Future of Online Sales with Elena Soboleva
By Holly Howe
Elena Soboleva is the Director of Online Sales at David Zwirner and joined the gallery in 2018 for this newly created role. Elena oversees the programming, curation and strategy for David Zwirner Online, which launched in 2017 as the first online viewing room from a commercial gallery.
Elena has over a decade of experience in the art world, beginning her career in the arts in 2008, at the height of the economic downturn, at Christie’s in Canada. Elena considers her experience beginning her career at this difficult time a poignant moment, allowing her to focus on her desire to find a career that combined both sides of her Degree, Economics and Art.
The search for a more analytical and technological approach to the art market has underpinned her career, as she then moved to New York and worked at the Jack Sainman Gallery, where she launched the Instagram and Youtube accounts, which at the time were not considered particularly useful marketing tools. Elena then worked at Artsy whilst it was in its Beta phase, before launching to the public. Elena has a unique perspective, witnessing the evolution of the Art world and the online space.
“Not only did I get a first hand seat at the table, but I really got to see the evolution of how the art world was thinking about online, and really convincing the art world that digital was not scary.”
A common question that Elena gets, as Director of Online Sales at David Zwirner is “How have things changed for you and your team”
“Fundamentally, things haven’t changed they have accelerated. What we are doing now, and what we have been doing over the past ten weeks is a product of everything we have been building up to in the last year and a half”
David Zwirner was the first gallery to have a major online viewing room, launching in 2017.
The first and foremost goal is the artists and estates. That is the lens they view everything through in the gallery.
Elena recommends that an online space should be thought of like a physical one, not as an afterthought or a marketing tool. The online space should be thought of in the same way that the physical locations are thought, in terms of resources, staff and attention.
Under Elena, David Zwirner Online has evolved into their so-called seventh gallery space, sometimes, the offerings would go alongside what was happening in their physical locations, but often as standalone exhibitions.
In 2019, it was the goal of David Zwirner online to work more closely with their artists and estates, ensuring that they had fresh inventory, or thinking how the narrative of an artists estate can be presented. Pushing the content and narrative was key for the Online space. Elena highlights that you must always understand who the online space is serving. First and foremost this is the artist but the collectors must also be taken into account.
“Not only are you serving the collectors who are going to acquire the work, but you are also educating and creating an experience and some engagement for the broader cultural realm.”
The Art World and Technology:
Elena highlights that the Art World has been slow to adapt to technology advancement, potentially a consequence of the unique aspects of the Art Industry, such as the small market sizes, as well as the first hand relationships with creative individuals. Much of 2019 was spent understanding the audience, and understanding what types of exhibitions work online.
In 2019, David Zwirner did 20 online exhibitions, very much in line with the art fair schedule. Some months, such as the autumn and spring would be more intense, whilst the summer schedule had a much slower pace.
Elena and her team ultimately decided that their offering would cover both standalone exhibitions with artists, as well would have projects paralleling art fair booths.
“Creating different types of online projects became more and more important”
It is important that the standards of inventory and quality check remain the same across works presented online, as well as those curated in physical booths at art fairs. This dedica<on to ensuring a connec<on between the physical and online space, as well as ensuring there is relevant and significant works online, has a?racted the focus of our collectors both established and new.
The Online Space serves a truly diverse range of collectors. Interestingly, Elena notes that their highest value sales through the Online space, were happening in cities where David Zwirner did not have a physical location. Fifteen top sales of 2019, were all going to places where they had collectors, but no physical gallery.
Another clear advantage of the Online space, was that Artists could use this space to show works that needed more contextualisation than the physical space would allow. Allowing for illustrations, or personal videos from the artist to be shown alongside.
The Online Space during closures:
In March 2020, the physical galleries had to close to the public, however David Zwirner, fortunately was able to seamlessly transi<on online as the online space was already considered a key pillar to the company.
“It didn’t feel like all of a sudden we had to scramble and pivot, it was really doubling down and scaling up what we were already doing.”
Amidst this incredibly difficult time, Elena and her team decided that what was key was ensuring the Art ecosystem in New York, as they knew and loved, was able to survive. Platform was born out of the team wanting to support friends, colleagues, and peers. Elena highlights that they were fortunate enough to have the structures already in place and they could offer it to smaller galleries and artists.
“We got lot of thoughtful feedback and excitement from our longtime collectors because for them there was such a sense of discovery and sense of being able to use this moment to broaden their collection and scope”
Elena and her team were able to turn around Platform in the two weeks following the New York Physical Space’s closure. This structure was able to be applied to the other gallery spaces, such as London so that they could support their artist and local community as well.