For artists: Superfine Art Fair webinar

5 min readMay 18, 2020

‘Art at the End of the Tunnel’. What a great title from the Superfine! team.

A one hour webinar for artists (also galleries). It’s not a big sell, just a wide ranging discussion on topics like value v price, how to talk about & use finance to empower art buyers, and the similar challenges facing artists & entrepreneurs. Here are the questions, you’ll have to listen for the ‘answers’ (around 45 mins).

Series Title: Art At The End Of The Tunnel

Episode Title: How Financing Art Can Empower Your Collectors and help You Make More Sales

…and we’re live!

Hi everyone, and welcome to our home! If you’ve been here with us over the last couple months, welcome back! Thank you all for joining us this evening for Art at The End of The Tunnel! We’re James Miille and Alex Mitow, co-founders of Superfine! Art Fair, the most widespread artist-forward art fair in the country. The title of today’s class is “How Financing Your Art Can Empower Your Collectors And Help You Make More Sales.” You’re really in for a treat because we’re here today with FinTech Meets Art impresario Paul Becker, founder of Art Money. Paul’s joining us today from Sydney, Australia. I just want to take a second to note that although things are definitely a little crazy right now, it’s also giving us all the opportunity to connect across such vast distances and I for one am pretty thankful for that. Thanks for joining us, Paul!
Just to give you all a little background on what we’re doing here, this is our weekly, totally free, marketing class for artists and arts professionals. Each week we bring on special guests to explore topics related to marketing for artists. The goal here is for you to walk away with real, actionable ideas that help you make more sales and thrive not only now during these complicated times but in the future.
Without further ado I’d like to once again introduce you to our special guest, Paul Becker! As I mentioned Paul is the founder and CEO of Art Money, an incredible FinTech company that empowers art buyers, art businesses, and artists by making it easier to buy art. For those of you who don’t know, FinTech is a marriage of finance and technology, and what Paul and his team do is marry those two together with art.

Paul, a lot of our listeners might not be entirely familiar with FinTech and how finance can help sell art. Can you give them a brief breakdown of Art Money and how it actually empowers collectors to make art purchases (thus creating revenue for artists and galleries)?

I just wanted to add that Art Money is a really amazing tool and we’ve used it ourselves to buy numerous pieces of art. Now as Paul mentioned, it’s typically a tool available to galleries at this point. However, if you’re an artist in one of our New York fairs that have been postponed to 2021, you’ve got the opportunity to use Art Money as a way to create sales via our E-Fair! Not only are we making it very apparent in our marketing that Art Money is a great way to buy art, we’re providing a little extra boost through our PR about the partnership between Superfine! and Art Money that will highlight some of the artists using it. We’re really excited for that and if you’re one of the artists using it, you should be too!

2) Paul, besides Superfine!, at this moment Art Money is a tool primarily available to galleries. Many of the artists listening here today show work with galleries in addition to participating in Superfine! And other fairs. What are two pieces of advice you have for them in helping guide their gallery partners in either adopting Art Money for the first time, or better leveraging it to sell more of their art?

3) If we have any galleries listening here today (and we typically do) what are one or two guiding words you’d give them to better take advantage of Art Money and other new tools like it?

4) Artists and galleries both might be asking here today, why not just give a big discount? Why offer the buyer the chance to spread payments out? What are a couple things you’d say to that artist or gallery about the benefits of financing art?

4) Most of our artists here know that striking out on your own with new ideas whether in art, business, or both is hard. When you started Art Money, did you face any resistance? How did you overcome those challenges?

5) Let’s say I’m an independent artist and I’m not in Superfine! Nor currently working with a gallery. At the moment, Art Money isn’t a tool available for me, but what are 1–2 ways I can use the principles of financing art to create more sales for myself?

6) Great! So Paul, for those here who are on the E-Fair, how can they use Art Money as a tool to bring in new sales they wouldn’t have otherwise made?

7) What’s the most exciting thing on the horizon for Art Money and how can our listeners follow you and the company to stay in the loop on that?

I really love tools like Art Money, because they put the power in the hands of the buyer. When you make more people feel like they can buy art, you sell more art. I think it’s important for all of us to support new tools and new thinking in the art market, since it helps everyone get ahead and breaks down barriers (something we love to do!) As wonderful as Art Money is, and it is wonderful, it’s even more important to take a lesson from them and really think about ways you can sell more of your art. Sometimes we get stuck in the day to day, doing what we’ve always done, and that’s not really a great way to go about things (especially when it isn’t working!) Take that creative, artistic mindset that sets you apart and apply it to the business of selling your art as well, and you’ll start to see results quickly.

Reiterating some of what Paul’s said here, if you’re a Superfine! Artist using Art Money on our E-Fair think of it as a tool that helps future buyers take that plunge and buy your work, especially your pricier pieces. Use it to your advantage when you’re talking to prospective collectors, they take so much stress off of you and make the sale easier. Likewise, if you’re working with a gallery really encourage them to do the same. It truly does help, I see it as such a win-win. Lastly, if you personally have ever loved a fellow artist’s work and felt you couldn’t afford it (whether a Superfine! Artist or another one), consider using Art Money and adding it to your collection. We’ve honestly done that with works we never thought we could afford at their sticker price, but breaking the works into easy payments made that decision easier. These may be uncertain times but now is a good time to think about those things you look at every day, and support everyone around you who’s doing good work.

Last but not least, let’s dive into your questions.

Q+A (10–15 minutes)