TPD4166 - Design 8 - Strategy Bram Goosink
Rannveig Carlsen Sofie Bjørnå
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This report is written for the subject Design 8 - Strategy at NTNU for the spring semester 2019. Design 8 focuses on converting insight collected thought a variation of design methodology into business comprehendable strategy - deciphering user needs into short and long term action points to be taken into operation. This is done in collaboration with an enterprise, Locarto AS, lead by Jan Kindem. Since the company is not situated in Trondheim our main contact has been through the consultancy company Enlight. Our supervisor for the course has been Andre Liem.
Preface 0
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7. The Rift
8. Strategic Advice
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Who is Locarto? Locarto is a recent startup in the art industry. It aims to connect artists, galleries, and museums as leverage to grow the value of art pieces. It’s fundamental goal is to see art and the art world flourish, reaching a broader audience. The company has found that the art industry lacks proper documentation on provenance - a piece’s chronology of ownership, location and other information not deducible from the canvas.
A piece’s provenance is a key factor in determining the value of a piece, and so is of vital importance to the three aforementioned art industry players. Currently the art world relies on artists to keep track and maintain their work’s provenance. Not all artists care for this, and this has lead to significant chunks of history disappearing in time. Today galleries, collectors, and museums often jump in to fill the gap, spending great fortunes on unearthing their collection’s provenance.
As art moves between actors, they each create part of a piece’s provenance. Each actor therefore possesses some key information about a piece’s history, but this is not worth anything on its own. Only when the entire timeline of a piece is put together, when its provenance becomes clear, does it contribute to the piece’s value. By connecting artists, galleries, and museums, Locarto hopes to relieve all these actors from the burden of maintaining provenance in isolation. Instead of busying themselves with keeping track of history, the art world can focus its attention back to what it’s all about, the making and appreciating of art.
The Status Quo Locarto has recently gone through a revamp of its product. The above description of the firm outlines its new direction in art provenance and its focus on the three art world actors. Due to the recentness of this new development, Locarto is still in the middle of clarifying the exact service it wants to provide. The firm is currently testing the waters, focusing on the acquisition of funding as proof of concept. This means there is no strategic direction set in stone yet, nor is there any concrete product or prototype.
Objective The firm’s new direction has come coupled with a multitude of questions and uncertainties. Considering Locarto is a very small firm, an outside perspective on these questions and its new venture is more than welcome. This is the message we were left with after our first two meetings with Locarto and Enlight - a consultancy commissioned to help the founders. To obtain a clearer sense of direction, and as a yardstick to measure up our success, we derived our own goal:
“To translate the company’s vision of leveraging provenance into value
propositions fitting to the art market.”
Introduction 1
Locarto has a strong sense of what it wants to achieve - assist the establishment of provenance to see art flourish - and is planning it’s product revamp accordingly. However, besides the basic concept of linking key players in the art world, there is no detailed outline of the new product, nor is there an indication of a concrete market fit. Therefore, our self-derived goal is to propose more concrete value propositions for Locarto that can be translated into a concrete product.
The objective consists of several sub-goals: A strategy outlining a sustainable approach to client acquisition. Market fit alone is not sufficient in guaranteeing success. It must be channeled to the target audience appropriately. This means the value proposition must be presented in a way that resonates with potential clients. The strategy defining such outreach needs to be considered.
A design perspective. A focus on approaching the market as a designer. Locarto and it’s stakeholders are comfortable with the business and art side of the product but would appreciate input from the design perspective. The approach should be established accordingly.
Distinguishing factors. What aspects of Locarto’s vision and eventual project should be spearheaded to set them apart from potential competition.
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Approach 2
As stated in the previously mentioned sub-goals, our aim was to provide insights from a designerly perspective. The approach was therefore devised with an emphasis on empirical research methods often found in design processes. The following describes this chosen approach.
Understanding the Art World Desk research. To better understand the art world, desk research was conducted to build up a foundation of knowledge on the art world. The material consisted of documentaries, journalistic articles and a general exploration of the online art world. Besides the aim of obtaining a grasp on the functioning of the art industry, this research introduced a more expert terminology, beyond the everyday layman terms.
Stakeholder mapping. Combining the insights from the desk research together with information provided by Locarto, relevant stakeholders were identified and mapped out. Several different versions were produced, with and and without Locarto as a mapped stakeholder.
Paper review. Once sufficient understanding of the art industry was acquired, white papers and industry journals became more accessible. A reading of this material translated into improved stakeholder maps and preparation for interviews.
Understanding the Users Interviews. To understand the perspectives of the key art world players - artists, galleries and museums - interviews were conducted among the Trondheim art scene. Interviews took a semi-structured from and aimed to reveal how participants perceived their role in the art industry. Significant emphasis was
placed on finding the positives and negatives of their perceived role and how they approached provenance.
Events. Visiting art openings to understand the networking environment of the art world. Art openings feature the presence of artists and their related entourage, providing low-key, informal opportunities for discussion. Leads to new interviews were derived from here.
Workshop. A workshop was conducted at KIT, the art academy in Trondheim. After a brief presentation we were given the opportunity to question a room filled with art professors and students, moderating a discussion between them.
Strategy & Value Proposition Value Proposition Canvas. To structure the collected insights from the aforementioned interviews and desk research, the value proposition canvas was used [REF].
Formalizing Strategy. With an understanding of the value proposition and its market fit, an accompanying strategy was outlined.
Outreach Outreach advice. Having experienced the art world from various perspectives, an outreach plan was made to accommodate the strategy.
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Ecosystem analysis3 Competitors For our ecosystem analysis we decided to focus at competitors related to the market. This was mainly desk research, but also based on the information collected during the Trondheim municipality interview (A.a.3). Two of the competitors were mentioned in Locarto’s application, provided by Enlight (A.b.1), and the rest was discovered through our own research.
Primus Primus is a professional system to register art used by for instance the municipality of Trondheim. It’s developed by a Norwegian company run by different museums. The system is also developed for the municipality, but they don’t require as many registrations as the museums. It costs around 100 000 NOK a year, which by the municipality is not considered expensive. Primus is used by approximately 200 museums and cultural institutions in Scandinavia. (1)
Art Galleria Art Galleria brand themselves as being “Designed for the art world”. They have mainly three user groups: galleries, artists and collectors. The price varies according to each user group, galleries being the most expensive option, and the payment is month based. (2)
Artlogic ArtLogic targets the same three main targets as Art Galleria, but is considerably more expensive. They brand themselves as “The definitive
database for art world professionals. The world’s leading art inventory software.” They both have a website, inventory management system, a mailing system and a mobile app. Both Art Galleria and ArtLogic give the client a possibility to try their product for a month for free. (3) Artbase Artbase is similar to Primus. They have been around since 1993 and is thereby the most experienced competitor, but also the most expensive one. One thing they do well is the instruction on how to use their systems. They have small informative videos and animations describing how to optimally use their service. (4) Persona.co Persona.co has a bigger focus on the artist displaying themselves in a way that is true to who they are as an artist. It’s a more artistic approach and does not include a database, but more of a portfolio for the artist. (5) None of these solutions offers the user an efficient mobile tool that simplifies the process of documenting the artist works the way Locarto aims to do, which the company considers one of the most important component of their system. The competitors neither provides a seamless transaction of data between the different stakeholders and thereby don’t contribute to the value-creation process in the art industry. None of the competitors have a specific focus on authentication either.
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Trondheim, Norway Design students
Kiev, Ukraine UX designer and developer
Oslo, Norway Jan Kindem’s Oslo residence
Vestfossen, Norway Morten Viskum, shareholder
Oslo, Norway Bjarne Våga, shareholder
Lyngby, Denmark Hans Abrahamsen, shareholder
Stakeholder mapping4 As mentioned we have structured both the internal and external stakeholders of Locarto into maps. This was done to understand the connections and interactions within the industry - focussing Locarto’s field of interest in provenance.
Internal The internal structure of Locarto is relatively simple due to the very few people involved. Despite the low number of employees, those engaged in Locarto are located quite far apart. The founder and CEO of the company, Jan Kindem, is based in London. He has almost a lifetime worth of experience in the industry, where he has worked in authenticating art pieces. This work has given him a large network of artists, gallerists, collectors and art connoisseurs.
Since January 2018, Morten Viskum, Hans Abrahamsen and Bjarne Våga, have been shareholders of Locarto. Eidsaa Invest AS (Appendix A.b) also has a stake in the firm. Morten Viskum is considered as one of Norway’s controversial contemporary artists, and has also founded Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium (6). Hans Abrahamsen is one of the leading composers of the Danish contemporary music stage, and one of the most internationally profiled living composers from the Nordic countries (7). Bjarne Våga has a master’s degree in art history from the University of Bergen, and has been the leader of the Equinor art programme since 2015 (8).
Jan and his team of art experts possess significant knowledge of the art industry, integral to the success of locarto. A potential challenge lies in the lack of UX expertise within the business. Fortunately Locarto has reached out to a developer in Ukraine. Enlight AS is also being consulted for guidance considering applications in funding.
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Present Near future Long term future
External From this map we see that the various stakeholders have different needs, and can provide different things to satisfy each other’s needs. First of all we want to point out that the artist may struggle to find support within this structure. This is most important to take into consideration for emerging artists who have not yet developed their network. In some cases the emerging artist might be taken under the wing of a curator who sees
After mapping out the present situation of the art market, we clearly see that the interactions between the stakeholders are mostly based on personal connections. In a worst case scenario, an artist may be connected to an art curator who in turn is connected to a gallery, and that gallery may have a collector as one of their clients. So in the case where said collector wants an artwork from the artist, he or she might have to go through two other stakeholders to get to the artist. This is where Locarto comes in as a
In the long term future, we imagine that there is a significantly larger uptake of low key art by the average Joe. From interviews we understand that the art market for everyday households is increasing as people place more emphasis on their surroundings. We believe this will lead to the rise of online art markets, an industry already on the rise. Online art markets are cheaper to run than galleries and justify a cut in the price tag on art.
their potential, but they’ll still not be equals due to the power position of the curator as gatekeeper for the artist. In other cases the artist may be a part of an art collective and thereby feel the support from a bigger group of peers. The artists can in many ways be seen as the fuel that drives the whole industry, and without them there would be no art world. Nevertheless it is the emerging artist that struggles the most in this structure.
We assume the pricing of low key art purchased by the mass experiences elastic demand, and the lower prices associated to web purchases will mean spur online markets. Whilst the price of the art sold to the masses may be low, the volume of sales is large. We see potential for Locarto to participate in this market by placing itself at these points of sale.
common hub, to replace the redundant links in the structure.
The grey dotted line represent interactions that the stakeholders may still have outside Locarto, and these may and should of course also include the artist. We would discourage Locarto from trying to replace all of these human interactions, but instead be a tool for the stakeholders to reach out to people they don’t yet know.
provides art
provides exposure
provides material
provides sales
Interactions between stakeholders
need for security
need for security
need for security
Other stakeholders’ possible interactions outside Locarto
Locarto can provide independently from other stakeholders
Can provide if need is satised
need for security
need for security
need for security
Other stakeholders’ possible interactions outside Locarto
Locarto can provide independently from other stakeholders
Can provide if need is satised
Future possible interactions with Locarto
online buys
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Stakeholder analysis 5 The stakeholder map provides an overview of the key players in the art industry and the relations between them. These stakeholders were selected for interviews, to dive deeper into the roles they fulfilled in the art market and to infer their pains and gains in the process. The deduced insights provided by these interviews are summarized below, a detailed synopsis of each can be found in the appendix (B).
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Artists The variety among artists and their interests is great, each trying to find or create a market niche for their work. Among all this variety there does appear to be a certain hierarchy according to popularity and relevance. This includes anyone from the old master’s that have long passed to up and coming instagram artist. This is not an ordinal list and can best be described with the following analogy.
At the bottom of the list is the pond. The vast majority of artists find themselves here, unrecognised and unheard. Artist’s here strive hard to set themselves apart from the crowd so to be recognised and leave the pond. At the top of the list is the stratosphere, this is where well known names reside such as Picasso, Ai Weiwei or Barbara Kruger. Artists here have established their market, their work appeals to and has reached a very large audience. This is where the most part of artists want to be. From interviews with artists that made it out
of the pond, we learned that it was important to establish a plan or strategy on how to do so. A prerequisite on doing so is for an artist to understand themselves, what their identity is, and how they wish to use this to reach out to an audience. This is an important development to undergo in art school according to interviewees. This identity is what defines the market the artist should look for, acting as a goal to strive for.
The students at the art school said that being an artist goes beyond producing work. An artist is more comparable to a one-man company. Besides the making of the art itself, artists have to create a market for themselves, forge relationships and connection with the right people, and think about protecting their art from duplication. Artists often disliked the idea of being commercial - the production of art for profit - but recognised that this was needed to survive.
It is worth noting that the established artists we interviewed were among the older generations,
they emphasized that there progression towards the stratosphere would have been very different today, where the internet plays an important role. Since they have made it out of the pond and can be considered established, they have the contacts they need, and have less need to market themselves extensively.
Galleries Galleries each focus on their own industry niche, adapting their strategy accordingly. The classical gallery setup involves building relations with popular artists in the area, setting up informal agreements with the artist, and then selling their work according to those agreements. The gallery receives a cut for their effort. This type of agreement exists throughout the industry, both with emerging artists as well as world famous artists.
Since the gallery takes a cut of the sale, it’s in the best interest of the gallery to find a buyer. This could help drive the career of the artist, as well as put them in contact with more patrons then they could reach by themselves.
Collectors For the purpose of simplicity, collectors come in two forms. There are patrons, individuals with significant funds to support an artist and commision work, and there are everyday collectors, the average Joe purchasing art to hang up at home and enjoy. Patrons are often high value individuals whose name carries weight, especially on the CV of an artist. If an artist’s work is purchased by such a collectors it could drive up the overall value of the artist. Some patrons even purchase as much art from a single artist as possible, so to control the market and make the art appear in high demand. This is rarely done out of appreciation for the work. This kind of investment, seeing art as a asset-class rather than a cultural artifact, is becoming more popular among investors.
The everyday collector has less impact on an artists CV. However, there is a far greater number of these collectors than patrons. This means that as a collective, they purchase more art which enables more artists to create works.
Museums Most museums carry two responsibilities in the art industry and society in general. One of these is to purchase, store, and preserve art of cultural relevance that would otherwise be lost in time. The other is to present this art to the public, often with a certain theme, purpose, or vision.
Within museums, the curator is responsible for selecting art, either to expand the current collection, or to setup exhibitions. The art selected by these curators will enjoy a boost to their provenance, and act as evidence that these pieces are indeed noteworthy. It is therefore highly desirable for artists to be selected by curators, especially those representing prestigious institutes. Successful curators can be considered the gatekeepers of the the art world. Those who want to leave the pond must be selected by a curator as proof of talent, earning sufficient recognition to stand out.
However, it is not easy to become a curator, especially in established institutes. Curators will need to prove they have a good eye for talent to be hired. This means curators themselves are always aiming to be the one to discover the next great talent. The drive to find new talent combined with the will of young artists to find exposure is what brings about fresh talent.
Once working in a museum, curators often have to balance their wishes with those of the museum funders. The investment made in museums, whether public or private, wants to see some kind of return, and the curator has to bring together content that will meet these expectations.
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An artist’s story 6 What do artists want When asking artists what they want to achieve with their art, the answers varied greatly. Some simply wanted to put out great aesthetic pieces, others wanted their art to provoke thought about complex societal issues. Each artist had their own idea about what they wanted to express and what they defined as a successful art piece.
To provide a general statement about what artists want to achieve with their art is therefore impossible. It is important to remember that when approaching artists. Each has their own vision in art and that must be respected by a company like Locarto - being careful not to group them together as the same. However, whilst it may not be possible to conclude what an artist wants to express, it is possible to conclude that all artists want to have the ability of expression. Artists want to be able to convey their vision.
The capacity of art to express an artist’s vision is an important factor in what gives the art piece value. This is not necessarily an indication of how much value, but certainly a value beyond the sum of the raw materials used to make the piece.
This also brings about the concept of success from the artists perspective. As seen with the diversity of purposes with which artists work, their
notion of success varies greatly too. This notion of success is also a better definition of what value the painting has from the artists perspective. For some, the value of their work may be its capability to provoke emotion, or to generate thought among viewers. For others, success may simply be weighed in the more straightforward sense of monetary value.
The underlying dependency on exposure To be able to express an idea, emotion, or vision; artists need an audience. If no one is listening then there is nothing to communicate. To find an audience, an artist must place their pieces where people will look, where it generates a presence, gets talked and written about. Artists need to find ways to expose their work in order for it’s expressive capacity to mean something. This underlying dependency on exposure is one of the few universal characteristics among artists.
Their are different ways to achieve exposure, they are elaborated on in the next section, but in general it can be summed up by the following. Exposure is acquired by displaying works in prominent, authority bearing institutes, collections, galleries, and museums. However, for an artist to be allowed to place their work in such places a curator needs to select it first.
Curators, as described previously, act as the gatekeepers of the art industry. To get a curators attention, artists must either have ground breaking work (unlikely) or a good CV, demonstrating in which locations their art has already been displayed and what has been written about it (more likely). A combination of both is best. This is where provenance starts to play an important role too, as the quality of an artist’s CV is almost a direct representation of their work’s provenance.
This is a problem for newer emerging artists, that have yet to wrestle their way out of the pond. These artists have very little history to place on their CV. For the emerging artist the formation of an exposure strategy can play an important role in catching the attention of a prestigious curator. Every time an art piece is exposed or exhibited somewhere it provides new entries for the artist’s CV. The challenge is finding, choosing and applying to the right exposure opportunities.
What is exposure? The exposure strategies taken on by artists can take different forms. This can cause occasional confusion as to what activities are considered relevant for exposure. During the various discussions held with artists certain aspects of exposure always came back around for discussion. Following are the three most common aspects.
Displaying works, building a CV. As described above, a proper CV makes it more likely a curator will accept an artist into a collection or exhibition. Artists often need to build their CV over time,
exhibiting work at more and more prestigious locations.
Manifestation of identity. Whilst individual pieces of work at exhibitions communicate some sense of the artist’s identity to the audience, it does not convey the full depth of this identity. It is important for artists to manifest this full depth identity in an accessible manner, it is what distinguishes them in the art market and creates coherence between pieces.
Networking and collaboration. A lot of the art market is based on insider information and connections. This counts for all actors in the industry. An artist that puts time in setting up a network among these actors will have the advantage of knowing about important events ahead of time. A network also brings about the same advantages seen in any other field of work.
Besides networking among art industry actors, it is also very important to link up with other artists. Collectives are one way of achieving this. Especially for emerging artists, working in a group is more influential than working individually. Artists mentioned that there is a misconception that they work alone in their studios, isolated from the rest of the world as they focus on their art only. In reality, artists look for each other to collaborate and bounce ideas around, and that this often acts as the foundation of their work. Collaborations can also have a beneficial impact on provenance and the artists standing in the art world.
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A Buyer’s story
To get a bigger picture of the role played by exposure and provenance in the art world, the other side of the story must also be considered too, those who purchase art. When purchasing art, especially expensive art,it is important for a buyer to know the complete history of a piece, it’s entire provenance. Provenance acts as an indicator of price, an insurance of the right price, and some insurance of authenticity.
As an indicator of value, provenance shows whether previous owners have been influential collectors or museums. This may have a positive or negative spin on the value. When provenance is incomplete or inaccurate, it may be that some event in the past not yet associated with the piece will be unearthed, possibly affecting the price. It may be that a piece was sold at an auction house known for forgeries, which would result in detrimental devaluation. A complete provenance mitigates this risk.
In the same way that provenance insures an accurate valuation, it also insures authenticity of the piece. If it’s entire chronology can be retold and verified, then there can be little doubt of its origin. These insurances in of themselves are enough to have buyer’s pay larger sums for a piece, even if the provenance is not remarkable in one way or another.
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THe rift 7
When observing these two sides of the story, there appears to be a rift between artists and buyers on the topic of provenance. Whilst it’s agreeable that provenance is of importance to both these stakeholders, they reap the rewards from it at different points in time. For artists, keeping track of provenance is an investment in the future, and provides little reward at the beginning of a career. For buyers it is part of the buying process, and so the presence of provenance with a purchase is an instant gratification.
This difference in perspective can be explained by the following. Provenance only comes into play in the secondary art market, art that is being resold by a collector, as opposed to the primary market, art that comes straight from the artist’s studio or gallery. Art that comes straight from the studio is unlikely to have any provenance, and so there’s nothing to deduce from it’s history for buyers. Only after the initial sale does the piece’s chronology start playing a role. The dilemma is that once the artist has sold their work, it is not evident to them that the rest of the piece’s journey through history should be tracked. From the artist’s perspective the piece has been sold, so why bother keeping too close an eye on it?
This perspective changes for some artists as they emerge beyond the pond. Once an artist becomes more known, the provenance of their work has
greater impact on their prominence. If an artist’s previous work has been displayed in important institutes or bought by prestigious collectors, their future work will be more recognized and rise in value. If the artist has not kept track of their art, they are unlikely to benefit from the same advantages.
In summary, a work accompanied by proper documented provenance is valued more by buyers. This appraisal may also benefit the reputation of the artist. However, works that are accompanied by provenance only appear in the secondary market. Artists sell in the primary market where provenance plays less of a role. Here there is little urgency for artists to keep track of their works, even though it is likely this would benefit them in the long run. This is the rift in provenance between artists and buyers.
The Link The challenge is to link the desperate need for better provenance documentation from buyers with an urgency to push artists to record it. The responsibility of provenance documentation does not solely lie with the artist, but they benefit most from it if it’s all in their possession. Considering the close link between the exposure strategy of building a proper CV and documenting provenance, selling provenance as exposure is an apt practice to close the rift.
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With an understanding of how artists and buyers interact with provenance the opportunity for Locarto to enter the market becomes clearer. Together with an exercise in value proposition design, it was possible to deduce a facet of provenance that bound the various stakeholders together. This deduction was formulated into a concise mission statement to act as strategic direction.
To facilitate the artist’s exposure strategy.
Breaking that statement down, exposure strategy is the plan put into place by artists to display their work to an audience. To facilitate refers to Locarto’s role in helping artists achieve proper exposure strategy. Principly, Locarto should provide a foundation for artists to show their work, be seen by and connect with the right people, and help with organising their work accordingly.
From the research we have found that the most available market for Locarto is the emerging artist. These artists are starting from scratch and are likely to have few connections within the industry. Finding exposure opportunities was identified as the most pressing endeavour for success among emerging artists. With a focus on these artists, Locarto can have a large impact on the industry as a whole, lowering the barrier for talent to reach the right set of eyes.
Besides the aspect of impact, emerging artists are also most likely to accommodate Locarto in their workflow. Emerging artists are still developing their work style, and so it is a lot easier for them to experiment with new tools, especially in comparison to established artists with concrete work flows. Emerging artists can also be considered younger than their more experienced peers, which makes them more flexible and comfortable around new technologies as used by Locarto.
Value Proposition The information gathered in the value proposition canvas was then structured into a set of features we mean to be included in the Locarto platform, to realise the demands from the stakeholders. These features are shown in the illustration to the right. The top three symbols represent the organisational, database part of the platform, while the five lower ones represents the exposure and networking features, in addition to some other functions to ensure user safety and support for legal issues.
Income Model An important aspect in the pricing of Locarto is to find the balance between generating sustainable income for Locarto, and not being too expensive for the user. The cost of using Locarto should be affordable for both established and emerging artists, like students. Most people today are used to subscription models to cover various streaming medias for music and entertainment, such as Spotify and Netflix, which cost 109 NOK/month and 89 NOK/month per person respectively (9, 10). In addition many artists are probably already paying for the digital tools they need to do their work, such as the adobe package.
Whilst the Adobe Creative Cloud goes for 590 NOK/month for individuals and 191 NOK/ month for students, Locarto may not be in the position to price their service as high (11). Adobe has been on the market for almost 40 years and has more than 30 years experience with their products. Through these years they have developed a reputation as a professional system provider, and most people are familiar with the opportunities that lies in their program packages.
Public profile page
Easy portfolio/ applications
Legal document templates
Details about each piece
Exposure and connections to get you to the stratosphere
Locarto
Illustration of the proposed features of the Locarto system.
Locarto, on the other hand, has to build this reliability from scratch. Therefore, we would recommend Locarto to offer their services to a price similar to Spotify and Netflix; around 100 NOK/month for artists. For galleries and museums the price should be higher due to their financial capacity. We would also advise Locarto
to offer a free trial period for potential customers to try out their systems before committing to a payment plan. This free trial may be long enough to create a dependency on the product, once an artist has done all the work of uploading their material, the barrier to drop the product becomes greater.
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Turn of events 9 After presenting our strategic direction to Enlight, we learned through their feedback that even though they found our advice to target emerging artists interesting, they believed our focus was too much on the emerging artist and not enough on the value chain of the entire art industry. They explained to us that if the general value of art in the world is increased, this will automatically benefit the emerging artists too. To us, this gave connotations to the trickle-down economics theory, which by many have been debunked as a system that mainly benefit the already wealthy and privileged. This may not have been the point that the guys from Enlight wanted to bring forth, but it left us under the impression that Locarto is meant to make art that already sells for millions sell for even more, and that that somehow will benefit young artists just graduating from art school.
This interpretation of Locarto’s vision may have been used to challenge us on our thoughts around Locarto’s business, and to create an interesting discussion on the forces in the art industry, which it definitely was. With that said we would highly discourage both Locarto themselves and Enlight or other possible collaborators from using this approach to explain Locarto’s intents in public
purposes. We see it as extremely important that Locarto take a humble and helpful, yet professional and skilled role when promoting Locarto to potential clients. Many, especially emerging artists, may be put off by the thought of joining a system created to make the wealthy wealthier.
A week later we did the same presentation for Jan. His response to our work was unlike Enlight’s. In fact we had made similar conclusions about the specific features of Locarto, and he showed us the beta version of the service which had been developed over the previous few months. It already included all the features we had proposed, which was uplifting to all of us, having our assumptions and research based claims confirmed. In collaboration with Jan, we listed some possible opportunities for improvement and features that could be added or developed. These then became our design brief. After this conversation we also better understood the value of the catalogue raisonné, and gained greater insight into Locarto’s actual vision, which is to create a massive network of information to tie the loose ends of the art world together in one all-an- artist-needs service.
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Understanding the Importance of the Catalogue Raisonné
A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known works of an artist either in a particular medium or all media. They may provide some or all of the following:
Title and title variations Dimension/Size Date of the work Medium Current location/owner at time of publication Provenance (history of ownership) Exhibition history Condition of the work Bibliography/Literature that discusses the work Essay(s) on the artist Critical assessments and remarks Full description of the work Signatures, Inscriptions, and Monograms of the artist Reproduction of each work List of works attributed, lost, destroyed, and fakes Catalog number
In earlier years, the catalogue raisonné was mainly reserved for very valuable artists, due to their risk of being forged, but also because of the cost of producing the catalogue, which were high. The catalogues have tended to be made towards the end of an artist’s life, or even after their death.
Another reason for having catalogue raisonnés is, for artists that run workshops, to reveal whether a piece is actually done by the artist, or his or her assistants, where the latter is less preferable (13). On the International Foundation for Art Research’s (IFAR) webpage it is possible to search
for catalogue raisonnés by the artist’s country of birth (14). When searching for Norway, only three artists show up. Compared to our neighbours in Sweden and Denmark, they have respectively nine and twelve. The UK has, in comparison, almost 200 artists listed in this database. Of course we have to take into account that the population of the UK today is 13 times bigger than Norway’s, but if we a assume that a given percentage of the population of any country are artists, the number of registered catalogue raisonnés from the Scandinavian countries should be higher.
According to statista.com, there were 67 000 artists in the UK in 2018 (15). This number is vastly higher than the 200 registered catalogue raisonnés, and we also see this as a great opportunity for Locarto. Also, as previously mentioned, it is a tendency that the catalogues are made after the artists’ passing, which is something Locarto should strive to change. By giving their users and easy way to document every move and transaction related to their works, this digital catalogue raisonné will be created automatically.
One artist that has managed to keep proper documentation on his pieces is Gerhard Richter. In addition to publishing several printed catalogue raisonnés, he shows the complete provenance of all his art works on his personal webpage like shown in to the right. According to Jan Kindem, this is a part of the reason for his great success in the industry.
Overview of complete provenance of “Two Candles” by Gerhard Richter (16).
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Design concept 10
We learned through our Skype meeting with Jan that Locarto had concluded with a strategic direction similar to ours. Jan had even started the development of a product accordingly. It didn’t appear beneficial for us to develop an app proposal ourselves, as the work would be almost parallel to Locarto’s current efforts. What Locarto’s strategy lacked is an approach for acquiring users sustainably. Therefore we decided, with Jan’s blessing, to translate insights from our Trondheim art world emergence to form a client acquisition recommendation. Besides the acquisition advice, new features are suggested in the long and short term for Locarto to take up in their plans.
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We are on the same page, but we would like to develop some specific features as follows.
1) A two-way validation system that helps authenticate changes in the value chain when art is passed on.
2) Helping artists understand the importance of a catalogue raisonée.
3) Thinking of the future and being including of all types of art.
10.1 Two-way validation This is one of the features that will make Locarto stand out from the competitors. We want Locarto to have a function that lets artists, collectors, galleries and museums confirm the movement of an art piece together. This could be similar to the blockchain concept and will help the artist to create a trustworthy catalogue raisonné. This step will make it significantly easier to keep track of your provenance and provide better credibility for it.
An important aspect of this feature is that if an artist decides to stop using Locarto, the validated transactions of art involving the artist remain in the system. This keeps everyone else’s catalogue raisonné intact, without loosing the validation provided by the leaving customer. Importance of provenance/catalogue raisonné One of Locartos’ main focuses is to help creating catalogue raisonnés and to show the importance of provenance. For this to work they need to be able to explain to their potential clients why keeping track of their work is beneficial to their career and business. This should be part of Locarto’s sales pitch, especially when targeting emerging artist, but should be considered for every user. This should for instance be a part of the main site on the application webpage and can be visualised by video or animation. The visualisation of provenance could help explain to artist why they need Locarto without them having to read a huge amount of text.
10.2 System security A big part of Locarto’s vision is to create a large network of information about art. For this to work, it’s important that the information imported to Locarto’s systems is secured. Like with blockchain, all the pieces of information that builds up the system, should be impossible to
extract. This means that Locarto’s storage system needs to be protected against invaders trying to change or remove information. This in turn puts some limitations on the users ability to edit their information. If the presence of a painting at an exhibition is confirmed through two way confirmation, neither party should be able to change the validated information by themselves.
Some months ago, in the middle of a data migration project, the formerly popular social networking platform Myspace lost all the music uploaded to their archives between 2003 and 2015. This means an estimated 53 million files were lost to history (12). Incidents like this is crucial for Locarto to avoid when storing numerous files and images, and this places demands on the security of the system. 10.3 Locarto community/support For the user of Locarto to feel supported, regardless of occupation there should be explanation on how to use the service. This could be in the form of FAQs, a forum and short video explanations. This way the users feel seen and are able to manage the webpage and app independently. A good example of this is the budget software YNAB who have a general support page with link to videos, guides and podcasts (17).
10.4 Ready for other medias The art world is constantly changing, and artist are looking into new ways to express themselves, therefore it’s important to keep up with these demands. As Locarto is today it’s more focused on painting and prints. To remain relevant, Locarto should explore other aspects of art and how to present them in the best and most user-friendly way possible.
concept development
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10.5 Outreach plan In and around the interviewing, many subtleties were observed particular to the art scene. These subtleties and formalities form a somewhat unspoken etiquette as to what is acceptable in the art world, and influence how the industry will respond to Locarto. The subtleties that were uncovered have been translated into points of interest below, each relevant to customer acquisition and retainment.
The points below are split into two groups. The first group is about the message send out by Locarto, and focuses on the conveying a likeable image and ethic in the art scene. The other group is about actions Locarto can take to acquire more customers and prompt the market for better provenance documentation.
10.5.1 Message Vision It is integral that Locarto communicates its future vision of the art world. It conveys the companies
sense of duty towards the industry. The art world is unfortunately tarnished by several negative stories, where emerging artists are taken advantage of by larger, more powerful players. This was certainly something interviewees liked to remind us of. Artists in general were reluctant to questioning if they didn’t believe Locarto to be a small start up, probably under the impression that a larger firm was backing us. It is therefore imperative that Locarto is not perceived this way, and that whilst they may be a corporate player, they are not using artists purely for profits.
Facilitator Artists are independent, or at least want to appear that way. They have their own mind as to how they want to achieve exposure, and their own ideas about how to present their work. Locarto should therefore take the position of a facilitator, rather than a creator of exposure. This means they should be flexible to the demands of the artists that are using it. The work recorded on Locarto’s system should be easily manipulatable,
flexible for different types of downloads, and provide control as to how it is shared.
10.5.2 Actions Awareness at art schools During the workshop at the art school it became apparent that few students had given their exposure strategy any extended thought - this was to the stark surprise of several professors present, who had mentioned in earlier interviews that students should think about exposure as of day one. If exposure is an unlikely topic of urgency on the mind of art students, then it is unlikely the idea of provenance has come to light.
This cues an excellent opportunity for Locarto to act on. The art school expects it’s students to know about exposure, and indirectly, the recording of provenance to support it. Locarto could help the schools in teaching students about exposure and provenance, either by stepping in entirely to teach directly to students, or by teaching staff to teach students. It may also be
smart to accompany this with free licences to locarto.
Word of mouth However Locarto frames it’s value proposition, potential users will always have some level of doubt as to the effectiveness of the product. It is one thing to promise an improvement in (artist) workflow, many services in other industries already do, it’s another for new customers to actually believe this. This is where word of mouth will play an important role to bypass such doubts.
Potential clients can be reached in this fashion through different channels. The most likely is true to the classical sense of word of mouth, a friend or colleague suggestion Locarto. The connections Locarto possess with the art scene could be used to induce such behavior among artists.
The word of mouth principle could also be used online, where websites such as Reddit or Medium are regarded as trusted sources for
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recommendations. Having a presence on these platforms may create a better sense of trust in Locarto from potential and existing clients.
10.6 Potential Challenges The main problem for Locarto would be lack of customers. It will be hard to reach a critical mass before the service is up and running. Luckily the leaders of Locarto are well connected in the art world and have already started testing their service on well known people in the art world.
We have also advised them to focus on emerging artist. This will be easier to achieve if Locarto is already used by established artist, ensuring credibility of the service. This again will also be a challenging task, but one that will hopefully be lessened by Jan’s contacts in the industry.
As mentioned in the outreach, how Locarto presents itself will be crucial in how customers will respond, especially when it comes to artists. Emerging artists are at a vulnerable stage of their career, they don’t want to be exploited. As time goes by this problem expands towards the other actors too. Museums and galleries will need Locarto’s outreach to adapt to their needs, it is unlikely this will be identical to that of the outreach towards artists.
A plausible issue leading up from this is that users perceive Locarto to favor one of the actors within the industry. This could severely discourage the other actors from trusting Locarto to do what’s best for everyone. Especially in the case of artists, taking actions that grow profits at the cost of their work will be detrimental to customer retention, or Locarto’s vision of connecting stakeholders and provenance.
Locarto faces two potent competitors, and besides the way it positions itself in the industry, it also need to place emphasis on good design to distinguish itself from them. The main touchpoint customers have with Locarto is through their (web)app. This means that most customers will base their opinion of Locarto on their experience with the (web)app. Expectation of apps today are high, customers expect them to be designed intuitively and effectively. Hiccups can quickly lead to irritation, especially since the use of Locarto is a change in the day to day operations of an artist. To ensure this change fits in the workflow of users, their workflow needs to be examined and learned from. Proper design processes that build on such knowledge are needed to achieve an app that is truly pleasant to use. This and the mindset that an app is never really finished and can always be improved are key to keeping up with user expectations.
Besides the UX design of the (web)app, the customer support needs to be dependent. Entrusting an online entity with your data is currently not very popular. Entrusting an online entity to be the backbone in cataloguing an artist’s life’s work can be assumed to meet the same suspicions. Proper, dependent customer supports shows user that Locarto can be trusted. This becomes especially important when Locarto moves towards features such as two way authentication, where the provenance it authenticates starts to have significant impact on art valuing.
Another challenge that follows closely is the price for the service. As mentioned in the ecosystem analysis most of Locarto’s competitors are on the higher cost of the spectrum. Even though Locarto wants to offer their services to a significantly lower price, they have to make it worth the fee. This is especially important when it comes to emerging artist who are not know for their flamboyant lifestyle.
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Conclusion 11
Locarto is finding itself at at the verge of a new market, and whilst we have come to the same conclusion as the firm, we hope the insights accumulated through interviews will bring about more success. In the short run, Locarto should aim to produce an app flexible enough to facilitate whatever outreach strategy an artist chooses. In the long run we hope to see Locarto acquire enough artist users to justify the joining of galleries and museums.
If Locarto manages to bring these players together it will be a first. From this point out it has the ability to provide many more supporting services. The two way validation, or peer reviewing, of art transactions could lead to a much stronger documentation of provenance world wide. The firm could look into blockchain technologies to help artists and buyers keep track of their work, creating registrees that would even outlast the life span of the company.
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