Female Artists, Blockchain Technology and Nurturing Talent – The Modern Gallery Scene

We continue to glean insights from an annual overview of the world art market, and what it says beyond art as well as within it.

It pays to recruit and nurture more female artists if you want to run a profitable art gallery business. Meanwhile, blockchain technology is gaining ground in the sphere despite headwinds from the turmoil in cryptoassets, says a senior art world figure.

The UBS and Art Basel annual study of the industry found that galleries with lower female artist representation are at a disadvantage in the market. In 2022, for example, galleries with less than 20 percent female artists in their programs had stagnant and declining sales year-on-year, while those with over 80 percent had a significantly higher growth of 21 percent. (See related articles about this report here and here.)

Correlation is not causation, but the pattern suggests a figure like Bernadine Bröcker Wieder (pictured), who is CEO of Arcual, a Zurich-based blockchain ecosystem for the art community.

While this news service understandably wanted to ask Wieder about her views on how digital technology is affecting the art world, it first asked what the UBS/Art Basel report had to say about women artists and the competitive edge they give galleries today.

“Supporting women artists is something of real value and relevance to collectors, which clearly pays off for the galleries that understand this,” Bröcker Wieder said in an interview. “We can look at Artsy’s research last year [showing]that the younger galleries have greater gender parity in terms of the artists they represent (and longer waiting lists for the ultra-modern hot artists). The next step is to ensure that women artists feel empowered in their demands in relation to galleries, as they clearly drive better business performance, while also legally ensuring that they are in control of their careers.” (Artsy is an online art marketplace.)

Such hard numbers feed into the debate about how “diversity” is not or should be a marketing phrase for a tick-box exercise, but should make business sense.

Bröcker Wieder has been CEO of Arcual since April last year. Arcual is backed by MCH Group, the Swiss live marketing business, and Luma Foundation, the Swiss non-profit group for artists, and incubated by BCGX, which is the technology and design unit of the Boston Consulting Group. Arcual uses cutting-edge technologies to “rebalance the art ecosystem.”

Before Arcual, Bröcker Wieder was a young ambassador at the Museum of London. She is the director of Vastari Labs (launched July 2021) working with digital artists, non-fungible token markets, museums, exhibitors and others in the technology and culture industries.

With HNW individuals often enthusiastic art collectors, and also interested in the area for investment reasons, a number of banks and advisory firms serve this customer segment. Events like art auctions and exhibitions can be barometers of how wealthy – or not – high net worth individuals think they are and how willing they are to splash out and enjoy their wealth.

Technology and art
Mention of non-fungible tokens, aka NFTs, shows how the worlds of art and technology are increasingly intersecting.

The UBS/Art Basel report said blockchain, aka distributed ledger technology, is helping to lower barriers to market entry, enabling new collectors to enter – an important addition to the market’s long-term health.

NFTs have taken a few hits along with volatility in the broader cryptoasset space, but they remain an important sector. And while the desire to buy art at physical auctions has returned after the pandemic shutdowns, the appetite for the tech side seems to be holding up. Each NFT is a unique token on a blockchain that stores information about provenance that can be traced back to the original issuer; it gives collectors a way to build a digital collection. NFTs are popular in applications that require unique digital artifacts, including crypto-art, digital collectibles, and online games, where some guarantee of authenticity and history of ownership provides value.

Bröcker Wiederhere said it is an appeal to youth.

“We know that a proportion of the younger generation value digital assets as much as physical ones – and are proud of what they experience online as well as in real life. For example, in 2022 a Yougov survey found that people under 30 were much more likely to think that NFTs were a good investment –
[than be] strongly against it, she said.

“When more internet-based businesses fail, social media sites disappear and internet coverage can be interrupted, the promise that information stored on the blockchain can prevail is important for younger generations and an attractive proposition for new collectors, who value this security,” Bröcker Wieder continued.

There have been arresting examples of NFT activity in the past three years. Examples include that of musician Grimes selling $6 million worth of digital artwork via auction on Nifty Gateway, a marketplace that allows users to buy, sell, display and create a collection of “Nifties.” A short video, ‘Death of the Old’, sold for nearly $390,000. However, most of the $6 million in sales came from two pieces – “Earth” and “Mars” – with nearly 700 copies sold. Another NFT sale (2021) was Beeple’s ‘First 5000 Days’ artwork for £50 ($62) million at the first digital-only art auction by Christie’s.