Speaker 1: Hi Arrow, This is Anna.
Speaker 2: Hi Anna, how are you doing today.
Speaker 1: I'm great, nice to meet you.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what your book really covers. Something that's
very touching to my heart in the way that I've
been that guy who has had artwork out there, and
I'm also the guy who purchases artwork. So therefore, when
I got my hands on this book, I'm going, oh, really,
now I can dive into something that also has to
do with art.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so glad that you loved it.
Speaker 3: Where did this story come from inside of you? Is
it based on an experience or is it just something
that hits you inside your imagination, maybe while walking or
even taking a nap.
Speaker 1: While it's something that came to me over a period
of years, I was working in the art world in
auction houses and galleries in between London and New York,
mostly because I was dating someone. I was following a
guy who had become my husband around the world, so
I was basically I was working in those environments and
I was seeing crazy things go on and sort of
recording it all in this journalistic way. At the same time,
I was I was sort of inspired by by a
tabloid story of an art dealer who got involved in
a Ponzi scheme, so kind of it went that way naturally.
Speaker 3: It seems like wherever there's art, there's always a con
man or or a law that's about to be broken.
How what is the connection between the.
Speaker 1: Two, Yes, well, ero, it's it's a I feel like
it's a really unregulated world, maybe the last very unregulated industry.
And it's a lot like the finance world in that
you're trusting in these people who tell you their experts
to buy stuff for you, to handle your money. In finance,
you're trusting them to buy socks or invest for you.
In the art world, trusting them to tell you who's
a good artist and buy the art for you. There
are a lot of checks and balances in finance and
art maybe not so much.
Speaker 3: That's so true because when it comes to me buying art,
someone will call me up and say, here's the situation.
This is what's going to be offered at this particular sale.
You can come in or I can just make sure
that I get this one. And you've got to trust.
Speaker 2: You've got to trust, You've got to trust, and you hope.
Speaker 3: That the investment has a payoff. But I'm not going
to see the payoff. It's going to be those that
are after me because I want something, you know, to
be long lasting. Am I being a bad buyer when
I do that?
Speaker 1: No, not at all. I think the good thing is
that most people in the art world are very trustworthy
and you know, they want the best for their clients.
They are friends with their clients a lot of the time.
It's just, you know, there are always a few bad
apples in every industry.
Speaker 3: Especially when it comes to the painters themselves, because it
seems like every time I meet with a painter, you know,
it's like it's all about the money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you set.
Speaker 3: Or a trader, a painter is it's all it's all
about the money. I mean, it's you know, I realize
you the starving artist kind of a thing. But the
thing is is that it's like they you know, you'll
even if you go to a flea market, the painters
are sitting there going, okay, I'll sell it to you
for seven hundred and fifty dollars. I'm going, what you're
at a flea market?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, the middleman is always trying to make an
extra extra book, and I think salesman salesman are tricky.
I mean people with a real gift for selling something.
They are special in this world and they know it
and they take advantage of it.
Speaker 3: Please do not move. There's more with Anna Barrington coming
up next. The name of the book The Spectacle from
Anna Barrington. Let's get back to that talk.
Speaker 2: What have you.
Speaker 3: Learned along this, this this journe because I mean you
you being a part of it and then putting it
in a book and now bringing it to us, you know,
to feed our imaginations. I mean this has got to
be exciting for you. What have you learned?
Speaker 1: It's so exciting. I think I learned a lot about
so My main character in the Spectacle, Rudolph, is this
charming and manipulative art dealer who is lying to a
lot of people. He's kind of a pathological liar and
he double deals because his debts are spiling out of control.
I think I learned a lot about that type of
person who is kind of very common.
Speaker 3: What kind of research did you do? Because I mean
in order to make you know him so real and authentic.
I mean it's like, do I know this person?
Speaker 1: My research was? You know? I just I lived that life.
You know, I went to all these parties. I knew
those types of guys, and I also knew those the
types of collectors. I also knew guys in finance who
were a lot like that too, So it felt very real.
At the same time, I felt like I was channeling
stuff that was happening culturally and political. Those types of people.
Speaker 3: For you, that's got to be balanced, because I mean,
you've got to work with both both you know, the
buyer as well as you know everything else in the
involved with the gallery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. I mean I wasn't really, I wasn't
a salesperson. I was I was on the writing side.
I worked with artists.
Speaker 3: When you say the writing side, so you're you're build
you're building the copy and stuff like that to get
the word out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I was writing press release and interviewing artists.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's see, that's that right, there is that connection. That's
what pulled me into like Wentworth Gallery and things like that,
so that I could go in there and make sure
that these things got done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm sorry, Well, what kind of
artists do you like?
Speaker 2: I Well, I'll say you, I I've got you.
Speaker 3: I've got Peter Max, I've got Charles what is his
last name, but he does a three D art and
and and so they and I was so fascinated by that.
I've got Matisse and and so you know, I like
and you know, it's it's one of those things where
it's like, I want to invest so that the the
investment itself has value for other people beyond me.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've even got a pause.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I mean, did did you work one on one
with a lot of these artists? Did you invite him
into your area?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, they were kind enough to invite me into
their studios. So it was it was amazing getting to
know them and and sort of seeing inside the mind
of artists who and be very prophetic, you know, about
the future where they see our culture going. You know,
they spend their lives thinking about the idea that make
the world tick, trying to find a deeper meaning in that.
So it was really profound for me.
Speaker 3: Well, and to create that conversation because to walk up
to Paul Stanley, I wasn't gonna go up there and say,
so you're part of the group, kiss man. I went
up there and asked him. I said, did you scrape
your canvas when you're painting? And he goes, what do
you mean? And I explained to him what I do
because I'll scrape the paint so it has a lighter
feel to it, And all of a sudden, that was
the conversation starter. And when you get with someone like Peter,
when you get with Peter Max, I go, Okay, you're
peaking your paint.
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 3: Are you drawing my attention from the origin of your
original thought? And then that got the conversation going.
Speaker 1: M yeah, I mean, artists are often so interested in
the process of the physical process of making art.
Speaker 3: What did you learn in being with those creative minds?
Because when you sat down to write this book in essence,
in my heart, I feel like you were painting a
beautiful picture.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, thank you so much. Yeah. I really
was very influenced by artists and how they make work.
A lot of it is they sort of a lot
of artists they sort of give themselves over to I
guess the muse you would say, they sort of let
intuition guide them and they concentrate on the process of
something very physical and sort of looking everywhere artists. They
admire reading a lot what's going on culturally and sort
of letting that flow through them in this kind of
collage like way, letting all the the layers accumulate. And
so I thought of I thought of writing this book
very similarly, very visual person I love.
Speaker 3: Do you see this growing into a binge watch or
some sort of movie that stars Ed Norton.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I really hope so, because.
Speaker 3: It's got that drama, it's got that appeal, it's it's
got there. There's just something about it that says it's
got to be in moving picture.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I'm so so glad to hear you say that.
I hope other.
Speaker 3: People I get to, Well, they've got to get their
hands on us. So where can they go to get
their hands on it?
Speaker 1: Anywhere you get your books.
Speaker 2: That's a good answer.
Speaker 3: Where can we find out more about you?
Speaker 1: You can go to my website Anna Barrington dot com
or I'm also on Instagram, Anna Barrington Campbell.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.
Ten minutes with you is just not enough.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you so much. Er, It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Will you'd be brilliant today? Okay, you too, Thank you,