Transcript for Episode 004 – Gallerist, Ales Knupp, Knupp Gallery (Prague, CZ)

Published July 29, 2019

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/contemporary-fine-art-podcast-with-gallerist-ales-knupp-of-the-knupp-gallery-in-prague-cz/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
Welcome to the wise fool. I’m Matthew Dols, your host. Today my guest is les Snoop founder and galleries that note gallery in Prague, Czech Republic. In our discussion we touch on framing, art fairs, pricing of art, mentors and apprentices submitting your work to a gallery, a Fibonacci sequence. And addition in your art.

Please pronounce your name correctly.

Ales Knupp 0:45
My name is Ales Knupp. Nope. alash alash. Some people say Alex is much easier actually, for the International people. Yeah, associations as well as use my real name.

Matthew Dols 0:58
And that is Czech.

Ales Knupp 1:00
Yes.

Matthew Dols 1:02
And you so you run the Nope. Gallery here in Prague. Yes. How long have you has the gallery been here?

Ales Knupp 1:10
Actually, we’ve been in the market since 2013. When we open the very first branch in Prague three, which is a area which not too many people trust. And since then we open it actually five galleries at the two continents. Four of them were in Europe, and the fifth one was in Los Angeles

Matthew Dols 1:31
duze. How many branches do you currently have? Currently, we

Ales Knupp 1:34
have just only one, we we did LA for two and a half years. And in 2017, we closed down because we had opportunity to open the venue here in the center of Prague. So I took it as a big chance to put everything in one place. And it seems that it was the best option we we could grab, you know, opportunity. So at the moment, we are just here in the center. And paradoxically, we have more clients from the US than when we were based in Los Angeles.

Matthew Dols 2:08
So yeah, so more us buyers buy when they’re traveling in Europe than they do, like buy foreign art in the United States, it seems like

Ales Knupp 2:18
actually, it is it is about the moment and the place where you go, for example, imagine yourself being a tourist, and you go to the hotel in Prague, and the pride just gives you all the cultural spirits. And then you are in, you’re an art collector, you just art lover, and you ask the concierge in the hotel, if there isn’t a gallery, which you could visit, and they recommend us. So you go to the gallery like ours, and you see something which you just like or love. And when you bring it home to us, you bring something you purchased in Prague, at the place where you were surrounded by the culture,

Matthew Dols 2:59
it’s a tangible memory of

Ales Knupp 3:00
an aviary. Exactly. But if you bring the same item, the same sculpture or a painting to Los Angeles, and you open the gallery, and the local people the same, the same customer goes to the LA gallery, he doesn’t buy it with so much interest, like when he’s visiting Prague. It’s it doesn’t probably make sense, but it works. It’s really like that. And I asked many people and they said, Yeah, when we when we visited Prague, we definitely wanted to buy something even a small piece, but we wanted to get some remembrance from the from the particular place. Yeah,

Matthew Dols 3:33
I do the same thing. Like every time I try and travel I try and buy at least some work on papers or something, you know, something a little thing here, just something i’m not i can’t afford Of course, you know, big massive things and shipping of all of them but but I try to buy something I grew up my fit my family’s was collectors. So they always bought some tangible memory of of every trip and we display them around the house, whether it’s a sculptural piece or work on paper, whatever. So yeah, I i understand that. That makes sense.

Ales Knupp 4:03
You know, and the thing is that the pieces which we sell here, the selection is quite wide, the range is quite wide, so anybody can choose. And even if these people are not real art collectors, for example, they can buy an old wooden Madonna icon. You know, this is what happened couple months ago, they didn’t expect to see something like that in the gallery. But imagine that they just walked through the Old Town Square, which is for the history, and then they walk into the gallery and they see the icon from 1850 something which completely matches the atmosphere of the day, you know, so they decided to purchase my father actually don’t paint

Matthew Dols 4:43
icons as well. Oh, nice things. So like I know a lot about icons, and unfortunately, there are a lot of fakes out in the world. That’s that’s a tough market. But yeah. Interesting. All right. So let’s go back to so your background. So where do you come from me? Did you have a leg up? formal education in the arts and all this

Ales Knupp 5:02
actually know that at all. My major at the University of Economics was finance. And I graduated with the Fibonacci series. So I don’t understand

Matthew Dols 5:15
that I know what the Fibonacci. So

Ales Knupp 5:16
Fibonacci series is a very trivial serial numbers, series of numbers. It’s it’s an additive series.

Matthew Dols 5:26
Now I know it’s driven object, but like, Yeah, do you graduate with a fib and

Ales Knupp 5:31
I wrote my diploma thesis, or with ourselves. So the entire diploma thesis was about Fibonacci series. But just the only problem was that when you when you say that you are a trader, and the stock markets or commodity markets, and you study the University of economix, it means that you are breaking all the rules, which they teach you at a university University, you know, because they, they say, they speak about a theory of effective markets, it means that there are no rules in the markets and the markets don’t have any memory. And you cannot to trade it effectively. And you cannot, you cannot predict what’s going to happen in the future. But the Fibonacci series theory says something different, you know, that’s why they couldn’t give me better marks because they said, this is a beautiful word what you did Mr. Kuhn, but you’re just going after spending six years at the school, you go completely against what we were teaching you here.

Matthew Dols 6:30
Do you take that idea into the arts world, though, like me? Because now

Ales Knupp 6:33
I don’t know. But actually, the Fibonacci series also gets implemented in many paintings, because they produce geometrical rules of the painters implement some objects on the canvas, you know, so this is actually something. It’s a very natural logic system, of how you see things. So even if you do not realize it, you’re surrounded by it everywhere, you know, so even even they teach it I think, in the Academy of Fine Arts as well, how to handle Oh, yeah,

Matthew Dols 7:07
absolutely. Yeah, we go to the golden mean, right, golden mean, Golden Rule golden, all kinds of different things. But yeah, I mean, it’s a it’s a, it’s the not a shell, it’s the different things. It’s everywhere, those kinds of scientific, like natural and scientific balanced things, where they can take some natural shape or form and figure out the mathematical equation that is, for example, the wind, you know, in the tornadoes, it matches perfectly. The Fibonacci series equation. Yeah, well, I mean, the composition of the face as well, and your entire body. Yeah, that, that part, I like, the ratio one to 1.618 Yes, the the magic ratio, the number love that ratio, it’s so beautiful.

Ales Knupp 7:54
And this is what the world is about, actually. And this is what I discovered in the markets, and developed the technique of how to how to decompose the markets into small pieces, and then put them back together into a logical system. And this is, and the Fibonacci series was the main tool to do all of that, you know, this, this is what I did in my diploma thesis. And and are you bringing that into the art world? No, actually, like you were asking me what was the major or how everything started,

Matthew Dols 8:28
but I would love it if you could figure out some way to take that and bring some some method up methodologies and like zoom standard rules, but maybe

Ales Knupp 8:38
there is there is something there is something where they could definitely say that it has to do with the Fibonacci series, the Fibonacci series in general, gives some particular rules to the basic logical systems you have in your mind. And one of them is also setting the price. This is something which completely matches the the art world. And this is something what in my opinion was missing here in the market. You go to many galleries and you can buy a painting or sculpture at certain prices, but usually you do not get the explanation why this kind of sculpture or painting costs this or that amount of money.

Matthew Dols 9:23
Go go go deeper with this. And

Ales Knupp 9:25
yeah, and this is this is what the finance at the university taught me how to work with the monetary base in terms of explaining the artwork, because our customers, they know what I studied, so many of them are started asking me, how do you set the prices, you know how the money works? And now you’re in the art world and it means that you have to have a knowledge of setting the correct price levels, right. And I said yes, it It took me a couple For years to understand the techniques and how to how to set the right parameters of the name and technique and the age of the work, and size and everything, and I made a function, which I cannot explain 100% I

Matthew Dols 10:18
have an Excel spreadsheet that does this.

Ales Knupp 10:21
spreadsheet, everything is in my mind. And it’s also in the art world. It’s not only about the equations, but also about your personal feelings, right? Because the art The art is very subjective. So you cannot just put an equation and say that this painting will cost 1000 crowns and the other one 300

Matthew Dols 10:39
million. But wait, I want to go into a couple of the little things that you mentioned there. You said like the age of the artwork, the medium of the artwork, the medium, generic, the dimensions, the dimension. So what specifically obviously, like, age, so old versus new, old is higher value or lower value?

Ales Knupp 10:56
Now it’s it’s very individual Actually, it’s not only about the age itself, it’s also you have,

Matthew Dols 11:04
you have names like like the era of the artists like blue period would be worth more than some other period.

Ales Knupp 11:10
There are other parameters which are connected to the age for example, was this artist, historically important, more or less? When he lived? Did he do many exhibitions? Did he attend historically important group exhibitions of from that country? Did he go to for example, when he lived into Central Europe? Did he go to France to study because usually, when you when you look at the artists from the the late 19th century and early 20th century, you will realize that all of these who had some French schools of art, and then they went back to Prague or generator to Central Europe, the period when they painted in France is a lot higher value than the the paintings from from their home country. Definitely like that. Look at look at Shima, or there are other other names, usual landscape painters who did their French period, and the French period will be always a lot more expensive than their Czech period. That’s how it was. So there are many little parameters which create a bunch of it, they create a bunch of little parameters, they create one big parameter, which is called age, you know, or era, or, or plays area. Or it’s also good to know if this artist was close to some another important name if his professor was historically important.

Matthew Dols 12:42
That’s a huge thing that that shockingly, surprised me when I moved here. So I mean, he might have only been here a year and a half or so. But in the United States, it’s not very common, where people say things like, oh, who was your professor, and that lineage of you’re studying under and being an apprentice to and then sort of going and, and creating that lineage of Professor or professor, apprentice Professor apprentice, so on doubt, he’s not very important, let’s say in many other places that have been immune. It’s not very important. It wasn’t important in the Middle East. It’s not very important in most of the United States, but here in Europe is extremely Yes. Yes. I mean, I ran into that when I went for a teaching job. But when I went to want teach, they said, Oh, well, who’s your mentor? And I’m like, Well, I had dozens of mentors. I mean, I had I went to three different schools, I have three different degrees, like I bought, you know, I had lots of mentors, but here, they really want to create that lineage. They want that direct connection from mentor to apprentice.

Ales Knupp 13:49
In in case of the art, it’s probably because the audience wants to know, who affected you the most in your creation. Like, for example, when you paint an animal on a canvas, and you know that you are, they know that you were a student of Professor Mike mccalla ridgetown, they will definitely see a line of or some effects of his own creation on your own creation. It makes sense. If you spend six years in the studio of one professor, it would be very strange not to not to think that he didn’t affect you at all,

Matthew Dols 14:30
you know, see, that’s a very, very opposite of like my master’s program. In my master’s programs, my teachers actively went out of their way to not have allow us to take too many classes with any one professor, because they wanted us to be influenced by all of the professors equally. And so they sort of actively separated. I mean, I had three guys Doug Hall, Tony Labatt, and I can’t remember but they’re these three guys and they They intentionally would sort of shuffle around to make sure that we did not fall into, you know, following one professor. They didn’t they didn’t want that at all. Whereas here in Europe, it is incredibly important that you have that, that that mentor to apprentice sort of a relationship. And then you wanted even farther and farther back like that your mentor was the study under another mentors.

Ales Knupp 15:25
I mean, it goes back to generations that they want, you’re creating a little Chronicle, you know,

Matthew Dols 15:34
family tree base, yes, they want to see that direct influence. But But does that help me? Is that a good thing? Because mean to me, would stifle me would be like they have to work like their mentor?

Ales Knupp 15:48
No, no, I wouldn’t definitely say that this is something which should be critically important for for the artists, but it is something which even if you do not know the artist himself, and I will mention that he started at the studio of Professor rich dine, or there are other names, you will, even before you see the first painting, you will probably know that the person knows knows the craft very well, he, he knows the pain of portrayed landscape the same as abstract, and he will be probably technically very developed. He No, he does not have to be like that. But if I tell you the names of the professors, you shouldn’t be if you know the market a little bit, you should be able to put him to the under correct shelf, you know, like, there are students of other other professors who do completely expressive things, which 90% of the population will never understand. But there are professors who teach the students to paint and make art. That’s very important, you know, so that’s probably one of the main reasons why people want to know, where did he or she studied at which professors to do. But what happens quite often is that the students change the studios, the studios, during their studies, you know, at the academy takes six years, I think, and they can go to different studio every every two semesters or something. So they can actually try three, maybe even four studios, even it doesn’t happen too often. It happens sometimes that they studied at two or three studios, just to try different different kinds of different approach to the same thing.

Matthew Dols 17:36
So under your idea about like different subject matters and styles and things like this, like fine craftsmanship and in sort of painterly techniques versus sort of abstract expressionistic sort of works, which may not have the obvious technical mastery, you know, but a different form of technical mastery. What kind of things sell well, like, what what’s the what’s the market, of course, is always changing. And we know this, but is it general? So you’ve been here going on six years going back in this in this in this space in six years now?

Ales Knupp 18:11
Yeah. No. in the market, I mean, like, we open it in Prague, the first gallery, but then in 2016, we opening the LA but during this time, we were in Prague for the whole time, so is the prime market but when when this this is what people ask me quite often, what what sells the best, you know, but it’s

Matthew Dols 18:33
not, it’s not like what sells the best, like as in like, an artist might hear this, this podcast and go like, Oh, so the best I better start doing landscapes. Like that’s not the idea, but like, just as sort of a like a hierarchy, like, what’s the thing that gets the most sales and down to the thing that’s sort of most difficult to sell,

Ales Knupp 18:53
I will explain it in my own way. Um, if you have gallery, which has some sort of history already. And if your approaches to your job is generally good, and people start trusting you, you can have a painting of a regular landscape, when it’s nicely framed, and it’s hanging next to completely expressed group expressive portrayed, which comes from the same level artist. You can sell two pieces at the same time to the same collector, because you explain to him or you don’t even have to explain anything to her or her. You can you can just you just explain to the person or show the particular artwork and I don’t know how to explain myself. Like you do your job. As a gallerist. We call it we call RSS gallerists which actually

Matthew Dols 19:51
is a great thing like so what do you call yourself extra? You call yourself a gallery

Ales Knupp 19:55
gallery? Yeah, the galleries if you’re a galleries and you’re you present Um, bunch of artists, sculptors, painters, and glass, glass artists. And you create one large coherent space, which survived for a couple of years. And it looks like the things make sense what you do here, you will meet clients who will love your portraits No matter if they are expressive or technically perfect. And the same time you can sell landscape, which is done in a very expressive way, or a very detailed way as well. So it’s not, it’s not easy to predict what could be sold to each person, because when they go to your space, and you say, three or five sentences, which makes sense and describe the particular artwork, it doesn’t matter if it’s a portrait or landscape, or if it’s an object, it can be sold at the same time on the same level.

Matthew Dols 20:56
I totally understand and that’s very poetic and very polite and PCL, this is this is

Ales Knupp 21:01
how we do it.

Matthew Dols 21:02
I understand that. That’s how you do it. But like when people come in, like, what are they looking for generally, like before, you can talk with them before you can discuss the things like this, like what seems to be the thing that people desire the most like, just for and it’s interesting, because I’m sure it’s different, like if somebody is buying for their office versus their home, whether it’s a personal purchase, or a corporate purchase. I mean, I’m sure that the the styles change dramatically. I mean, there have been studies that say, like, you know, certain colors sell better than others. And certain subject matters are better for certain situations than others and things like this. So like, so I’m interested from, from your perspective, like, on the ground, selling works, not, you know, scientific studies,

Ales Knupp 21:45
in our, in our case, we meet customers who are looking for art, which they can hang in their offices in their homes, but most of them, they really hang the painting at home, we do not have clients who would just say, I’m a collector of Oh, by the piece, give me the number in my collection, and I will put into storage. We do not have clients like that. I believe that many of them are like this in the world, but we don’t have them. So that’s why also the people people usually ask me, how do you choose the artists? Would you like to work with,

Matthew Dols 22:17
which is a great question in

Ales Knupp 22:18
getting started that yeah, it’s my own. It’s my own personal approach to the particular types of paintings and glass pieces and sculptures, I need to see the technique. And in my opinion, the technique, the well done technique will always survive over the last decades of other types of art, which will be more or less forgotten in time. It’s my own, it’s just about my own opinion.

Matthew Dols 22:43
Sure. And here in the Czech Republic, the glass is a huge industry in and of itself, history. So like glass, there is glass, a big market here, fine art, actually

Ales Knupp 22:56
not that much. And when I talk to other galleries who sell the glass pieces, they usually sell to the foreign foreign collectors, not to the local ones. for one simple reason, the history of the glass making here has been so deep, that many people have quite big collections already. And they don’t they don’t buy the new glass that much. You know, there was a strong, strong generation of glass collectors. So three or four decades ago, they were buying, they were crazy about buying glass, there was the generation of Stanislav lubinski, for example, he was a big professor, and his students were very successful as well. But at the moment, if if I can speak from our own perspective, we sell probably not more than 10 glass pieces per year. And we have some good names here. We have we have a blank glass, glass objects, big ones, small ones, different techniques, various names, but still people prefer to buy a bronze to their new homes. This is this is probably this is probably something what I could, I could note that I feel that it’s changing the new apartments, new places which are being built, they have less walls and more glass, no more glass more windows. So people buy objects to have art inside. But they don’t have so many walls to put a painting on because the architects the general direction now as steel, more lights, more glass and less walls you know. So we have many clients who when when they show me the images of their apartments, the only wall is just to put a light switch on or a TV or a TV or some some little screen like the intercom or something. But they say we literally don’t have any any single wall for a painting by We have many, many windows in the in the apartments that we can buy a nice piece of bronze, or a glass, which perfectly works with the lights behind the glass,

Matthew Dols 25:09
we wouldn’t have to worry about like fading or anything like that that might happen with like a painter or work on paper, but you from the sunlight.

Ales Knupp 25:16
But then week later, one week you you made two or three families with so many windows in their homes. And a week later you meet two or three families with all the beautiful Villa houses from the first half of the 20th century. And they say we have beautiful hallways and large rooms with many walls and we would love to buy five paintings you know, so this is very unpredictable, but the general trend, at least in our case is less paintings and more sculptures. Interesting depends.

Matthew Dols 25:51
So So going back to the point of like, how do you find artists so like First of all, like how do you find them? Like do you seek them out? Or do they seek you out? So emails? Do they drop portfolios here at the gallery they do both?

Ales Knupp 26:07
They do both. Some of some of the artists are active and they bring two or three paintings together with them and some of them they even just leave the painting and walk away which is very confusing situation to me I don’t know what to do with the main thing

Matthew Dols 26:22
for the podcast just for fact the here that’s not a good technique. No I’m getting no gallery to represent you do not go into galleries with physical paintings and leave them with a gallery

Ales Knupp 26:35
in 100% The painting is not good if the artist is just willing to leave it there the gallery you know, maybe with the Goshen it’d be different case. You know, if you did it,

Matthew Dols 26:45
maybe that’s what I should actually just get my work run into with a hammer and nail Yeah,

Ales Knupp 26:50
put a piece up and say you’re represented officially negotiated, you would just put it on Instagram and you will get 10,000 more followers today. Yeah, maybe that will work in the United States, but not in the Czech Republic. Yeah. But um, if I can talk as, as about our our own.

Matthew Dols 27:11
This is all you like, this is this is I’m talking with you. So you your own experience, I don’t expect you to be the arbiter of

Ales Knupp 27:21
Sure Sure.

Matthew Dols 27:23
knows your job like what you’ve done. So

Ales Knupp 27:26
in my case, I would say that the best the best way how to approach the gallery is a recommendation by another artist, artist who I’ve been working with who I can trust. So when an artist

Matthew Dols 27:41
collector with a collector be

Ales Knupp 27:42
a good role actor can be also but when a collector recommends an artist, it means that he bought a lot of his paintings already. And he would like the value of his pieces to go up. And if he knows me, he knows that if I start to work with him, probably the value will go up more or less, you know, so he recommends the artist. I also experienced this case couple times already, but it never worked. And I never accepted these artists in the gallery because I didn’t feel it was it would be the

Matthew Dols 28:11
right choice. But I like hearing about the the actual sort of like interplay of like a collector recommendation, not a good idea, because basically a financial idea that where they’re trying to earn more money via you putting in time and effort to make failure of the artists better. But in the end, they’re the one that’s going to basically make the most money out of it. So

Ales Knupp 28:32
well, the easiest thing you can do is just go to the studio of the artist and see his works. And actually you can feel like wow, this is the best thing I have experienced in in this year. So far. I’ve met somewhere I really like and I love his pieces, and I’m happy that the collector recommended him to me or hurt me. But I’m just saying that in my in my case, it wasn’t that it wasn’t that case, it really didn’t happen.

Matthew Dols 28:59
So works really well for you is oh recommendations recommendations from other artists

Ales Knupp 29:04
because when the artist recommends another one, they can be good friends, just only, but if I go to the studio, it’s still it’s just only up to me if I if I say okay, start let’s start something or just leave it as it is. So I would definitely say that their personal recommendation and not too much pressure. You know, like, I know artists who keeps sending me emails and invitations all the time, but they told them a couple times already that I’m not definitely sure that their works would perfectly match the other works at the gallery. So I explained that I’m probably not willing to work with them. And they still keep trying and the quality is the same and it’s the same level so I just do not react so

Matthew Dols 29:55
artists need to take a hint basically. So like every gallery you know, more or less like The gallery doesn’t show interest after like maybe let’s say, like two or three postcards or sort of emails or something that that’s pretty much a hint that they aren’t interested in, they should stop sending, because you’re just getting annoyed.

Ales Knupp 30:10
But, you know, it doesn’t mean that if I didn’t answer the email, the artists that this works are not a good quality. It’s also about the composition of the entire gallery, if our portfolio is completed, it doesn’t, it would really have to be some superstar, who would go to the gallery and call me and say, Hey, I think it’s good time to start to work together, because I see that your gallery is developed enough to work with my basis, you know, this doesn’t happen either. So I would just say, it doesn’t mean that if somebody sends me an email, and I do not answer all your works, I don’t have a good quality. It can also mean that I’m just terribly busy. And I didn’t see the email among all the others. I

Matthew Dols 31:00
know, I was horribly offended, because I sent you an email never responded to me and it’s fine. But over here, you still haven’t responded, it’s okay. I understand.

Ales Knupp 31:14
I will look like it is fine.

Matthew Dols 31:16
It’s totally okay. But well, but but you bring up an interesting point of like the idea of like, cohesive like a cohesive sort of feel to the gallery that your your roster is full, that you you have a good range of whatever it is you feel you What is that? What makes that what’s the criteria to say? Our rosters fall like we’ve got good landscape, good, you know, sculpture, good, whatever, like, what’s, what are the criteria, we say, yeah, we’ve got everything we need right now.

Ales Knupp 31:44
It is probably of all your own personal mental capacity. If you feel that the capacity of the gallery is full, you do not accept other artists. But if you feel that there is something missing, you look for the new names, and you look for other different approach approaches, like for example, if there is somebody who works with the portrayed in some very, very interesting way, I still will be willing to go to that artist and ask him, would you would you consider having a solo show at our gallery? I don’t like I don’t like the way like, go to the artists and say, Oh, we are a great big gallery. What do you love to work with us, I never do that. I just am very humble in this way. And I always say, I would really appreciate if we could start some collaboration with you may be part of a group show, or even a solo show, if you feel like you would like to do that next year or the next next year. And I would like to introduce your works to some of my clients because, um, I feel that they would like to see this in the PDFs, which we send to them on a regular basis, you know, so this is very individual. And it’s a question like, the next next morning, there can be an artist who goes to the gallery, and I will tell him, I really love your work, I would love to work with you. Or in the next six or seven months, I’m not gonna meet anyone who would convince me or I would convince him to work with us. Alright, so

Matthew Dols 33:22
when you’re looking at new artists, though, when you’re looking at are you are you looking at the artist by themselves? Or are you taking into consideration the market? So trends in the market? No, no, no,

Ales Knupp 33:37
I don’t care about any trends in the market. And really, we owe trends, no trends, the trend, the trend would I feel as a trend is only what is happening in our gallery. I do not know what’s happening in other galleries. So when you go to a different galleries,

Matthew Dols 33:54
he can tell you the market trends in your market.

Ales Knupp 33:56
It’s it’s exactly, we do not go to the openings, I would love to actually but I don’t have time for that. But maybe if I went to a gallery, which is just 200 meters away from from here, they would say, Oh, we do it, we have a completely different concept of the gallery. We sell only paintings, we will never sell sculpture and never ever really want to hear about glass. You know. So the trend, the thing, what I call a trend in my case is just what I feel that is happening, but it’s happening to us. It doesn’t have to be happening to any other gallery in the world. You know, so I’m just describing you my my personal experience,

Matthew Dols 34:34
right? But like so let’s say there is a thing that’s going on, like let’s say you’re in the gallery, and for over the course of a couple months. A lot of collectors are looking to go like oh, we’re looking for a French landscape, you know, call back to your previous thing. Would you then go out and seek an artist who makes landscapes like lizard don’t think that way.

Ales Knupp 34:53
But what we do is when we have these individual demands for something particular I call some of my friends who have galleries or I just search the market a little bit. And I tell the collectors, if you are searching for something particular, I will try to get it for you, from my colleagues from other galleries from auction houses, which I know in person, I just call them say, hey, do you have something like that I have a client, he would probably like to buy a landscape from the French period of this and then artists, that’s all but it doesn’t mean that I would, I would be hungry to search for an artist who does specifically this type of art, just to just to put it here and say to the collectors, oh, yes, we started to work with this artist, just because he works with the landscape and the way you like it. Now we don’t do it this way. We have a stable portfolio, these people work in a certain way. What I do as a benefit to their paintings is that I frame them. And actually framing is something which could work a lot.

Matthew Dols 36:08
I’m a client and a framing like you are I cannot stand if you’re in Europe, like so many exhibitions that I go to, nothing is framed?

Ales Knupp 36:18
Yes, yes. When you see the edges of the of the of the blind frames inside you, you want to warm it and it’s terrible. But if if it just doesn’t look finished, it doesn’t look exactly it’s like a car without wheels. You know, it’s just not

Matthew Dols 36:32
done like that, that final bit of presentation can add like here where there’s a piece sitting here in this office. It’s got a big, gold Rococo frame around it, that adds something to the whole problem, like the the gravitas of the image, like you can either enhance the feeling of a piece with a beautiful frame, or you can well you can destroy the feeling of a piece with a bad frame. But like, but you got to have that frame like I mean, I’m shocked at how many galleries don’t an artists don’t frame works for exhibitions, is it a financial like Why?

Ales Knupp 37:07
Probably it will be above the finance because for example, there is one painting just here the garden, the first floor, which I framed a couple of weeks ago when the frame cost me 300 euros and the painting is only 30 times 90 centimeters. The frame is from Italy from Bolivia. And one meter of that frame costs 3600 crowns. So it looks beautiful with this frame. But imagine if we have 200 paintings at the gallery, and some of them are really big. And he would love to frame them up all of them, it would be crazy expensive. So what we do is that we frame examples, couple pieces we frame, usually those which I already purchased to the gallery, so like I can frame it up because it What can also happen is that you have a painting the commission sale. But after three months, the the artist goes to the gallery and say says I would like to get the painting back. And you frame it in the meantime. So you just wasted your money in the frame, you didn’t sell it. So you have two options, you just give it back to him and remove it from the frame or you buy it from him. That’s there’s nothing in between, you know, so well.

Matthew Dols 38:19
So that lends to another thing that we discussed previously. But let’s do it here on the podcast, which is your relationships with your artists, some of your artists you do sort of outright purchasing of work? Yes, yes. Some you do. commission i think is what it is,

Ales Knupp 38:34
it is always partially commission sale and partially purchasing to the gallery. The way how we support the artists is that we from certain names, we buy, I would say between 20 and 80% of all their creation, it depends who it is. But we try to buy as many paintings as we can actually all the profit which is made at this gallery, goes back to to the artists through buying their their own artworks. This is how we how we work. We don’t make any any regular profit, like personal profits, we buy art, or we buy frames for their paintings.

Matthew Dols 39:18
So you have a set of artists that you have that basically you buy work from. Yeah. And then resell it, basically resell it through the gallery versus some other artists that you have that you take the work from them but basically and you don’t buy it but that he and you therefore exhibited and they’re for sale, but they could ask for them back basic. Yes,

Ales Knupp 39:41
yes. Yes. That that’s how it works. Actually there are this you know, it also this another very important fact, if the artist is based in five galleries around Prague, you are not going to buy any painting from him because he market is just into little pieces around a one little city exaggerated. exaggerated. Exactly. And if you have an artist who works only with you, and maybe one another gallery in Vienna or somewhere in Italy, you are willing to buy all of his paintings because you know that you create his markets, you are a price maker, and you are not a price taker. If I feel that I’m in a position of a price taker, I do not buy anything. If I make the price, I will buy everything, because I created

Matthew Dols 40:33
what’s the criteria for you in choosing whether to purchase or simply represent,

Ales Knupp 40:39
this is what I’ve just said at the moment.

Matthew Dols 40:42
So it’s really just just about, like, how many people they work with?

Ales Knupp 40:47
Basically, yes. And also, and also his his personal approach to me, as a person, it’s very, this is very personal, you know, the gallery itself, is about relationships. And if I have a good relationship with the artist, and I know that he’s not going to sell his work just behind my back to my customers, which seems to be very common here.

Unfortunately, I

Matthew Dols 41:12
hear lots of stories. I hear lots of stories about artists selling out of their studios or behind galleries back and things like this, like, I mean, we all sort of joke about it and like in your when you’re young in your career, like okay, fine, whatever. But like as you start getting more reputable and sort of working with more reputable galleries and being in more locations, like you can’t do that, like that’s, it’s gonna ruin the artists reputation. And in a way it ruins the galleries reputation based exactly like if they can’t manage their artists and these artists go off willy nilly selling out of their studio, like it looks bad on the gallery in some ways. Also,

Ales Knupp 41:51
this is this is a very, very tricky, tricky thing. We have clients who come to the gallery, and they complain about the percentage which the gallery makes from each sale, and I tell them, look at the whole thing, from a different perspective, you are an art collector, and you like your work to get higher in its value, you buy it in the gallery, the gallery has to exist, the gallery has to hold the solo show of this particular artist, it means there must be a space, the space is run by some people, these people must have a job. And it means that the portion from the entire price, which you give to the gallery is not a profit to the gallery. It’s its money, which lets the work exists at the gallery. And which it’s the money, which lets the work be to be a part of its show. If this money doesn’t go to the gallery, there is no gallery in the world. So that the gallery can exist, there must be a portion of from the entire price, which goes to the garbage goes to any kind of culture institution, which organizes such events.

Matthew Dols 43:05
What are you talking about, like the 5050 split the generally can be 37

Ales Knupp 43:09
displayed,

Matthew Dols 43:10
I was gonna say like, what’s your your standard split with? Are?

Ales Knupp 43:13
Usually we do 6040 6040 with the artists being 60 for them and forgive us.

Matthew Dols 43:20
Okay, that’s important, because it could have been the other way.

Ales Knupp 43:21
Yeah, I heard about some galleries and our country even which do 6040 but in the other way 60 to

Matthew Dols 43:30
the gallery.

Ales Knupp 43:30
Yes, that’s ridiculous. It is ridiculous. And when I when I see their approach to their artists, and what they do for them, compared to what we do for them, it’s really ridiculous. It’s like a job. But you know, this needs time. And this is kind of a school. It’s it’s, it’s a school of life for the artists to orient themselves, among the galleries and in the market as a whole and find the right way, because there will be many galleries, which looks which look to be galleries, but actually they are just, they’re just trading the art. Like what I used to do, I was trading the commodities and currencies, because there was no feeling there was no relationship. It was just only a commodity. But art itself is not a commodity. It’s a strong relationship. Just one example, two weeks ago, we did a concert in one church in central Bohemia. And people were asking me why I organizing this wider spending big amount of money in just one afternoon and doing a concert of a classical music in the church. And I said to them, the main reason why we did all of that was to strengthen the relationships among artists and the gallery, the gallery and its audience and the audience and the artists they can the collectors can meet the artists. The artists meet themselves together. And everybody means up together, we drink a glass of wine, listen to beautiful music, I print a catalogue, and I, and I select 11 paintings and four sculptures, and we do, we do an event. And the thing is that everybody realizes that we have to meet sometimes, in occasion like like this, just to strengthen the relationship among all of us here to collectors, artists and the gallery. That’s how this way we did it, it’s very important. And this is what probably major part of the gallery they never do. Or they do it in a very limited way. Because they, they feel that their works, which they represent is good, but it’s not good. It’s something what’s going to be hanging on the wall of some somebody that that person is going to feel that somehow. And you have to make the feeling deeper and deeper by strengthening the relationship. Right, so

Matthew Dols 46:02
Okay, but based on this idea of relationships, that you’re so you’re creating relationships, the artwork is creating relationships. And do you feel that going outside? So specifically, I’m thinking like art fairs, and these kinds of events? Like, are these kinds of things actually beneficial to grow and expand markets to, to take an artists and, and introduce them to a new market? Like,

Ales Knupp 46:28
is this something that you feel your gallery does, and or maybe something you want to do in the future? If you don’t currently do, we actually attend the the main and the only Art Fair in the Czech Republic, it’s called Art, Prague. But when we were in Los Angeles, we attended the LA art show twice. It’s a beautiful event, which gets attended by 70,000 people in five days. So it’s a really large crowd. But frankly, in my opinion, all these art fairs, which are abroad, like Basel, or in France, Paris, and Zurich, and anywhere, they are about making money from the galleries, you know, there is a rule, which says that the only person who makes money who makes them real money, and the art fair, is the one who owns the art fair.

Matthew Dols 47:22
The Art Fair, and loser, extremely expensive,

Ales Knupp 47:25
exactly what I feel bad about is that, you know, la art show cost us between 35 and $40,000

Matthew Dols 47:36
each year. So that’s not a big space at that

Ales Knupp 47:39
price. And the space we had was 360 square feet. So it wasn’t that small. That’s compared to the amount of money which we had to spend all around it, but it wasn’t that big, actually. And it was visited by many people, but from the 70,000 people 69,955 are just people who wanted to go there because they wanted to see 1000 sets of paintings at one place and just say, hey, it’s a beautiful piece of art, but I’m never gonna buy it. You know. And so when you ask me about art fairs, around Europe or in our own world, I’m not really sure if that works in in the long term for the galleries, if you have a gallery, which is located in a similar area, like where we are now in the center of the city. In my opinion, you do need to attend too many art fairs to get the crowd because when you have a good window selection in the front space of the gallery, and you have many foreign people coming to the gallery because they want to go to your gallery because they love what they see in the window. It means that they don’t have to be convinced to go to the gallery but they go but just because they want to go listen, I think this is a much stronger tool rather than attending an art fair once per year, which costs you 50,000 euros sure

Matthew Dols 49:09
yeah.

Ales Knupp 49:09
I do not from the financial perspective and from the economic economical perspective. I do not feel this to be such a big benefits to the gallery. You will be proud to say we attended for example, the art Zurich or in Geneva, but okay, for how much did you sell, how much how much money did you spend? And what is the what is the final effect you will be in the red numbers if your gallery is not named Goujian but even the large galleries they sell in the art first because they have clients who already ordered piece of art, but the owned by the owner the gallery asks him Please let us bring the artwork to the art fair. Because we want to put the red dots at the fair to show the people that are selling at a fair,

Matthew Dols 50:04
or they want to do the sale at a place that has lower tax rate. Yes, it might be where the

Ales Knupp 50:11
very reason as well. So when I when I already know how these artifacts really work, I’m not so I’m not so enthusiastic about what

Matthew Dols 50:22
your your gallery and don’t take this in the wrong way. But like your gallery is very based in what I would say sort of like object sort of decorative kind of works. And I like that kind of work. That’s kind of stuff I want my home it’s not a knock or anything like this. But there are some other galleries that sort of focus more on experimental works and things like this and you’re you’re much more of a traditional gallery, yes, in the in the you have an object, people can come and buy it and they can place it in their home. Exactly, exactly. You’re not focusing on institutional work or, you know, installation pieces or conceptual works or things like this is much more about beautiful object, whatever in whatever form sculpture painting, whatever. And that people can simply by fall in love with it, they buy and they tend to go home with it. And that’s very different than a lot of contemporary galleries. A lot of them are focusing more on being cutting edge and being provocative in some way to get the the clickbait and the press and the whatever to to be interested in them or going to the the art fairs to get the publicity and things like this, where you’re doing like you’re doing like the grunt work, like you’re keeping the industry moving like you, you’re, you’re you’re selling your suggest, artists are making work and you’re selling it and that’s it. Yeah, that’s great.

Ales Knupp 51:40
Yes, we feed we feed up to six artists at this gallery, we buy art books from them, we work with artists who can say that we are a gallery which they can rely on. And we sell works which people want to have in their homes. That’s one of the main differences between us and the rest of the market, otherwise the rest of the market but some other other subjects in the market, we are another gallery experimenting too much because also we are in the center and we are independent. If we do not sell, we cannot stay here. And the other galleries, which you mentioned, they are usually in other parts of the city, where the rents are substantially lower, they pay fractions of what we pay per month,

Matthew Dols 52:26
and they get support from the municipality. Exactly.

Ales Knupp 52:29
And they they try to pretend that they are nonprofit organizations and whatever whatever. It’s kind of a game which we don’t want to play, you know, so we sell and if we do not sell we are we end up in trouble. And I can definitely tell you that not every month per year is is a beautiful month and you wanna you want to consider that you would make an even in a profit.

Matthew Dols 52:54
I want to wait I want to know a little bit about that. Okay, I grew up in Washington, DC, and in Washington DC we generally referred to summer exhibitions as suicide shows. Because nobody bought art and they they you know, they sold like art galleries would put their like their artists where they’re like, well, maybe we’ll work with them. Let’s just try a show with them. They put them in like August, because it’s like nobody bought art in washington dc in August at all. I mean, it was very much a autumn, autumn winter was the big sales times there. So how does it work? Here is the European market different is regenerates summaries a lot of I

Ales Knupp 53:41
actually in in our case, I will say that the summer summer, season is slower, definitely. But if you if you exhibit really good quality work, and you’ll have a good selection in the front window. It doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter, that people with money. You know, the general rule is that everybody says people go on vacations in summer. That’s why Prague is empty and people don’t buy art. People who buy art in our gallery have vacation 365 you know, a year so they don’t care about if it’s summer or winter. They just only care if you’re very conditioned in your gallery or not, which we hopefully are going to build soon. So

Matthew Dols 54:25
we’re in the middle of a heatwave here so yeah,

Ales Knupp 54:27
that I would I would definitely say that you must offer the great quality works and then it doesn’t matter if it’s really springtime or summertime. You will always get some attention from the street because we are strongly expressed to the Street View. You know, am people going to one shopping mall which is nearby here in the Palladium. The tech business people go in there by car, they always look to the right when they when they stop on the traffic lights. And many of them. They told us that they were just Waiting under lights and they had to park the car under in the direction they quickly went to the gallery because the

Matthew Dols 55:06
first time I noticed you all I was on the tram actually, there’s a tram stop much right outside your door. And so every time the tram stops there and so I’ve got a good minute or so while the tram opens doors and closes the doors for me to be like, oh, there’s a gallery right there. So like, you get the moment to see

Ales Knupp 55:22
it visually. In the evening, when it’s all lit, you know, the ground floor and the first floor, it’s a huge,

Matthew Dols 55:28
so you’re a big advocate of the idea that basically a gallery should have a front window and should be displaying art, because this seems

Ales Knupp 55:36
to be something that works very well free fuel or in a rare like us, you must have a front window, if we were given an offer to have a gallery in the street, which is behind the main building, and the price would be 60% lower the rent, I wouldn’t accept it. Because it wouldn’t have any attention from the cars on the street. And from all the walking people nearby. Imagine we have 900 cars going by the gallery every day and three the 3500 people walking next to the gallery every day.

Matthew Dols 56:09
So I mean, that brings up sort of an interesting question because like every major city at some point or another in the evolution of the city sort of becomes like an art district. Like right now the there’s different battles on where the our district here is in the city is some people say just go have some people say Brock seven, you know, how’s the beach holds the beach? People say it’s in different places and galleries seem to sort of gravitate towards those places they move a lot to try.

Ales Knupp 56:39
Yes, I

Matthew Dols 56:40
think the gallery scene is it is it is true. But

Ales Knupp 56:45
I completely deny that in our case. Because if you’re this this is this is this is still the same thing, you know, I will just repeat myself. If you have the good quality work and a very good approach to your clients, and you want the end the artists, they will always prefer to be in the center of the city, no matter where is the arts district. I know it doesn’t work that way in America, because in America, you have our district in LA. And if you open a gallery in some different area, people don’t go to the opening, because this is not a typical place for art in the US in LA.

Matthew Dols 57:23
Well, let’s follow that question then. So the openings? That’s an interesting question, because you say like people don’t go to the open wouldn’t go to the openings if you weren’t in the right sort of area, you know. But our openings really that beneficial. Like do you actually sell a lot at

Ales Knupp 57:39
Oh, no, not at all. Not at all. It has to be somebody Super Mega famous to sell some of his pieces during the opening. It happens very rarely, and mostly the opening sell for friends and friends of the artists and the family. We take some pictures, we do some quick speech in the beginning as an introduction, but it’s all about we drink glass of wine and go home. The real business happens after the opening and the people who buy art, they never show up at the openings because they don’t want to be noticed. You know, these people always want to be at an immerse and I do not exist I have never been here we don’t know each and I buy art. That’s how it really works. But I’m just going slightly back to the previous topic. The the areas here in Prague, you have Brad three and Brock seven. It’s really true that there are many galleries, but it’s places would I mentioned before the rent costs there are substantially lower than here in the center. That’s why getting very expensive,

Matthew Dols 58:44
but it is where you are. Right now. Here.

Ales Knupp 58:47
It is. Yeah, you have iPhones stores here in the street and many companies which don’t care about rents, it was a different case in our case, you know, but anyway, Braxton Bragg three great areas but there was no foot traffic. And there is no palladium shopping mall next to it next to these galleries. So they can sell our this they can sell art which which doesn’t have to be purposely for sale. I mean like this is this is different thing like but you probably feel what I want to say. I mean like they can experiment they can experiment. And if they if they sell one piece per month, they are still okay because they paid one part timer, who sits there for five, five hours a day three days a week and they sell one paintings they just cover the costs and make a little profit and they will say we are selling gallery. If we sell one painting per week or per month, we are going to die within the next

Matthew Dols 59:56
few years. Like I said about you like more or less. I don’t mean it offensive And I hope to tell you this way, but like you do the grunt work, like you’re selling the artwork, that is your primary thing, like you’re not really in it for reputation and prestige. And no, it works together publicity and like, I mean, but, but that’s not the goal. Like, there are lots of other I can think of a number of spaces of thought in my head that they, they’re in it for the social media profile, they’re in it for the press, they’re in it for all these other kind of things, that will, in time, over decades build up to be this mag incredible reputation. But that takes that’s the that’s playing a massively long game, you on the other hand, because you’re here, you have to sell now, or you won’t be exactly indexed. So you’re you’re very much about like, just sell, sell, sell, versus the, well, we’re gonna experiment, we’re gonna try this, and we’re gonna hope to do that. And maybe in 10 years, we’ll be able to pull this off. Like, that’s a very different dynamic way of doing things. And it’s

Ales Knupp 1:01:00
not a bad thing. It’s just a sort of, we have to feed, we have to feed the artists, they rely on us, we rely on their works. And it was all has to work together. And it has to work fast. As the as the street here lifts fast, we have to live, we have to work fast as well. And we have to be successful in this way. If we are not, we just have to leave and we will, we will have to go back to the areas like back three proximal where we started, actually, six years ago, but I definitely wouldn’t like to do that. You know, we as a gallery, one of the one of the partial goals, what we would like to achieve is to become a destination for tourists, destination for people who have art. And there are more and more people who keep coming back to the gallery. And they don’t even know that I’m the owner because I just sit downstairs and I say hi. And I’m not saying Hi, I’m the owner of variable Look at me. They have no idea. And they can even sometimes they even sometimes say is there somebody who was responsible for the space? To be me? Yeah, it’s so fun to say, it could be me, you can talk to me, and it’s fine, you know, and they have no idea. So and they are saying without without knowing who they are talking to. They’re saying, this is a gallery where we love to go back at any time we are in Prague because they’re from Moravia or other places. We love to go to this gallery, because we always see something new here. Sometimes they even mentioned the framing and the way how I frame the pieces, the graphics especially, and some of the oil paintings, and they say this is a true inspiration for us to come here to this gallery. And it doesn’t matter if they buy something or not. It doesn’t matter at all. Nobody’s forcing people to buy anything here.

Matthew Dols 1:02:45
The framing thing is a huge thing for me, because you get to see the work completed like it’s done. It’s literally like people could come in here theoretically, if there’s a piece that you have, that’s for sale that’s already framed, somebody walk in and say, I want that they pay you cash, they walk out with it, they can walk home and hang it on their wall, they don’t have to complete the gauges done like they don’t have to then go to a framer and then dwell on the choices. And then most people who buy art, from my experience, don’t want to also hassle with framing eggs they want to come in and just be able to say, I love it exactly the way it is or like I love it. And I like that frame on that piece over there, can you put the two together and just send that to me? Like they want to be able to do it one stop shop and be done with it, and then put it up enjoy it. They don’t want to have to add layers of additional things that they have to do and it takes

Ales Knupp 1:03:37
time to go to the framer. Imagine you’re a busy person, you have to go to the framer, you have to choose the frame, then you will wait for another two months because it’s a frame from Italy. Two months. I waited for even four months for one frame from Italy because the Italians, they always say, Oh, it’s ordered, don’t worry, we’ll get it. But they don’t tell you which season you know, but they deliver it but it’s sometimes it takes the record was six months when I waited for the frame. I did wait. But I was really angry already. You know. So that’s that’s exactly what you have just said. And the it’s not only about having having it done already. It’s also about having a frame coherence with the with the with the subject of the painting. In terms of the colors, the style, if it’s rude, or if it’s a metal is very important. And people who buy art, they they love the painting, but usually they do not have the feeling for the frame. And if they do the framing by themselves, I see a catastrophe sometimes because they just go to the framer who doesn’t know to do his job too well.

Matthew Dols 1:04:47
It used to be a framer Be careful.

Ales Knupp 1:04:49
I used to use the frame and, and sometimes the framer, especially in the smaller places like smaller towns, they they frame it with a total

Matthew Dols 1:05:00
Crap. Oh, yeah, not naughty. Yeah, so bad. So anything that people do,

Ales Knupp 1:05:05
I always tell the client, if you knew the origin of price of the frame without any discounts without any special price for me as a gallerist, you would never purchase it. But because I get it at much different conditions, I put it on the on the canvas, and you feel that this is now a complete package, which you want to buy. This is what happened less than 24 hours ago, we saw the painting to a guy who purchased the sculpture to South Africa. And then he saw the painting. And also he just, he was just approaching the painting. And it’s framed really beautifully. And he said this is this is a perfect complete package. I want to get it as it is. And he framed it really, really well.

Matthew Dols 1:05:46
But that’s the thing is like when somebody oftentimes Not always, but oftentimes when people come into a gallery, and they fall in love with a piece of art, they fall in love with it. And they want to keep that relationship going. And if they have to turn around and then drop it off at a framer for a couple of weeks or a month or whatever it takes to get a frame. There’s the possibility they might fall out of love, like because now that it’s not

Ales Knupp 1:06:06
there. And you mentioned the very important term, which I mentioned many times before the relationship, it’s all about relationships, your relationship to the work your relationship to the artist to the gallery, it has to be kept, and it has to be strengthened all the time. This is what we do.

Matthew Dols 1:06:22
That’s an interesting question. Okay, relationships. So the Do you like, because I’ve known some galleries? And actually, I’ve worked in some galleries where we did this, where we would not let artists meet buyers.

Ales Knupp 1:06:35
If our buyers want to meet them, sometimes I warned him from hitting the

Matthew Dols 1:06:40
it’s not the best marketers or sales people. Yeah, best representation of exactly.

Ales Knupp 1:06:47
Sometimes they speak more than they should actually and they say things for drug addicts

Matthew Dols 1:06:53
or what are psychotic.

Ales Knupp 1:06:59
Yeah, especially when we organize this concert in the in the church, there were probably five or six artists, and they will talk to our clients who have the sum of their works at home. So they talk to each other. And it’s true that sometimes I even get nervous about this, that I let these two sides of the river to meet. And afterwards, I’m thinking like, I’m not really sure if it was the right move, but nothing really happened. You know, and this time, everything was fine. People were in a good mood, everybody, and they just talked crap about the techniques and how much time does it take to create a sculpture and everything. But it could be it could really happen that even the artist can completely destroy the trade. You know,

Matthew Dols 1:07:45
when that’s sort of my point is like the wall the relationship might be with the painting, sometimes the artists themselves could sort of stand in their own their own way of sales, because some some artists do not present well. And like sometimes their art is fabulous. I mean, stunningly amazing. And moving in a new evocative. Buddy bear is a little bit artist for whatever reason just doesn’t help the transaction, let I’m trying to be as polite as I can about this. But they and so they do are there some times I’m scenarios where like, you will tell an artist or simply just or not telling artists, but keep the artist out of the relationship.

Ales Knupp 1:08:27
I never had to do it in this very direct way. But in some cases, I do not recommend to talk too much to certain people. Because some of the artists, they they want to tell everything about the technique and about how they work, why they work. And for example, if the artist mentions that he does it for money, it’s completely, everything’s destroyed. It’s just ruined, you know, because now the client feels that the product he has at home was made to make money. Not just because the artist wanted to tell something the world like I’m here, and I have my own view of something, you know, and I want out represented, and that food is gallery, and I want you to have it at home, not just because everybody has to make money to feed himself, of course, but it shouldn’t be the primary primary purpose of making an artwork. You know, there are artists who obviously repeats some topics again and again, because they know that it’s a great bestseller, you know, but the market sees it like sooner or later. And it decreases the value of the art of from this particular artists quite substantially. And people will see, especially when you have five or six paintings in the auction from one artist, and all the paintings are just modification of the first one. That’s the real problem. If it happens

Matthew Dols 1:10:01
We’re off mic here. We’re talking a story about photographers and how you don’t like working with photographers. Of course, I’m photographer background. So I’m interested in why do galleries have problems with working with photographers? It’s very common. I hear it a lot. That the, you know, generally there are photography galleries and art galleries, like they don’t eat, they get art galleries don’t like photographers, why

Ales Knupp 1:10:26
I personally feel that this comes from the history of art in our lands. I’m not saying just Czech Republic, I’m just saying lands here to Bohemia and Moravia, that we had, we always had painters. And that’s probably why people feel that the real art must be a painting on a canvas, acrylic or oil. And when it comes to the photography, it’s just only one click on a camera. That’s how people feel. And that’s why I know, I know, but this is how people feel it. This why a few, especially in in the age of digital cameras. There are so many photographers at the moment. And

Matthew Dols 1:11:11
there are so many people that call themselves for

Ales Knupp 1:11:14
Yes, yes, it’s Yes, yeah, thank you for correcting me. But yeah, and then they they try to sell each photography for, let’s say, 1500 crowns. And they say it’s a limited edition of 100 pieces. But who knows what happens with the origin of file in 10 years, and they can they just do another edition of another 100 pieces. And people people feel that there is no limits, you know, it can be printed million times, and it will still be the same photography. But if you paint one painting, you finish it. And it’s one painting that can be any identical copy of it can be a kind of like a continuation modification, reminiscence whatever. But it will be a different piece. That’s probably why the people here feel that they want to buy they prefer the painting, compared to the photography, we didn’t have, we didn’t have the history of photography, like in the US, you have a gallery in the US where you can buy old board barn in the in the fields for $35,000. You want one picture, right? If it was captured by somebody who is very famous in his in his industry, but you don’t need that here in our country, I personally think that the best photographers can sell each individual image, I mean, like photography for about two or $3,000 maximum, and it will be the superstar for $3,000. You know, sodaq or under other contemporary names, but there will be just few people, not more than three or four photographers. I do know the

Matthew Dols 1:12:54
okay, but I’m not sitting here as some sort of like purist that believes that photography, some great art form. There’s a lot of people who don’t use photography as an elevated technical art form or anything like that. So yeah, yeah, I get it. And it’s so business in the end its business and it’s very difficult to sell like something that there’s no gap, sort of no guarantee of authenticity and lack of reproductions and things like this, like this is a very difficult thing to sell. I get it, I’m fine with it.

Ales Knupp 1:13:24
I’m not not upset Davis probably one more thing, which I would like to mention, in case the photography. When I discussed this topic with some of my clients, they are many of them mentioned that the painting takes a lot of time to make it and you have to create it from the first brushstroke until the very last one. While the photography they do not feel as the real handcraft is just the collected. I like the appreciation of technique. That’s great. That’s that’s probably why and probably this can come from the, from the from the history of our nation that people generally appreciated things which were technically develops, and they they want to see that the person who made it really spent all of his time and made a big effort to to achieve the, to the productive the final to the final look, you know, probably probably this is my my personal view. I don’t know if it’s true or not. And

Matthew Dols 1:14:30
that’s all these conversations are just personal opinion.

Ales Knupp 1:14:32
Yeah, exactly. So,

Matthew Dols 1:14:34
okay, so but you talk about, like all the quantity of photographers in the world. And so that leads into social media. So how does social media work for you or not for you?

Ales Knupp 1:14:47
At the moment, I would say that social media for us is important just for one single reason to be there. But we never met any real client Who would ever bought anything from the gallery, because he saw something posted on Instagram or Facebook right now single one No, not a single one. Our clients are very busy people who have large companies or they are doctors, lawyers. And these people have their own social media just because they want to get connected with their families, but they do not search any art on it, because just they simply don’t have time for it. And so we have social media so that we see artists from the world. And actually, social media, for me as a galleries is a great inspiration to see what’s going on in the world. And I like to follow other artists, some people from the US for some people from the South America, just to see what they are working on. And I actually planned to email some of them with a proposal to do a group show or a solo show here in Prague. For educational reasons, we do not feel that we would sell a really value really well well valued contemporary artists from North America in Prague, because his prices will be probably 300% higher than the same level artists from our country. But I would like to organize such exhibition for educational reasons. So the the local audience can meet the artists from let’s say, New York, somebody who really has a name in his own market, and bring his works like for example, for example, know, Johan barrios, he’s from the US I think, and MC arm, leg arm is a figurative painter from the US, I’m not sure if he’s located in California or New York. But this person I would really like to bring to our gallery. If it was ever possible, maybe he will just say, Okay, I’m not interested at all. But so social media helped me to find Nick calm. And also, I have to mention that one of our artists actually was on the same list of 100 best living figurative painters in the US, altogether with Nick on. So this is also an under way how I found him. But so social media for me, it’s actually like so that I look for something. I don’t know what but I keep looking for a quality, probably the quality. There are other people around our neighbors, like from Germany from Poland, sometimes there are names, which I note in my notepad, and I plan to contact some of them.

Matthew Dols 1:17:48
So you do use social media. But it’s more like you do you use a you use it as a research tool?

Ales Knupp 1:17:56
Yes.

Matthew Dols 1:17:57
Okay. What’s your favorite hashtag? What do you look like entering the hashtag,

Ales Knupp 1:18:02
we don’t have a favorite hashtag. But I like to, I like to as a hashtag, I usually use contemporary art, art collection, Fine Arts. And then instead of using the hashtags, which everybody uses, I try to look at the work which I display on the screen, like, for example, some particular parts of it, like, the atmosphere or the word, if it’s spiritual,

Matthew Dols 1:18:26
or whatever, whatever color palette, you know, the emotive nature of it, whatever the story behind

Ales Knupp 1:18:32
the describes what it’s trying to say to the people, you know, right, so, but we don’t have any any favorite as well. But

Matthew Dols 1:18:40
when you’re searching for for new artists, because it looks sounds like you look for artists on social media, do what like what do you search for? How do you mean, you know, how do you find it sounds like you’ve you found some through an article, hundreds and top

Ales Knupp 1:18:54
of this in this article, one of our artists was mentioned was included. But in terms of the Instagram, once you start to follow, for example, Justin Moore de mer, there are some suggestions. And I click on these suggestions, and those which I like, I start to follow. That’s very easy. There is there is really no, there was no magic behind, you know, was just very, very simple by

Matthew Dols 1:19:20
using the suggestion, suggestion algorithm and sort of that’s, that’s a good thing to know that that does work, basically. We don’t know if it works. So we’re all just sort of randomly on social media. Alright, so to wrap things up, I do I have two questions that I asked everybody that I bring on the podcast. So the first question is, what I as a as a visual artist, myself, I would desire my quantitative outcome of doing this podcast is to be able to have a piece of my artwork exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. What advice which could you give me on In the process of doing that,

Ales Knupp 1:20:03
in terms of this, I will definitely contact a particular person, not definitely an email info at whatever, whatever Museum, right, I would go to a particular person. And I would very briefly explain my intention to be a part of the museum and I would donate the work, which would be very nicely framed, it would include a certificate of authenticity. And I would say that I will be honored if my work could be a part of the collection of this particular museum. I wouldn’t write too long emails, I wouldn’t mention how many awards they won, it’s bullshit, I would just say that I’m here, I’m doing this and that. And from my perspective, it has a reason. And I will be really honored to be part of the museum. Not too much, talking around, just be very brief and speak to one person in this email and be very brief and direct.

Matthew Dols 1:21:01
Okay. All right. And the second part is some advice or some encouragement, ideas that you can give to like, how can we also like your galleries? So you could talk to about being a gallerist, and your perspective from that, or, as an artist, whatever, how can we all make the arts industry more successful for everybody, like what’s something that could be done to, to make it so that all of us can make a living from the thing that we all have this passion to do?

Ales Knupp 1:21:33
That’s very easy. I would definitely say that, if we stop looking at the Art industry, only as a business, and we start doing things, beneficially things, which help the entire industrial like, for example, events, which are not primarily made to make money, then people will go to the art, and it will be good for all of us, and maybe a little bit more cooperation among the galleries altogether. And in terms of the Czech market, I personally feel that we need to, because we are the heart of Europe. And it’s a really, really big pity that we don’t have any large art fair, which would invite galleries from all around the world, not world but Europe, at least, we could have a beautiful art fire for 100 galleries, the art fair wouldn’t be in the center of Prague, it would be a little bit aside, but we have places where this could take place. And I personally feel that this will be great for the entire Czech art market. A great art fair with a reputation all around the world, not only local, for 30 galleries, in one building, with no aircon, I would just do it in a slightly bigger way. I’m not saying anything bad about the art, I love the art for which we do in Prague, it’s beautiful. And we always meet very interesting people.

Matthew Dols 1:23:08
It’s an interesting art fair, it changes locations. And it’s like last year I went to it and it was in this beautiful palace. And then this year it was in I don’t even know how to explain it like a

Ales Knupp 1:23:21
just an old building. Yeah, and just because it has to change the places the venues are changing, because there is no other option there that’s important to mention. But the Czech Republic at the moment has some great artists, but they just randomly and sometimes show themselves internationally, I mean, in some very serious way. But if we had an art fair, where respected European galleries go and show their top thesis, and we would attend it, as well, because of because we are a country which organizes the whole thing that would in my opinion would help the entire Czech contemporary art market. Not maybe only the contemporary but also the historical. This is what is missing.

Matthew Dols 1:24:15
And if you were to give some advice to an artist that’s out there about how they can Yes, I’m not looking for how to make them like household names and super famous but like how they can engage in the industry in a more constructive way that will make it so they can make a living through their art whether it you know in whatever way it could be teaching or selling art or whatever but like what kind of encouragement or recommendation would you give for an artist to do to be able to sustain themselves in the in the arts industry?

Ales Knupp 1:24:47
This this is a very tricky question but the simplest answer it can get it can get as that they have to just develop the quality. It they don’t have to they don’t have to invent anything new in these inventions usually don’t really work. But just they can be. They can be landscape painters, they can be portrayed as they can be, they can work with objects, whatever, they don’t have to invent anything super new. But if they keep the quality at a certain level, and if they know if they have the guts to go to the gallery and say, I would like to be represented by you, I have a portfolio which makes sense. I and I create series of paintings or I work with a certain topic. And if they say things which make sense to the other side to the gallerist, there is no reason why these people couldn’t do it for a living. But what there is one advice, which I would like to give to everybody, all the artists do not spread your works into too many galleries. Because if there is a gallery, which could be really the serious, long term partner for you, but that gallery sees that you are spread all around the city, in galleries, which have not great reputation, or they are just small, you don’t know how they work with the price, it means that you are in the gallery is in the position of the price taker, which is always bad, and no series gallery will invest money in an artist who is spread in too many places. That’s one of the major rules look to the Western world. You have an artist who has his own manager or one major gallery, and great example is one artist from the Czech Republic, who has a gallerist in Prague, Vienna and LA, the prices are the same. And all these three galleries probably collaborate together, and they do a great job. And the reputation of the artist is only growing. And if he makes a painting, there is a wishlist of 20 people who are willing to pay almost any amount of money just to purchase it. Because Because his his reputation is being held in only three hands, not 300 hands and the galleries do their job correctly.

Matthew Dols 1:27:23
It’s great. Love it.

Ales Knupp 1:27:25
That’s how I’ll just say

Matthew Dols 1:27:27
thank you very much for your time. This has been a lot of pleasure and learned a lot.

Ales Knupp 1:27:32
Thank you.

Matthew Dols 1:27:40
Thank you for listening. 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 for pod.com Wi sefolpd.com ask them on our website wise for pod calm 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