’t you make a series of some photos or our which is connected to just on our demonstrations? So why don’t you you know, so in get involved with Czech Republic from deep and then say, Look, I’m American, but look how I see what’s going on in your country. So example

Louise Beer 1:28:56
is an example Yes, dollar idea. I’m

Matthew Dols 1:28:59
not I will personally say no to that. But it’s a valid idea. So

Alena Onishenko 1:29:02
it’s you know, so you when you’re in a country what you try to do you always go to local things. So as an expert, so you learn you

Louise Beer 1:29:12
check center for instance, we have friends that have had exhibitions, the check

Matthew Dols 1:29:17
center, what

Louise Beer 1:29:18
check center,

Matthew Dols 1:29:19
that’s just check center. Yes.

Louise Beer 1:29:23
They have foreigners that come and do exhibitions.

Matthew Dols 1:29:31
I’ve never weighed checks, I owe it to

Louise Beer 1:29:38
the bank. pronounce it read that in.

Matthew Dols 1:29:41
It’s a little bit scary. I’ll put out the yellow line right

Alena Onishenko 1:29:46
here center center.

Louise Beer 1:29:49
I can’t pronounce it.

Matthew Dols 1:29:51
So next.

Alena Onishenko 1:29:54
I don’t know which one I have elka mark.

Matthew Dols 1:29:59
I think I follow them. I follow them on social media, but I haven’t actually been to anything they’ve done. But But anyways, but I don’t Yeah, it’s not about the point about like being particular. But it’s like, how do okay, so back to choosing your artists like so how do you choose them? So like, okay, so you’ve got, you’ve got it, you had your first set of them, and then you get recommendations from people. But But like, even when you go to the recommendations, like, you know, it’s

Louise Beer 1:30:27
it’s a gut feeling

Matthew Dols 1:30:29
like it goes through like, okay, but like, Is it the work like, because this is one of the pet peeves that’s going on? Because like, I do reviews, literally, before I came here, I do, I do portfolio reviews online for lensculture. And I have to tell people, you make beautiful images, but you also have to write an artist statement, you have to explain it, give it some context, give it some give it the story, whatever it is that you want to call it. And they all get angry with me all the time. They’re all like, well, but why do I need to write all this? If I wanted to be a writer, I would, you know, wouldn’t have been a photographer. And I do

Louise Beer 1:31:02
need to like, there’s nothing that goes. And it’s the same one we’re choosing. There’s there’s more than one element. But of course, the element of I mean, we’ve, we have taken pieces that we both don’t like, but the thing is, is that the artist is so wonderful. And so, like larger than life personality that we will it, like it Trumps it. So it’s, and we know that there are buyers there that will buy this kind of brutal art, if I could call it like that. So it’s so you know, like dark and strange. So but you have a number following of people that love like this kind of artwork I own? So, you know, it’s not all happy? No, it’s our work has to be No, no, no, but no. But you know what I mean? Like, it’s not, we’re looking at pieces that you think, Okay, well, this is gonna be nice in your living room, and maybe it’s gonna be sellable. We’re looking at, you know, a whole package. It’s a whole package. It’s, you know, what other people like it, we like it, but you know, it’s a gut feeling of, okay, so

Matthew Dols 1:32:30
within that realm, let’s go to like, sort of like, how about this? What kind of scale seems to be the most marketable, let’s say, because there’s a certain size where it’s like, almost too big. For the average customer? I mean, of course, there will always be people with massive homes and spaces.

Louise Beer 1:32:49
We did a show only big pieces, only massive. And

Matthew Dols 1:32:54
yeah. You said, when you said you that your your pop up exhibitions have all been very successful? What’s this matrix for successful that you all are using? So how do you define that? So

Alena Onishenko 1:33:07
let’s say, if you had to take a percentage, let’s say, so first of all, we covered the cost, and we made the money. Not much, not much. But this is the even even in the cover, the cost is a good if we even only covered the costs, its success, because we are new company, we are trying to know we and we see the more we are on the market, the more people know about us. So it always take some time to to make a name. Yes, yes.

Matthew Dols 1:33:40
Oh, yeah. I mean, the arts market generally is worth 10 years just to just to be able to say you’re you, you’ve been around.

Alena Onishenko 1:33:47
Yeah. So that’s why we say look, if we cover or even if we don’t cover all, but we have very little, you know, under its success.

Matthew Dols 1:33:58
Okay, so the matrix, that’s fine. That’s good. That’s

Alena Onishenko 1:34:01
successful. Yes. Magic. I

Matthew Dols 1:34:03
mean, a young we’re under three year old company, being able to just even even not be in the red is more or less a successful company, as my

Louise Beer 1:34:14
that’s what we think. Yeah. Oh, and, but, and on top of that, that you have recognition in some way that you know, that people are, are interested and, you know, we see it on social media for sure. So and that’s very encouraging. So,

Matthew Dols 1:34:35
did we finish up a social media Did you did you talk about your, how useful it is, how successful is very useful,

Alena Onishenko 1:34:43
but for now, I mean, we attract a lot of artists by our Instagram because, you know, artists usually, you know, also search by, you know, online platform online gallery. So we have a lot of requests in a way from artists all over the world. But since we’re only Czech base, we don’t really you know, take in consideration we always polite to them, but we for now we’re like this. But social media we’re very, we’re trying to be active there. So and even, it will bring us some free feedback, the feedback is good from people we know. So they say, look, I look at you and you know, it’s always something fresh or with something different small video photo, you know, very live. So we really use Instagram how to be used. So we, we go to visit artists, we post the, you know, we will do a postcard today, we will post a photo today. So we, you know, we see we show people what we do,

Matthew Dols 1:35:44
you know, happy I wear my nice new shirt. Yes.

I was gonna wear a T shirt. Yeah, sounds good.

Louise Beer 1:35:49
And the other thing that’s good is that we work with leaders magazine, and they’re in Czech Republic and in Slovakia. And, and they have been, like a partner with us for a while since we’ve started. So. So every time we do a pop up, they do two, three page spread. And this has been a very great tool, because it’s a working tool for us. And, and

Matthew Dols 1:36:18
Well, I mean, well, that brings up a point that the like, partnerships basically try to create, again, creating more relationships, basically. So, I mean, but creating business partnerships is very important.

Louise Beer 1:36:29
And so this magazine, I mean, a lot, it’s read by a lot of business people and embassies and so on. So it’s so this has been a good tool for us. Now, of course, we need to expand it to say some check newspapers or TV like, you know, yeah, yeah, exactly, whatever. But you know, to go another step and get into the Czech market, like really, inside, but I mean, will come it will come,

Alena Onishenko 1:36:59
because we all our catalogs and website is in English. So this is the you know, so this is one we saw the PDF

Matthew Dols 1:37:07
of this.

Alena Onishenko 1:37:09
So with what we we will try to go inside the Czech market, but for Czech people who speak English, so we would not. So we would not, let’s say, translate it into Czech necessarily, which may be a lot of people would, wouldn’t like, but

Louise Beer 1:37:27
one of the big things, of course, is the piercing into the market. Like I think that was the main, you know,

Alena Onishenko 1:37:35
piercings within. Since within fuse in yet, we could not share the experience, you know, so we’ve been an export oriented gallery online gallery, and suddenly we have to, you know, get into the check market where check only check people, are we still on the process of doing it. So we were not there yet. So we could not really it’s tough to share the experience. And I don’t know if it’s possible. I think it’s possible, but it will take time.

Matthew Dols 1:38:11
It seems like the the art market in this region seems very insulated. Like they they stay to themselves. They’re not super interested in outside participants and outside even even outside collectors. I mean, they’ll take anybody’s money, I’m sure but but they’re not actively seeking it. They’re fine with just dealing locally and regionally. And that’s enough.

Alena Onishenko 1:38:41
Because it’s not very there are expat community here, but not big. So it’s not, you know, like multicultural city, Prague or country Really?

Matthew Dols 1:38:51
I feel like it’s very multicultural.

Louise Beer 1:38:53
Well,

Alena Onishenko 1:38:55
cuz it is, but not like we talk. Okay, London is huge. But if we say that, you know, Prague is a capital city, there are a lot of students and experts, but not that many that would say, there really are and

Louise Beer 1:39:17
at a level that, you know, like we’re inviting, really a nice group of people like say to we’re opening up 200 people, for instance, 250 people, and I mean, top level that we’re looking at, but, you know, you keep inviting the same people, the same people. And you know, if somebody bought like three months ago, you’re not expecting them to buy again. So if that’s what your question of before, yeah, we need to go out. We need to or visitors that are coming here, people that are coming for a first time to Prague and that are collectors I don’t know where they go. Because a lot, you know,

Matthew Dols 1:40:04
they don’t come to you because you don’t have a gallery.

Louise Beer 1:40:06
No, no, but even the ones that do, but a lot of them are closed on the weekends. It’s not like, so it’s like if you’re coming. It’s not like it’s it’s easy accessible, or where do I go and buy contemporary art because it’s an underworld, its underground world here. Not

Matthew Dols 1:40:23
only is it an underground thing, but it’s I feel like the galleries and museums, whatever you want to call them here are sort of bickering amongst themselves, because like, some of them are in Shishkov. Some of them are in Prague. Some of them are in downtown. Well, don’t get me wrong. If it were all in one neighborhood, that would probably be boring. But but but like, they are actively saying, like, Oh, no, we’re better. Oh, no, we’re bad. Like, they’re actively sort of,

Louise Beer 1:40:50
there’s some very good galleries. There’s some very good museums, we’re lucky that there are some, but it’s like, you know, I’m just saying somebody, because if you go to other cities, it’s a little bit easier. And I think that there’s, I mean, I would certainly like to get into that niche market. And and that’s something that we’re working on, but it needs, you know,

Matthew Dols 1:41:23
what is that next step that you know, because I’m thinking of a gallerist is listening, and they’re in the same sort of position as you like, what is what is the thing that you’re thinking is the next step? I mean, obviously, you don’t know what Well, I

Louise Beer 1:41:34
do know, but I don’t want to tell you. Because, no, because the thing is, is that everybody’s taking your No, no, no, but you know, it’s I know, I know what, what I’m gonna do.

Matthew Dols 1:41:46
But now I’m trying to figure out how to coax it out of Yeah.

Louise Beer 1:41:49
I think I could, even if I told you, but it’s, but even because you have I mean, I don’t know how many 1000s of visitors and you’re thinking how many hundreds of collectors are coming and there are missed opportunities are everywhere

Alena Onishenko 1:42:07
every day every day. That’s it.

Louise Beer 1:42:09
So Well, I know.

Matthew Dols 1:42:14
Hotel.

Louise Beer 1:42:15
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah,

Matthew Dols 1:42:18
I knew that was good. But I’ve seen that. That’s pretty common around Prague. I’ve seen a number of hotels that have a gallery basically, this has been supplying the artwork to decorate those.

Louise Beer 1:42:28
Well, no, but a lot of them it’s been bought by the hotel.

Matthew Dols 1:42:31
So they No, no, they just will know that galleries will loan them to those.

Louise Beer 1:42:36
Okay, because there are a lot like the Four Seasons Hotel for instance foresees Well, yeah.

Matthew Dols 1:42:44
zoning stuff like

Louise Beer 1:42:47
everything was bought

Matthew Dols 1:42:50
by the four seasons. Yeah.

Louise Beer 1:42:51
But you know, it’s, it’s to promote local art as well. Sure. But no, I know, some they’re not buying. They’re not buying Canadian art. They’re buying, buying Chikara.

Matthew Dols 1:43:02
Dad, no. But I’ve seen two probably three hotels that I know of here that are basically there’s artwork on loan from the gallery on display, with a tag from the gallery, and a contact to be able to purchase from the from the gallery, basically. So and, oddly enough, while I was even sitting in the lobby, somebody said, Hey, do you have a phone so they can call about this artwork? And they actually were buying a piece of art that they saw in the lobby of the hotel,

Alena Onishenko 1:43:30
but you know, there is they recently I mean, I think it’s four years old, they print out the art map.

Matthew Dols 1:43:39
I’ve seen the art map since the first day I came to

Alena Onishenko 1:43:41
Prague it’s a this first of all, it’s not a map where the old gallery list because you have to pay to be in the map.

Matthew Dols 1:43:51
Why as a

Alena Onishenko 1:43:53
commercial thing, so let’s say we were not there, okay, if we would have a space say my father gallery is not there because it costs certain amount of money, I had no

Matthew Dols 1:44:03
idea.

Alena Onishenko 1:44:04
And so in this means that if person gets this art map, so it goes to certain galleries only. And so it’s not really an art scene of Prague, you know, so it’s a

Matthew Dols 1:44:19
I have always loved art map, you’ve now burst my bubble on art map.

Alena Onishenko 1:44:25
Oh, what why they would print it for free.

Matthew Dols 1:44:28
I assumed it was sponsored by the government or something. I don’t know. Like, I don’t know. I’m not sure like Gandhi.

Alena Onishenko 1:44:36
But you know, he doesn’t support even the artists because this Sarah missed we thought we talked about earlier. She was struggling to get support from government to make an exhibition of the old generation. So it was like 30 artists because she’s a head of this, like, group or organization. Yeah, Gil, there’s something like this. And the government gave them imagine 30 artists will exhibit and bring in the gave them all the older, older 70 30,000 crowns. So which is 1000 year

Louise Beer 1:45:15
1500 euros? I mean, where are you going to go with that?

Alena Onishenko 1:45:18
For to print catalog to deliver all the things there to have? You know, some kind of reception? Do you

Matthew Dols 1:45:27
want to know really how, where you go from there as you then go to a private sponsor and say, Look, I got the government I know. I know how to, like, leverage that to then get more money. That’s all it is. I mean, my background in the United States, I used to run a nonprofit in the United States and NGO, whatever. And then it’s always like, when you go to somebody like the government, or quite honestly, if you go almost anywhere, like any amount of money that somebody is willing to give you as a sponsorship, or partnership is really just money that you then turn around and leverage to get more money like that. That’s what it’s meant for. No, no one sponsor or rarely, if ever, is that one sponsor expecting to be 100%. sponsor, there. It’s always the matching grants. Huge, huge buzzword in the US, man.

Louise Beer 1:46:14
But it doesn’t exist here. You know, it’s not a buzzword here.

Matthew Dols 1:46:18
It’s not it’s not a Czech word.

Louise Beer 1:46:21
No one. It’s not. It’s not in the DNA here yet.

Matthew Dols 1:46:24
Yeah. But I mean, it wasn’t in the DNA when it started back then. But now, you know, 15 years later, 20 years later. Now? It’s completely normal. The idea of matching funds base? Yes,

Louise Beer 1:46:35
of course, it’s but even what you’re talking about? I think it will happen.

Matthew Dols 1:46:44
But okay, okay, here. Well, I’ve got some last questions that I asked everybody. But last last question, based on what you’re talking about. As a general whole, does it feel like the market in this region is still a little behind the average of the world? Like, I mean, it feels like it’s a little bit behind the times?

Louise Beer 1:47:07
Well, it’s a good thing, because the market value is still below. So people that are buying are getting a very good price for some well known artists. So this

Matthew Dols 1:47:19
is still an emerging market, basically

Louise Beer 1:47:21
still an emerging market. And if you have a bit of might, like, you know, we have some artists that, you know, you buy, and these guys, I mean, you know, they’ve been in museums all over the Czech Republic there, because of their age because of, you know, their, their position, if you want the extremely talented, I’d say, you know, I would put some money on that horse and say, You know what, yeah, for sure. And because it’s, it’s below, it’s

Matthew Dols 1:47:59
still a full time I made it and I stated it in a pessimistic kind of way. And you’re turning into an optimistic kind of well,

Louise Beer 1:48:05
because I am

Matthew Dols 1:48:10
trying to define myself as a realist. Okay, so so basically like the this region, as you know, because me I can imagine Hungary and Croatia and Poland and sort of all the places sort of around us are probably still the same. Well,

Louise Beer 1:48:24
different different Poland is, is they have a different market. Yeah. And I think that they’re contemporary artists, or in contemporary galleries are at another level. Interested? Yes, I am. Yes. So Indiana, of course, it’s different.

Matthew Dols 1:48:45
In Berlin, I was looking East with my similar feel

Louise Beer 1:48:49
like maybe Bucharest or

Alena Onishenko 1:48:53
insane Ukraine. It’s also it’s very difficult because also there are so many artists and just not a lot of buyers know, their buyers. But for $300. It’s, it’s expensive. Alright, so

Matthew Dols 1:49:09
my last questions that I ask everybody because the overall sense of the idea of this podcast is the one is that I want to, okay, I have two things, I have a quantifiable and a qualifying, okay, quantified is, I want to learn enough about how the art world works, that I can get a work of mine to be exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. What would your recommendation be? I don’t not not the end of the of the file, but like a step in the direction to get to that goal,

Alena Onishenko 1:49:41
plane ride.

Matthew Dols 1:49:46
work so I could show up at their offices, they’re not going to do it. So like, well from on a professional level, what’s something professionally that I could or should do, to sort of position myself to be able to A piece of Museum of Modern Art in New York, not in their collection, because anybody can almost get in the collection and just donate something I know that exhibited.

Alena Onishenko 1:50:09
So what I would do, I would go, I would be a part of some scandal of some, you know, something, something big.

Matthew Dols 1:50:22
Yeah. I’ve always said that I want to be arrested for my artwork, because the great great, you make

Alena Onishenko 1:50:27
some you make some experiments. So you say, I go to leave, whatever, like, I mean, all this. You know, this, how they make the present. There are definitely this Marina. Yes, there’s a problem of it. Yes. Something like this, but with your art in a way. So you go and paint naked on the wall street or whatever, I don’t know, US climb to be arrested for it. So I’m sure I’m sure you know, the magazine will write about you.

Matthew Dols 1:50:59
Yeah, well, okay. All right. So

Louise Beer 1:51:03
more conservative?

Matthew Dols 1:51:05
publicity, publicity, we’ll go with that. So try to get an argument.

Louise Beer 1:51:09
The good old fashioned way. And I think, being persistent talking. No, I know. But, and everyone says, it doesn’t work. But it’s worked for me.

Matthew Dols 1:51:23
I’m not gonna say it doesn’t work. But it’s, it’s long.

Louise Beer 1:51:29
But you know what? Persistence pays off? And I’ve always, always said that, because there’s so many people, they just say, you know what, it’s not worth it. I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to put the time. But when you’re persistent, I recently and that will be my and I say I say it, because all my life I’ve been persistent. Through and it’s and it’s got me to say, but I think that you have to be. And if you want it so much, you’re gonna get it.

Matthew Dols 1:52:03
Yeah, well, recently, I actually have one of my professors from my undergraduate on social media on Facebook, write to me and just say, it’s so nice to see you’re still working

Alena Onishenko 1:52:13
good. That’s it.

Matthew Dols 1:52:14
Because I graduated, I graduate this little tiny school with only four other people in my major. And all the other three people are not making artwork anymore. I’m literally the only person that graduated that year, that’s still making art.

Louise Beer 1:52:25
So that’s already a big thing. So persistence. See, so

Alena Onishenko 1:52:32
but for artists, I think it’s because artists are very, you know, they’re very self question, people. So if the moment even knowing even the successful artists, if they have some, you know, they don’t sell for three, four months, they feel, you know, the press, and they feel that that’s it, it’s over. So how you can be persistent if you don’t feel appreciation, you know, so when you are persistent in a way that you just don’t see the wall, you just go, but it takes character,

Louise Beer 1:53:06
it takes a character. So and many of the artists, they’ll make a lot of money, all like say, this month, they’ll make a lot of money. And for the next three months, it’s gonna be dry. And then how do you live?

Matthew Dols 1:53:20
Which then was actually my other question. My other final question is, what kind of recommendation or encouragement would you give to an artist or anybody in the arts world, so it doesn’t it’s not particularly an artist, in this case, about how to create is what I will call a sustainable living. So making enough money to continue to do what you want to do.

Louise Beer 1:53:47
million dollar question because this because here many of them, many artists that we work with, are living day to day from their art. And their

Matthew Dols 1:54:04
but are they live but are they living the lifestyle they want to be living or are they Well, they’ve made

Louise Beer 1:54:09
it you know, maybe their spouse is working as well. But if you’re living with an artist, like practically everybody we know I mean, it’s later they teach their Oh, the teeth they teach the PE PE teacher so poorly here. It’s not I know. Yes. But at least you have 15,000 crowns of income you have this. I mean, it’s the

Matthew Dols 1:54:37
way you think teachers get paid 15,000 crowns?

Alena Onishenko 1:54:41
I don’t know. Yes.

Matthew Dols 1:54:43
I teach here, though.

Alena Onishenko 1:54:45
I know that like you know, 200 per hour or something. I don’t know what, what you can but I know that banca and B Koba the teaching, so they have some theater club. I mean, I don’t think this leaving.

Matthew Dols 1:55:03
Not every artist is a good teacher. There’s a bouncer like, every artist comes to me. Sure,

Louise Beer 1:55:09
you know, you’re making a living, you’re putting food on the table. You were, you know, when you’re at, like an artist, you can sit down, have a cup of coffee, have a glass of wine, enjoy your time to basically

Matthew Dols 1:55:24
marry rich, is what you’re saying.

Louise Beer 1:55:27
Yeah, but that doesn’t. It’s not there. There’s no there’s nobody. And because there’s not there is nobody that’s motivated. They’re motivated. And to have ends meet, but it’s not to become. I mean, there’s very few, I would say, David cherny. Or they know that his pieces are over, you know, a million euros or whatever, but you’re not. The new contemporary artists, here are very few that are making over a million euros a year.

Matthew Dols 1:56:02
Oh, that’s outrageous. No, I mean, I’m just talking just like, for me, like if I sit back because like my wife and I, of course, have had this conversation numerous times, like, how much is enough? What’s the thing? And my thing is that I want to be comfortable. And adult, I simply want to not have to worry about money.

Louise Beer 1:56:18
Right? Well, we all do. That’s it? Yeah.

Matthew Dols 1:56:20
I mean, that’s the goal. And you know, I used to do, it’s not being an international famous artist is not being a gallery or anything like this is not about like being like the best in the world. And the I don’t want to need to be a Sachi or a Gaussian or anything like this. It’s just how do you make enough to not have to worry,

Louise Beer 1:56:40
but at the same time, you want to be successful in your own domain, you would want to be well respected. You want to be, you know, you want to have all the

Matthew Dols 1:56:51
and you would hope that those all go hand in hand.

Louise Beer 1:56:54
Yeah. Yeah. But they don’t know. And, and you don’t want to be a son of a bitch getting up there. Like, you know, because a bitch who’s rich? Yes. Because that’s what a lot of, you know. I don’t I don’t want to be that person.

Matthew Dols 1:57:09
There are lots of people in the world that do want to be that person. Yeah. But unfortunately, they’re gonna crush the people.

Louise Beer 1:57:15
So go right ahead. You know what? I’m, I like, I like this. I like this. this. I mean, the speed is, is going right now. You know, we’re going up that elevator

Matthew Dols 1:57:28
tour was the it’s the rabbit and the hare kind of thing. So like, yeah, so that way, rather than a tortoise tortoise.

Alena Onishenko 1:57:36
You know, we know some artists who had the knot job, but let’s say pedja had the restaurant. Yes. So you have your own artist, but you have a business, you know, you you manage to build the business you have, again, I’m saying, get the job, you know, and make your art when you are comfortable on your feet in a way. So you say there’s,

Matthew Dols 1:58:00
like, I’m okay, I’m sitting around right now, like, I don’t have a lot of work to do. I work online, I’ve worked for a university online, I work for lensculture online. So like, my life is not horribly structured. And I don’t have a lot of exhibitions, I don’t have a lot of I don’t have all these things to do. And I find that buisiness begets buisiness, and laziness begets lazy, absolutely.

Alena Onishenko 1:58:25
Like to move every day,

Matthew Dols 1:58:26
whereas things like I’m not busy in my work life, because like i there are very limited jobs for me here. And I have as many jobs as I feel like I can get outside right now. But, and, and I don’t have any other opportunities. So it’s like laziness because laziness and busy like when I’m busy, I’m happy and I’m busy. And I’m busy around like, as soon as it’s one of the things like as soon as you start to get busy, you suddenly get exponentially busier. And as soon as you start to get lazy, you start to get exponentially lazier.

Louise Beer 1:58:55
I wish I’d never be on the other side. No, we’re busy. But it doesn’t sound good. It sounds good.

Alena Onishenko 1:59:06
No, yeah, you’ll be an expert here. I would start from expert community. So what do you do, where the expert community goes? So there are a lot of places where you can meet experts, you know, and just socialize.

Matthew Dols 1:59:20
The irony is, is that I’m from America and the general my general opinion is I’m not a huge fan of Americans. If I was a fan of an American, I would be in America. So I am an ex Pat, because I don’t want to be in America. So why would I want to hang out with America? But not? It’s true? Yeah, there are lots of Canadians in Britain.

Louise Beer 1:59:42
Everything it’s not I would say that they’re not

Matthew Dols 1:59:45
which is always funny to me, like people are like your next match with other experts. I’m like, hanging out with those people. I would have stayed in my country.

Louise Beer 1:59:53
Yeah, but the x part. I don’t think that it’s that American here now. It’s, it’s actually everything else. Yeah, there’s a lot of breezy But no, but every country from the EU for instance, or, you know, but Americans, I don’t think that that’s not a big con like there’s some, but it’s not.

Matthew Dols 2:00:12
There were a small percentage 1002 there

Louise Beer 2:00:15
were 1000s but it’s gone that those numbers have gone.

Matthew Dols 2:00:21
Right. So they’re less American expats.

Louise Beer 2:00:24
Oh, absolutely. Because they’ve been replaced by checks. And because before there were many expats doing the jobs of checks

Alena Onishenko 2:00:36
because now checks us speak good English. Yes. They will not really need, you know, engineers

Louise Beer 2:00:41
it everything there, you know, all the these jobs so there’s less than less than more checks environment

Alena Onishenko 2:00:49
is very difficult to get, you know, permission here to stay.

Matthew Dols 2:00:53
Yeah, I’m married to check one.

Alena Onishenko 2:00:56
This is easy. Yes. But if you have if you come to work here, it’s painting this.

Matthew Dols 2:01:01
I’ve heard this. Yeah. Okay.

Louise Beer 2:01:03
Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. And thank you very much. And I would just say, for everyone that’s listening out there to visit our Prague artworks

Matthew Dols 2:01:14
website, which we will put a link to in the description of the podcast. Thank

Louise Beer 2:01:18
you very much. And thank you, Matthew, for being such a great interviewer.

Matthew Dols 2:01:23
Thank you for taking the time on our lovely Saturday afternoon.

Thank you for listening. If you have any questions for me or any questions or comments that you want me to discuss with future guests, please send me an email at Matt at wise fool pod.com Wi sefolpd.com. Ask them on our website wise for pa comm or any of our social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at wise for pod. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future and assisting you in gaining more understanding of the contemporary visual art market.

 

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – www.matthewdols.com

All information is available in the show notes or on our website www.wisefoolpod.com