Culture is future » Innovation and digital

CULTURAL START-UP OF THE WEEK: ArtList

Next-up on our online cultural entrepreneur series, the Forum d’Avignon would like to introduce: ArtList, the world's premiere marketplace for private art sales.

What is your company’s objective?

ArtList is the world's premiere marketplace for private art sales. We work with thousands of collectors across the world buying and selling some of the world's most sought after contemporary and modern art ($1k-$1m) securely and confidentially. Our mission is to make the global art market fast, secure and fair. We’re based in New York City.

What challenges do you face in your development?

As a young company, our biggest challenge is to inspire the trust of art collectors all around the world in order to compete with the giants Christie's and Sotheby's, who have been around for 250 years. In order to do this, we have to innovate much fast and be much bolder than the big auction houses, mostly by proving exceptional service to collectors. We have been able to do this for example by developing our own insurance product with a major insurer and forming partnerships with major banks and art advisory firms.

What does it mean to be a cultural entrepreneur?

I think being a cultural entrepreneur means building a profitable business, which also shapes culture for the wider good. This can be either by helping promote and finance artists, distributing the work of artists, making culture more accessible through education or better access to collecting.  It's a big responsibility. We see it every day, when we select a specific artist to promote we can have a major impact on his visibility and his market. It's important to do this in a way that is fair.

The CEO of ArtList, Kenneth Schlenker, left, with Astrid de Maismont, its head of sales, centre, and Maxime Germain, head of product, on the right.

© Artlist

Follow on... website, facebook, twitter, instagram

The web series : we’re interviewing cultural start-ups – Contact us!

As part of its web series on cultural entrepreneurship, the Forum d’Avignon is proud to present each week exciting stories on cultural start-ups.

This project is part of the Forum d’Avignon’s on-going work, in line with its 2015 agenda, on the ‘hybridization of economic models in cultural and on the manifesto on cultural entrepreneurship in creative industries (to be published soon).

To participate and promote your cultural start-up on the Forum d’Avignon’s website: please send to the address forum-avignon.org@orange.fr:

• A photo (website/founders/logo) in HD
• A video link presenting your project
• A short answer (2-3 lines, in English and French) to the following three questions:

                        - What is your project/idea/start-up?

                        - What is your current challenge?

                        - For you, what does it mean to be a cultural entrepreneur