The Vedovi brothers (Paolo, left, and Willem, right) are fixtures on the international gallery circuit. So when Willem does a little PR, it’s worth hearing his views on the way the market has changed during their 20-year tenure selling art:
You are known as a multilingual man and the gallery Vedovi seems to have been internationally-focused from the very beginning. Does globalization really change something to the way art galleries work?
Willem Vedovi: You are right, the art market has long been international. But now it is becoming global and that is a game-changing trend. My brother and I have been running the gallery Vedovi for nearly 20 years, and today’s art market has little to do with what it was when we founded the gallery. Globalization is responsible for most of this change. With the emergence of new countries interested in art, we have had to adapt to new types of artists and collectors from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, to understand and meet their expectations, to develop the recognition of our gallery in the new art capitals etc. It is a whole new level of ‘international’.
It definitely changes how the gallery Vedovi operates. I was lucky enough to have lived in different countries and develop both language skills and a certain proclivity for the international, and it has always been beneficial to the gallery… But what was then a competitive differentiator is now an absolute necessity. And we work hard to expand our international reach: this is why we attend more and more international art events such as the SP-Arte Sao Paulo.
