Vienna Kim in Conversation with Marion Sailhen
Marion Sailhen is the Art Project Manager at France’s primary online art gallery, Singulart. I had the pleasure of working with Marion at Singulart in 2019, and I became fascinated with how she aimed to position a young online art gallery within a still-traditional art market. In this candid and chatty interview, Marion and I discuss how she came to work in the arts, the big leap that brought her to Singulart, and what her predictions are for the future of the online art market.
VK: How did you start your career in the art world? Did you always know you wanted to work in art?
MS: I started studying mostly History at the French Public University. I was passionate about history and what I loved about paintings and art creations were the messages and clues these objects gave us about past times: for example what fashion was like in the 18th century, or how people were decorating their interiors… So studying Art History came a bit later and I had no clue about what kind of job I could do! That’s why I did A LOT of different kinds of internships: at Christie’s as the assistant of the Russian Art Specialist for 8 months, at a Modern Art Brokerage company (which sold Bacon and Picasso’s paintings from Asia to the US in total opacity), I also worked in the Exhibitors Relations department of the art fair FIAC, and at Claudine Papillon Gallery (we met at FIAC). I also tried the “research side” of art history and worked for a year at the National Institute of Art History in Paris, exclusively researching 20th century European Arts while I was finishing my Masters. I left for Russia to complete the 1st year of my PhD doing only research, but after 7 months, I finally realised I missed the auction houses, fairs, and galleries so much… I missed the art market. So I stopped my PhD, came back to Paris and looked for a job in the art market. I looked mostly into auction houses because it was a great mix between research on objects and paintings for sale, adrenaline, social contact, and new life given to works of art.
VK: You worked for quite a few years in auction houses in Paris (Artcurial, Drouot…) What was your role in these auction houses and how was the experience?
MS: I found my first job at Artcurial in the Bids Department. It was not very invigorating. I was registering bids, taking the phone calls and purchase orders during sales, and liaised relationships with different departments. But it was a great first experience and made me totally crazy about the auction house universe. After 6 months (keeping an eye on job offers), I joined Daguerre, an auction house from Drouot specialised in 18th - 20th century Old Masters and Furniture. I stayed there for 5 years, so my job evolved with more and more responsibilities, mostly in expertise.
I was in charge of organising almost all the catalogued sales of the year.
Organising a sale at Drouot goes something like this: we do the 1st appraisal of the client’s objects, write up the contracts, conduct primary research on the objects, coordinate appraisals with our experts, organise the photo shoot of the sale, create the catalogue of the sale (with our external designer), book the room at Drouot, hire and manage the staff required for each sale… Then there’s the whole post-sale process! I worked with everything! Haha. At Drouot, auction houses are small so they usually do not have an accounting department / a bid department or any department at all. When you are in charge of sale, you take care of every single aspect of your sale, in tandem with external experts. So you can see the French auction house system is quite different from the British one!
© Singulart.
VK: At Drouot, you worked in the 18th - 20th century Old Masters and Furniture department. Now you work with contemporary art. How did you feel about making this jump? Were there any challenges?
MS: From 18th century to contemporary art, everything is quite different and quite a challenge, yes! I admit I have always been more interested in contemporary art than 18th century. And I think I also have a better eye for contemporary art. So it was very natural for me to go back to something I felt more comfortable with. It was also a challenge, because even though I kept going to contemporary art galleries and museums, checking contemporary art sales results, and had artist friends, I still had left the “market” a long time ago, so I had to catch up!
For example, I was used to working in the secondary market, and now I work in the primary market. I had to learn to price higher. I was used to working with old collectors as sellers, and now I work directly with the artists. But in both cases, you work with people who care A LOT about what they are selling. They trust you a lot in selling it at the best price and to respect all the feelings, memories and sensitivities linked to this special painting or sculpture. Another difference is that I was used to selling to very specialised clients. Now most of our clients are people who are discovering art. I had to learn to talk to clients more in a “decorative” way than in a historical or investment way.
VK: In 2019, you joined Singulart, Paris’ primary online art gallery. A huge change for you, I’m sure! Why did you want to experience such a different aspect of the art world? Do you think working for an online art gallery has taught you new things about the art world?
MS: Even though my daily work at Daguerre was different every day, I needed a change and new challenges! I was already interested in the role ‘online’ could play in the art market. I started to set up the first online sales and to rebuild the Daguerre website (which they have now put to the side since I left, unfortunately). I realised that we were doing a high volume of sales through the platform Drouot Live and that we could do much more, and I was feeling so disappointed by how long things took to change. Drouot is held by old auctioneers and they don’t really want to change deeply. I wanted to work with young people at the head of the company and I wanted to understand the keys of the online art market. In a way, I also wanted to be part of this big change in the art market that I felt was coming. I wanted to be part of the young generation trying to create new things instead of staying in this kind of old world.
I learnt a lot at Singulart, mostly that you could create an art business and find collectors even if you did not have a huge and wealthy network (which is the case in every French art business—even at Christie’s, for example). I think this is what I like the most at Singulart: smart people can do great things, and not only people with the right family network. I learnt a lot about the online market in general such as digital marketing techniques… I also realised that the world is full of talented artists who could not make a living because the 50 big galleries of the international art market did not like their work.
VK: You spend a lot of time attending art fairs across the world. It’s no secret that attending art fairs is a challenge for online art galleries, as many art fairs require that you have a physical gallery location. Do you think sentiment in the art world is changing towards online galleries, and that we will see art fairs open up to more online businesses?
MS: I hope so, yes! I’m really happy that we have been selected this year to attend Aqua Art Miami (the emerging art fair arm of Art Miami), Scope NYC and maybe VOLTA Basel (we’re still waiting for the answer due to coronavirus). I think mind-sets are changing (at least in the US faster than in France) and the big figures of the traditional art market are now ready to accept that online galleries can do great things, have a DNA, know about art and have a role to play (and not only a commercial one).
Also, purely economic, I think galleries have more and more difficulties paying for SUCH EXPENSIVE BOOTHS at art fairs. They are not able to visit many of them in one year, and fairs have no other choice than to accept online galleries to survive.
© Singulart.
VK: What's been the best art fair so far and why do you think this one worked well for an online art gallery?
MS: I really loved being in Aqua Miami. It was crazy to be officially represented during the most important art week in the world. I met a lot of great artists, cultural representatives, residency directors, art consultants… and exhibiting at a fair during this week was a kind of legitimation of our place in the art world.
In terms of sales, the greatest fairs are the Affordable Art Fairs (Battersea and Amsterdam mostly for us). I think visitors to these fairs are more like our collectors: people who like art but mostly want a nice piece for their interior. If you show attractive works for the correct prices, you are sure to sell well, even if you are online.
VK: Another part of your job is recruiting and managing Singulart’s selection of VIP artists. Could you talk more about why this aspect of your role is so important to Singulart?
MS: It’s important for a young gallery to have “famous ambassadors” to legitimise and give credibility to what we are doing. These ambassadors can be famous collectors, and I’m happy to have interviewed Angélique Aubert, to talk about her collection and to associate her name to ours. Partnerships with institutions or renowned art market figures are also important. We start a partnership next week with the NYC NooSphere Residency, and I’m happy to be part of the Jury of their Award this year. We also have a partnership with Medecins du Monde and one with Culture Secret, which are unfortunately postponed due to coronavirus. And of course, we need partnerships with famous artists. If we manage to convince great artists to work with us, we are taken more seriously. Our new collectors and our future artists have more trust in us if someone they know, heard about, or respect already works with us. For example, the artist Benny the Kid accepted to work with us because we were already working with Nasty. Wise Two accepted because we were working with Tahir Carl Karmali and Kam Laurene. It’s not easy to convince famous artists from scratch, firstly because it’s not easy to contact them and also because most of them build their career on “rarity”: the more a collector struggles to find a piece, the more famous they become. Being online is the total opposite of their strategy. I think this strategy is the reminiscence of an out-dated art market and will change soon. Also, these artists base their whole career on 1 or 2 galleries, but the market is changing even faster, and with the coronavirus, Singulart is offering its artists more and more. Fairs, residency facilities, discount in art supplies and more to come… so I’m really confident for the future!
VK: Lastly, what are you currently working on? What exciting things can we expect from you and Singulart?
MS: 3 projects I’m launching and I particularly like:
Residency partnerships: helping our artists to be accepted in good residencies - the 1st one is with NooSphere in NYC. Hopefully more to come!
Spring Flash Sale: 13 - 20 April. 25 carefully selected artists with exclusive artworks are for sale at 250€ only for one week. We would love to attract younger collectors with this sale and I was missing the auction adrenaline, so I’m happy to try a timed sale. It’s been wildly successful so far, with a couple artists selling out right away! So we hope to do 1 or 2 a year. We will soon launch our first online descending auction (the prices decrease, instead of increase), but with our very expensive artworks (probably in October).
New ‘Invest In’ feature: we are now offering our clients the ability to discover the market value of our artists. For each artist, I compose a short analysis of his/her career and prices thanks to the data collected by Singulart (plus auctions results if there are some). The quotation is based on the mediatisation of the artist and the real prices he is selling his/her works for. I’ll send you a few examples I have already done. I would be delighted to have your point of view as this is a first test started a few days ago!
Marion Sailhen, Art Project Manager at Singulart, with the artwork LOVE Neon by Pieter Ceizer.
Thank you, Marion! You can follow Singulart’s newest projects on www.singulart.com or following them on social media @wesingulart.
Vienna Kim
Head of Interviews, MADE IN BED