How One Auction House is Bringing a Fresh Eye to Art-Collecting
By creating frictionless perusal and purchase, this digital platform is drawing in a whole new breed of discerning bidder.
Words: Christopher Ross
Images: Colin Clark and Kyle Knodell
Paddle8
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: NYC’s East Village, LA’s Arts District, and the Mayfair section of London
# of site members: 800k across 90 countries
Highest-selling piece: $900k for a 40-inch steel egg by Jeff Koons
Average auction length: Two weeks
As art sales soar to record-breaking heights, auction houses have replaced arenas, hosting a new breed of spectator sport: Watching as one billionaire’s astronomical bid for a Picasso or Warhol tops another’s. But is there a place in this world for those with slightly more modest tastes? And is there a way to participate without trekking to Manhattan’s Upper East Side at 4pm on a Thursday?
These were the questions Alexander Gilkes (a former chief auctioneer at Phillips), Aditya Julka (a biotech entrepreneur), and Osman Khan (formerly of Goldman Sachs) sought to address when they co-founded the virtual auction house Paddle8. The three launched a slick platform where members could place a bid anytime by computer or mobile phone. The auctions operate in real time on the site, which features an intuitive, content-rich interface and showcases art primarily within the $1,000 to $100,000 range — what they see as the white space between where eBay ends and traditional auction houses begin.
Five years in, their hunch has been affirmed: Paddle8 sold $70 million worth of art in 2015, doubling sales from 2014, while bringing on juggernauts like artist Damien Hirst as an investor and gallerist David Zwirner as a board member.
The key to their success? Appealing to an underserved type of buyer: tech-savvy, affluent, still honing their tastes, and probably younger than the average Sotheby’s or Bonham’s goer. In addition to holding themed auctions that cover the gamut from KAWS Star Wars memorabilia to iconic stills of David Bowie from photographer Mick Rock, Paddle8 has teamed up with tastemakers like Vogue creative-director-at-large Grace Coddington and fashion consultant Andy Spade to either deaccession parts of their own collections or handpick pieces for auctions of their favorite artists’ works.
“It’s very high-touch,” says Stefany Morris, head of Paddle8’s fine art auctions and former director at New York’s Waterhouse & Dodd gallery.
She points out that, in addition to the company’s strength as a digital enterprise, it can still act like an analog broker.
Thanks to the site’s e-commerce experience — VP of engineering Ramsay Stirling II oversees the under-the-hood mechanisms for a seamless flow from browsing to shipping — buyers who wish to remain discreet can purchase artworks without ever seeing or talking to another person. On the other hand, if an aesthete wants the kind of intimate relationship a gallery provides, Paddle8 schedules in-person viewings or orchestrates private sales, as it did for the sole copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
As Morris says, “We’ve taken the best parts of the gallery, advisory, and auction environments and wrapped them into one.”
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