Socials and scams

As a contemporary art dealer, reaching out through social media and digital platforms is increasingly important, but there are always things to be wary of.

Again, the most enjoyable part of my week involves real world studio and collector visits. Whenever possible I will collect artworks myself and deliver them to the buyer – the interaction at both ends is invaluable. Although I sometimes worry that I’m like a vulture in the studios, pouncing on work I particularly love, it is still important to spend time discussing aims and possibilities. Again, as a poacher turned gamekeeper, as an artist who deals with other’s art, I am always concerned to offer the right opportunities for any particular artist. For some that means near representation, for others that requires discrete sharing of certain pieces.

When visiting the collectors, it’s an opportunity to develop more than a client/advisor relationship. Building a collection is an incredibly enjoyable process and it is a real privilege to join and guide someone through it. I’ve been very lucky with the collectors I work with – all of whom are interested and engaged. Most of these collectors have been introduced through word of mouth or UK journalism, but it is always necessary to open up viewings and access to the work that I’m dealing with, to as many people as may be interested.

I use Artsy as an archive and a platform for curated exhibitions, and there are inquiries through that platform, but it is social media that sees the most immediate art world engagement – Instagram for physical and X/Twitter for crypto art. However as soon as you engage online, even with just a website, you begin to get scammer responses peppered amongst the genuine interest.

One scam I used to get a lot as an artist involved someone emailing to let me know that they loved the work on my website and wanted to buy half a dozen pieces for their wife/pastor/husband. The scam involved: you agreeing a sale and a price; them sending you a bank transfer for a few hundred dollars more than you’d agreed; you agreeing to return the difference; then you discovering (once you’d made the return bank transfer) that their initial transfer didn’t complete and you’d sent them money with nothing coming to you. Bank transfers were (are?) not fully confirmed for a good week – until they have cleared at both ends.

The new scam, that I receive almost daily, involves someone who “loves my fresh and awesome artworks” and would love to buy them. These messages, coming to the @blackbird_rook Instagram account are immediately suspicious as they seem completely unaware that the work I’m posting is from many artists, and not mine. The profiles of the message senders make it clear that they are interested in NFTs, and, as I hear from colleagues who have responded, it seems that there is no real payment or opportunity offered. In fact, clicking on links that are offered as the conversation with the scammer continues, can make you vulnerable to losses as you upload seed funds to your ‘new crypto account’. These scams are perhaps not as devastating as the “pig butchering” scam that is impacting the US, but are, of course, still to be avoided. And then, no serious contemporary artist wants to simply make digital copies of their physical work and sell them as NFTs anyway.

The NFT phenomenon has been interesting. When Beeple made his record-breaking sale, I was approached by one collector who wanted me to curate a collection of NFTs. I was a little sceptical, but began to look into it, and saw the potential for experimentation that the new digital tools allowed. Just as a new world is opened up when a painter enters a print room, it seemed to me that if I could offer an audience and platform to sculptors and painters and performance artists, that would allow them to explore video and animation and digital tools, that some really interesting work could be created. So, I didn’t curate a collection, but instead, approached various NFT platforms that specialised in “art”. SuperRare, a platform that only allows unique pieces (thereby bypassing some of the crypto speculating) invited me to curate exhibitions of contemporary artists exploring the new media.

My initial approach, in the first four curated exhibitions on SuperRare, was to curate group exhibitions around a particular idea. The space became a forum for experimentation. We saw incredible video, stop motion animation, digital painting and collaborations with musicians offered by traditional artists. After a year I was awarded an autonomous gallery space by SuperRare, ‘blackbird’, and I’ve enjoyed working with artists on solo and group shows on this platform since. The latest exhibition features eight crypto art music videos by artists that are also musicians – an absurd blend of media, platforms and audience.

‘blackbird’ works with contemporary artists who are interested in seeing crypto art (note that I now shy away from the acronym NFT) as an opportunity to make work that reflects the possibilities of the new media and new audience. As newcomers to the crypto art space, perhaps unfamiliar with the software and the tools, artists from the traditional art world deconstruct and unpick the familiar tropes of digital art. Successful traditional contemporary artists are usually successful because they are thoughtful, insightful and creative, and I’ve really enjoyed seeing what they produce.

Ignoring the scam messages, and I’ve also enjoyed adding reels, details and promos for current and upcoming shows to Instagram over the past week. The Value Value Value exhibition curated by Peter Lamb is a beautiful, thoughtful show – I’m very grateful to have been introduced to several of the artists who I was unaware of before. And I’ve also put together the preview and press, along with The Good Ship Presents, for Zoe Spowage’s show PET, which is launching at the Yorkshire Art Space in Sheffield next week.

The Yorkshire Art Space gallery is an incredible venue – a bright gallery space with 7m high ceilings. Spowage’s exhibition comprises of a body of work made in anticipation of her child’s birth - it is a thoughtful celebration of a mother's anticipation and anxieties.

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“I was considering who my new self would be - postnatally. The female characters in the paintings are all personifications of my musings or anxieties relating to this metamorphosis… Aesthetically, this work is economic in terms of colour, drawing, and surface. It is elegant and filled with open space. Many of these elements feel at odds with my new existence as a mother - which feels chaotic and punk. Babies scoff at elegance.”? Zoe Spowage

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I’ve placed Zoe’s work in some great collections, and she is receiving well deserved recognition. I’m really excited about the show and the Private View at Persistence Works, Sheffield on 7th March. If you would like to see the work but can’t make it to Sheffield then please contact me.

If you’re interested in what serious contemporary artists can do in the crypto sphere then you can visit blackbird here .

And you can also follow Blackbird Rook on Artsy or sign up to emails at www.blackbirdrook.com for updates on all past and future shows.