The rapidly growing art market in Greece is being driven by an increasing interest from business and business people in the investment potential of art and the benefits of holding both corporate and private art collections. Against this background the "1st Athens Arts Business Conference" was devised to bring together key investors, collectors and artists to share knowledge and further promote the burgeoning art market. Gavin Buckley from Arts & Business (pictured second left) joined the panel of local and international experts in Athens to speak about Visual - Arts & Business' own unique approach to helping business get the most out of contemporary art.
The conference on 27 May was organized by Greek political and financial newspaper AXIA together with Christie's, the world’s leading art business. It took place at the Athens Hilton attracting many enthusiasts from the Greek art scene, such as Vlassis Kaniaris, Christos Caras, Angelos Panayiotou, Kostis Georgiou, Klaudios. However the majority of the audience was from the corporate world with businessmen, CEOs, brokers, private bankers, portfolio managers, hedge-fund managers, lawyers and insurers. Dimitris Karagounis (President of the Union of Shares of Stock Exchange, Athens), Polychronis Syngelides (CEO of Citroen Greece), Haris Vafias (ship owner), George Liberakis (Representative of Trident Cars – Lamborghini, Mazerati, Lotus) were just some of the individuals from the business world in the 200-strong audience.
Representatives of the international art market scene attended the event and presented on a wide range of contemporary art matters. The panel was chaired by journalist and presenter at Al Jazeera, Elizabeth Filippouli. Antonis Pikoulas, Publisher of AXIA newspaper and Chairman of Infosuccess media group, opened the conference and said that "our ambition is to see the 1st Athens Art Business Conference becoming a main point of reference for the actualities and the market trends of the international art business".
Keynote speaker was Amy Gold, Deputy Chairman and Senior Vice President Christie's Americas with the topic of the old and emerging markets – Russia, China, India, UAE. The conference also heard speeches from:
- Gavin Buckley, Regional Director of Arts & Business who presented Visual for Business, a new and unique project in the UK introducing contemporary art to the corporate sector and supported by an online gallery.
- Sergey Skaterschikov, CEO of IndexAtlas Group and Skate's Press. Mr. Skaterschikov announced the new IndexAtlas Art Industry Fund, a multimillion investment fund to focus on the businesses that are serving the art industry.
- Anette Schwarz, Consultant and key account manager of Aon Artscope international risk management and insurance company. Her presentation focused on the mechanisms of art insurance and brokerage.
Important collectors and businessmen from Greece were also on the panel of speakers:
- Manolis Varsos, Chairman and CEO of brokerage company MERIT Securities. Mr. Varsos, a businessman and a collector, announced three new private equity art funds in Greece are especially targeting Greek Art. The launch of these art funds is scheduled for September 2008.
- Zacharias Portalakis, collector and CEO of Portalakis brokerage. In his speech Mr. Portalakis addressed the added values of the art market versus the stock markets.
- Dimitris Paleokrassas, art consultant and Director of ArtConsult, who put a perspective on the problems and idiosyncrasies of the local contemporary art market.
- Lavrentis Lavrentiadis, Chairman and CEO of ALAPIS Group, used his own history of art collecting as a case study on how art can upgrade and benefit corporate environments.
The Conference was organized with the support of Christie's and was sponsored by Bank of Piraeus to celebrate the 10th anniversary of AXIA and ALAPIS Group. Media partners were the AXIA website (now the official news source from Greece for Bloomberg), AXIA newspaper and SBC Business Channel.
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