He’s Bringing Transparency to the Art Market

In This Episode:

In this episode our host, Denise Silber, is joined by David Kusin, Harvard MBA, a man whose passions for art and capital markets, led him to found Kusin & Company, the first ever established art economics firm. Together they discuss how his company is  bringing liquidity and transparency to the art market, by painstakingly collecting millions of data points on valuable art assets and building a 21st century trading platform.

The global art market is traditionally known for its opacity, innumeracy, and lack of data. And although they said it couldn’t be done, David undertook, over a decade,  with the help of connoisseurs and quants, to make possible the sorting of some of the most valuable works of art in the world.  These unique art-price observations led to the identification of 150 art submarkets, a revolution for the art market. Learn how he did this, what it means for the world of art, and how you might use this model to identify other untapped opportunities.

Subscribe now for free:

Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

A Glimpse of What You’ll Learn

  • Is there a global art market of high-ticket items? How can it be segmented?

  • Why does some art travel from warehouse to warehouse without being seen?

  • When and why  might it be worth it to engage in a passion project that can take 10 to 20 years

  • How can we  identify markets waiting to be structured by the collection of previously-unrecorded data?

  • What can other entrepreneurs learn from David’s model ?

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

David Kusin, Harvard MBA, former curator and investment banker, has devoted the past two decades to decoding the buying and selling of art. As David Kusin observes, “Stagnant since 2014 and barely profitable, the global sector of art as a financial asset can revive only with the adoption of IP and a newly envisioned definition of asset trading platforms that did not exist 20 years ago.” His business, the first art economics firm, Kusin & Company has developed unique datasets and competency that underpin his new book, Art as an Asset in the 21st Century. The centrality of art and the daily collaboration of art connoisseurs and mathematicians set his firm, and this book, apart.