Conversations | 21st Century Collectors: The Meeting of Tech and Art

From NFTs to OVRs, to immersive art experiences, new technologies drive much of how art viewing and buying is evolving in the 21st Century. However, has that changed what type of person becomes a contemporary art collector? How does their collecting journey start, what are their interests and concerns? As art, the art market, and tech continue to intersect, our panelists will shed light on all these questions.

Ethan Beard, Co-Founder and CEO, Yoz, San Francisco
Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Co-Founder / Co-CEO, Lobus
Moderator: Tim Schneider, Art Business Editor, Artnet News

Ethan Beard is the co-founder and CEO of Yoz, a startup focused on building communities through ownership and NFTs. A longtime tech operator and entrepreneur, Ethan has focused on building developer and partner ecosystems including leading Ripple’s blockchain developer program, the Facebook Developer Network and New Business Development at Google. He is also an active investor in and advisor to early stage technology startups and was an EIR at Greylock Partners. Ethan lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children and is an active philanthropist supporting organizations in contemporary art, education and democracy reform

Sarah Wendell Sherrill is the co-founder of Lobus, art’s ownership platform on a mission to make artists owners. Before co-founding Lobus, Sarah rose to be one of Christie’s youngest Vice Presidents, managing over $3B in sales for the Post-War & Contemporary Art department during a critical period of growth making their department alone the largest art business in the world and overseeing the go-to-market strategy for $50M+ works of art by artists such as Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Jeff Koons and more. In 2015, she became President of Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Noguchi Museum in New York, SFMOMA’s Contemporaries, the Advisory Committee at the ICA SF, and the FOG Art & Design committee.

Tim Schneider is the Art Business Editor for Artnet News, co-producer of the Artnet News podcast The Art Angle, and writer behind the Gray Market, the conversation-starting industry-analysis column. His work draws from a nearly decade-long career in the gallery sector and research into economics, technology, data analysis, and related subjects. He has lectured or participated in panel discussions in Art Basel’s Conversations series, the Talking Galleries symposium, the Art Business Conference, and respected U.S. arts nonprofits and universities. In 2017 he released his first book, The Great Reframing: How Technology Will—and Won’t—Change the Gallery System Forever. He is based in New York. 

The Art Basel Miami Beach 2021 Conversations program is curated by Art Basel and Edward Winkleman, author and private dealer.