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Thomas Hoving, the former head of New York's Metropolitan Museum and newly named editorial director of artnet.com (see BW Online, 6/6/00, "This Art-World Firebrand Could Heat up the Net"), recently sat down with Business Week Contributing Editor Thane Peterson. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:
Q: May I ask how old you are?
A: Sixty-nine. That's why I love this job -- it puts me in the now and future. To be asked to do the now and the future at this age is kind of cute.
Q: Will you be the editor of artnet.com's magazine?
A: No, that's Walter Robinson, who is really fabulous. We get along together magnificently. The main reason is that his specialty is contemporary [art] -- and mine ain't [Hoving started out as a medievalist]. What I'm going to do with him is get a few more stories on Old Masters and ancient stuff in the magazine so we get a fuller sweep. But it won't in any way affect his reporting on the contemporary scene, which is full and not bitchy.
Q: Are you drawing on lessons from your years as editor of Connoisseur magazine?
A: The thing that totally frustrated me there was that they had a three-month [lead time]. And I love hard-breaking news. So I would try with my Ouji board to figure out what was going to be hot news in three months and put it on the cover. It worked a couple of times. [Here,] I can get a piece in with five illustrations in maybe an hour.
Q: Are Internet art sales going to be a significant business or fizzle out?
A: It's going to be a significant business, no doubt. These things get into the bloodstream. It's just so convenient. In the last 10 years, fewer and fewer people have actually gone to the [art] showings at Christie's and Sotheby's. They take it more and more on faith. [But] people feel good about buying if they know it's from a source that's going to back [the sale] up, as artnet.com does.
Q: But you're also competing with Sothebys.Amazon.com, and eBay has bought the Butterfield auction house, which is very well-respected. So it's going to be a dogfight, I would guess.
A: Well, my father was [known as] the prince of retailing. He owned Tiffany's, so he knew what the hell was going on. And he said, "The best thing you can do is get your biggest competitor across the street. You'll do better."
Q: Your father owned Tiffany's?
A: Yes. I grew up in retailing. But I split off because he was too domineering. I couldn't work for him. So I went into museums, then book-writing, television, and then magazine publishing. This is, for me, the final, perfect slot, because all of those experiences work on the Internet.
Q: I like artnet a lot. But if you look at the finances, it's running through money awfully quickly.
A: It sure is. But that's not my department. I'm just a month-to-month consultant [laughs].
Q: Would you buy a work of art without seeing it in person?
A: Probably not. But that's because I have these years of experience. When I didn't [see the works in person], I bought fakes.
EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT
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