Building an Art Market 2.0

Senior Consultant, Deloitte SA

• Blockchain enthusiast – passionate about solving problems in the digital age and managing risk driven by disruption, innovation and change
• Hobby ceramicist – 10 years

Heidi Amrein is chief curator and member of the management board of the Swiss National Museum, where she is also responsible for extending the collection and for provenance research.

After studying Archaeology, Art History and German language and literature at the University of Lausanne, she obtained a doctorate in Archaeology. She took part in many national and international excavations, worked in Rome for several years and taught at the Universities of Zurich and Berne; she headed various research projects, publications and exhibitions both in Art History and in Archaeology.

Thomas Belohlavek completed his commercial apprenticeship with an insurance company in 1993. Afterwards, he worked for several years as an underwriter for risks in the SME and large companies sector and has been trained as an insurance specialist. In 2003 he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a focus on marketing and sales in Zurich. In addition, Mr. Belohlavek worked in the field of eBusiness for a bank and a telecommunications company. In 2003 he returned to insurance and was responsible for sales strategy and development at Allianz Suisse. Since 2009 Thomas Belohlavek has been working for AXA Winterthur within the international AXA Group. Since 2016 he is responsible for AXA ART Switzerland and is a member of the global management team. In addition, Thomas Belohlavek holds a master’s degree in insurance management and has attended various executive training courses at leading schools such as HSG in St. Gallen, IMD Lausanne and MIT Boston.

Alexandre Catsicas is co-founder and CEO of ARTMYN, a Swiss based startup revolutionizing the way Fine Art can be experienced and analysed on screen. Following his studies in Business and Finance at Fordham University NY, Alexandre began his professional career in the private banking and commodity trading industries. With the desire to combine his experience in business, with his passion for Art and History, he pursued a Masters degree in History of Art and Art World Practices at Glasgow University, which then led him to join Christie’s London. After realizing the importance and potential of new technologies for the Art world, Alexandre moved back to his hometown where he partnered up with a team of highly qualified scientists and engineers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). ARTMYN is the result of their collaboration.

Expertise

• IP/IT/Digital and privacy.
• “DPO Ready” certification granted by the IAPP (CIPP/E and CIPM).
• Expertise acknowledged both from a business and academic perspectives (regularly lectures on both national and international venues including Harvard Law School, Cornell Law School, Georges Washington University, Cour de Cassation, SciencesPo or ITAM).

Practice areas

• Intellectual Property (trademarks, patents, designs, copyright, unfair competition and related transactions)
• IT (XaaS, OSS, SLA, Mobile/Web App. dev.)
• Digital (domain name, social media, ecommerce)
• Privacy (privacy clearance, implementation and enforcement of privacy program management, GDPR compliance)

Laura Gowen is a private art dealer and the owner of the Gowen Contemporary gallery in Geneva, Switzerland. Gowen Contemporary represents international emerging artists and is known for its rich exhibition program and participation in renowned international art fairs. The gallery was originally formed as Faye Fleming & Partner in 2009 and evolved into Gowen Contemporary in 2010. Laura created Art Connection SA to facilitate the discreet and confidential brokerage of high-value modern and contemporary pieces. As a leading private art dealer with more than ten years of experience, Laura works with an extensive network of private collectors primarily based in Europe and the United States. In 2014 Laura was among the founding members of Artwide International, a members-only platform offering on-line access to the art market. The platform allows its members to conduct art deals and offers services for art consulting, shipping and storage, art-related financing, insurance, inventory management and expertise. Today, Artwide has grown to include members in forty-one countries. Prior to her work in fine art, Laura spent seven years in finance and operations with Prime S.p.A in Milan, a 200-person sub-holding company of the FIAT Group. Laura graduated from the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy, Faculty of Literature and Philosophy.

Emilie Mermillod is the Director of Seydoux & Associés Fine Art, a company based in Geneva focusing on private sales in the field of impressionist and modern art. Since 2012, she has worked closely with Thomas Seydoux and has specific expertise on matters related to art law and more generally the management of high-value art collections.

Prior to joining Seydoux & Associés Fine Art, Emilie Mermillod worked as a lawyer in the legal departments of two main auction houses.

Before acquiring the French Bar Certificate (Paris Bar School) in 2011, Emilie Mermillod graduated from the University of Lyon (France) with a Masters degree in Art Law and also studied one year at the University of Oslo.

Johannes Nathan received his BA from New York University and his MA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London with a dissertation on ‘The working methods of Leonardo da Vinci’ (1995). He subsequently taught art history at the University of Berne until 2001 when he became director of Galerie Nathan in Zurich, a business originally founded in Munich in 1913. Building on his family’s experience, he established Nathan Fine Art (Zurich / Potsdam) in 2005, specializing in high quality private sales.

Johannes Nathan has taught Renaissance art history and the history of the art market at the universities of Berlin (TU), Cologne, Leipzig, Lisbon, New York (NYU) and Zurich. In 2012, together with Bénédicte Savoy and Dorothee Wimmer, he co-founded the Forum Kunst und Markt – Center for Art Market Studies at TU Berlin (www.fokum.org), a platform for art market research which hosts lectures, conferences and the Journal for Art Market Studies. For De Gruyter Publishers Berlin he currently directs the Art Market Dictionary (AMD), serving as its Editor-in-Chief (due out in 2019; www.artmarketdictionary.com).

He is chairman and a founding member of TIAMSA – The International Art Market Studies Association (www.artmarketstudies.org) and also serves on the Board of the Swiss Art Dealers’ Association, on the Advisory Board of the Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte (Foto Marburg) and on the Scientific Committee of the Repertoire of the Art Market in France, 1940-1945, a project hosted by the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) Paris and TU Berlin. Among his publications are The Enduring Instant. Time and the Spectator in the Visual Arts (co-edited with Antoinette Friedenthal) and Leonardo da Vinci. The Complete Drawings (co-authored with Frank Zöllner).

Freya is the General Counsel of The Fine Art Group and CEO of The Group’s Art Financing business.

Freya joined The Fine Art Group in September 2015 from Christie’s where she was senior Legal Counsel and responsible for advising on all aspects of art lending, auction and private sales. Freya has 10 years’ prior experience as an international finance lawyer at Linklaters LLP and Barclays Capital dealing with secured finance products and structures in New York, Hong  Kong, London, and São Paulo.

Freya obtained a First Class BA in History at Manchester University and completed her legal qualifications at  Oxford Institute of Legal Practice.