The Agency Art House can manage authentication, insurance, installation and other art-related concerns for its clients. “As soon as [clients] buy a house, we give them all of the resources to purchase artworks,” Kapoor says. But one of the company’s primary aims is education. She and Umansky, along with New York art-world broker Jonathan Travis, appeared yesterday on a panel titled Art and Real Estate: Where Creativity Meets Value, at the Untitled Art fair, where they discussed how “art is now a key player in real-estate development—boosting property values and shaping the identity of entire communities”.
Meanwhile, the luxury Florida real-estate firm One Sotheby’s International Realty is planning to open an in-house art advisory in the first quarter of 2025. “They’ve always used art in marketing,” says Sarah Jane Bruce, who will lead the operation along with her business partner Flavia Masetto, “and now when clients need an advisory service they can recommend someone to them that’s under their brand.” (Sotheby’s hosts a conversation with Bruce, titled Building Resilient Art Collections in Uncertain Markets, as part of Art Basel’s conversation programme on Saturday at 1pm.)
Mayi de la Vega, the founder and chief executive of One Sotheby’s, says she has been wanting to integrate an art advisory into the business for years. “It’s fun. It’s always been the right time to do it, but right now I’m able to focus on it.” Having advisers on staff ensures that they will be able to deliver “a lot of consistency and commitment” to clients.
De la Vega, who is herself a collector, says that the advisers will encourage clients to buy from Sotheby’s auction house, as well as galleries. She also hopes to focus in the future on showing work by emerging and mid-career artists at the company’s offices. This week, she partnered with The Bonnier Gallery in Miami to present an exhibition of work by blue-chip artists including Andy Warhol, John Baldessari, Wifredo Lam and Barbara Kruger at One Sotheby’s office in Miami Beach.