In conversation with Nat Rubinstein from Tagsmart
Nat Rubinstein is the Head of Business Development at Tagmsart, the worlds first DNA tagged and certificated artwork aggregation service.
Own Art is proud to count Tagsmart among its associate partners, offering exclusive services and discounts to our growing network of member galleries.
We sat down with Nat to find out more about her role at Tagsmart and how their work is relevant for anyone operating in the current art market.
Can you tell us a bit more about your professional background and your role at Tagsmart?
My background is actually in law – I even practiced for a while back in Moscow until one summer I stumbled into a job at the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and it was love at first sight! Since then I’ve been pursuing a career in the arts. I went to the Courtauld Institute of Art and got an MSc from Christie’s Education after. Over the last few years I worked at Christies, The Art Newspaper and most recently lead the curation team at Rise Art, a contemporary art marketplace based out of London.
What is the concept behind Tagsmart?
Tagsmart develops products and services for the art world and, at our core, we are a security company. Our platform allows artists, galleries and collectors to catalogue their work. After recording an artwork on our system, they are able to issue market-leading secure Certificates of Authenticity for each piece. Artists can also ‘tag’ their works with our pioneering DNA tagging technology, ensuring that authenticity and provenance are guaranteed throughout the artwork’s future journey.
What is the added value of using your services for a small or medium gallery?
Provenance and authenticity and more broadly, the lack of transparency in the art world, are becoming more and more of an issue. Increasingly collectors at every price level are interested in seeing a full and transparent record of provenance.
The art world is lagging behind most other markets when it comes to keeping good records and our revolutionary technology offers a solution. We give you the tools to issue secure CoA’s in minutes – we will generate a professional physical certificate (they look stunning!) accompanied by a digital record of provenance that the owner can access at any time. Added bonus – your gallery will be part of the permanent record, allowing you to connect with the future owners of the work.
What do you think the main challenge for someone operating in the current art market is/will be?
The most recent Deloitte Art and Finance Report states that 83% of wealth managers see authenticity, provenance, and attribution issues as the greatest risk in the art market.
Equally 81% Art professionals say that these are the major risks in the art market. The challenge I keep seeing in the art world is the lack of transparency. Provenance is important and records are often incomplete and wrong.
As we are moving toward a more open market that operates similar to other luxury segments, it’s becoming more and more of a necessity to be able to access provenance documentation and it is often challenging to find trusted and correct information.
How do you think Tagsmart can help Own Art member galleries grow their business?
With our business model and our services, Own Art members can cut back on admin and focus on growing their business. We offer a free cataloguing service to manage and share artwork information from a single platform. Galleries can seal the provenance of the work and build trust among an audience of collectors.
We also provide galleries with a concierge service where they can benefit from a dedicated account manager who is in charge of all the galleries’ artwork records, update information of the works, issue professional CoAs to the next collector and help galleries with any support they need.
In the next couple of months we are launching new amazing features that galleries can use for free on their Tagsmart account – watch this space!