Can the Art World Win Over the Next Generation?

Marion Maneker (0:02)

This is always a big question. If it aren't, we're easy to buy what we want it. And so some part of this is the scavenger hunt is what makes people have a desire for it. The other part is it can get out of hand and make it difficult for the people who want to support artists to be there for them.

Peter Hamby (0:22)

Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby.

It's Tuesday, September 29th. Today, I'm joined by Marion Maneker, who brings us inside the second annual Art of Influence Conference in New York, where Marion, alongside the Flag Art Foundation's Glenn Furman, convened the esteemed players of the art world for a range of fascinating conversations. About how museums are transforming into civic spaces, why a major auction house launched a pop culture division, challenges for younger art buyers, and how collections are being passed down to a new generation. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.

Happy Tuesday, everybody, and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined today by my colleague, Marion Maneker, author of Wall Power, who's going to bring us some news and notes from the second annual Art of Influence event in New York City at the stylish Bowery Hotel just a few days ago. We did the event alongside the Flag Foundation and Glenn Furman. Lots of interesting themes, some of which Marion, you and I have discussed here, the transfer of art wealth from a older generation to a younger one, what art means, challenges for younger buyers in the market. I'm very interested in all these topics. First of all, what is this event generally? What are your goals and who are you trying to bring to the table at Art of Influence?

Marion Maneker (2:08)

Well, the art world has a lot of convening points. There are auctions, there are art fairs. It's a bit of a traveling circus that makes its way around the world, London, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles, Miami. I mean, it is a nonstop tour. And even though people see each other in those locales, they're constantly toing and froing. There's, you know, the joke is you ask when people got in, when they're leaving, what they saw that was great, where they're eating and, you know, say goodbye. So the idea for the Art of Influence was to create a one-day event where the art industry, advisors, financial people, dealers, people in the galleries, the auction houses, all to get together and have a day where we talked about nothing pressing and all the big ideas.

So the goal is to have a representative of each of those areas speaking and an audience filled with a mix of people. This year, we had a number of artists through the generosity of a financial institution that partnered with Glenn Furman to provide them with tickets. And we also had a number of different people who are sort of playmakers and tastemakers in the art world.

Peter Hamby (3:27)

One of the conversations you had was with the leaders of three big museums, the Met, MoMA and the Guggenheim. And you wrote a brief recap of some of this, but one thing that jumped out at me was this idea of museums. Maybe this is not a new idea, but the idea of museums is not just places to go look at art, look at sculpture, they're now sort of these civic gathering places. I obviously talked to you a lot about my beloved Virginia Museum in Richmond, and my parents live down the street in the museum district. There are frequently concerts and panel discussions. People just go to have coffee. I go there, there's students from VCU doing work in the coffee shop. There's a great restaurant. There's a great lawn outside where people are playing with their dogs and families, summer music things.

Is that common across museums in this country at this point?

Marion Maneker (4:18)

That is indeed what came up. And I was at the next day, I was at a Tom Hills Foundation, an institution called Reeve Museum, where I gathered a lot of people to talk about rejuvenating museums, bringing new people into the boards, what a museum is for. And in both of those conversations, museums are like libraries. They are becoming much more entrenched in their communities. The programming is very important.

There's a cross programming. So performing arts is much more important at museums today than it's ever been before. One, it brings people back to the museum. Two, those venues are getting harder and harder for dance and classical music and jazz and so forth. And so these big institutions fill that role and for that reason, there are people who want to be on the board who aren't necessarily art collectors. There are people who want to donate because they're interested in more than just art as it were.