Swizz Art Biz – Details, episodes & analysis

In this live podcast recorded at the Suisse Podcast Festival, we are joined by the art world’s rule-breaking insider: Kenny Schachter!

Renowned for his unfiltered opinions, relentless energy, and wit that has disrupted galleries and auction houses alike, Kenny has carved out a unique space where art, critique, and cultural commentary collide.

Consistently challenging the status quo, he has become one of the most captivating—and controversial—voices in contemporary art. A multifaceted talent, Kenny is a writer, columnist, artist, art dealer, lawyer, and teacher, notably lecturing on art market studies at Zurich University.

In this engaging episode, Kenny shares with host Tanya König and the audience how he discovered art, why he never takes no for an answer, and why, as long as you act ethically, you can do whatever you want.

The conversation is candid and insightful, followed by a dynamic Q&A session featuring questions from the audience.

Watch the Video of this conversation on YouTube!

More on Swizz Art Biz!

In his career, David Khalat merges his dedication to preserve Switzerland’s tradition of printmaking with the disruption of the traditional hierarchies within the art market. 

He currently serves as the managing director of Edition VFO located at Löwenbräukunst, an organization tracing its roots back to 1948, yet embodying a truly innovative approach to art in its accessibility. Here, Khalat and his team help world renowned artists produce museum quality work, often time by the means of historical techniques, which are then offered to the public through a transparent and affordable sale. But Khalat’s love for printmaking doesn’t stop there, as he is also the founder of ZPI, or Zurich Print Institute, a much younger organization intended to be a younger and more playful space for artists to collaborate and enrich each other with ideas. 

In this episode of Swizz Art Biz, our host, Tanya König asks Khalat about his fascination with printmaking as a medium, diving into how the organizations headed by him serve to disrupt the art market we know today. This they do, often by relying on the philosophies of the past, as he cites examples from “the early prints by Rembrandt and Dürer” and their importance in disseminating ideas among the greater public. 

Finally, in the interview, we also learn how mega-collections such as that of UBS acquire works from the same series that any of their employees would be able to afford as well, and Khalat even sheds some light on the artwork of his choice, which proves to be the most accessible of them all! 

Photo credit: Vic & Chris Photography

Recorded at Tablecast Studio and co-produced by Marcell Márthon.

Giorgia von Albertini is one of the youngest and most successful Swiss art curators at the moment. The 29-year-old started her career in the arts between her Bachelor and Masters degrees, when she collaborated with the renowned Swiss curator Bice Curiger, the renowned Swiss curator and co-founder of Parkett, who was only the third woman ever to curate the Venice Biennale in 2011.

"I simply wrote a letter to Bice saying how much I admired her work and asked if there was a way we could collaborate," von Albertini tells Swizz Art Biz. When listening to her, one can tell she is someone who dares to take initiative.

Even if it’s certainly not the best paid job in the art industry, she makes sure she gets paid for her work: “I always found that in a capitalist economy, no one should work for free and it was important to me to not devalue my work.”

So what does it take to succeed? "You need to love the work and put in the work."

Listen to this candid conversation with Giorgia von Albertini to find out her attitude towards work and why she wasn’t scared to collaborate with established figures in the art world including Swiss artist Not Vital. Plus, hear about her latest project, a monograph on Mexican artist Martín Soto Climént, which will be launched in Rome on February 3 at Karma International in Zurich on February 8, and then in London and Paris.

Follow Swizz Art Biz on Instagram and find the podcast host Tanya König here. 

Watch the conversation on Youtube. 

Produced at Tablecast Studio by Soltmannowski, solt.ch

Alain Servais started collecting art some 25 years ago – photography, installations, and digital and video art, everything, that is, except painting. 

Instead, the Belgian native collects works that are not just about marketing but that touch the viewer or helps to open their minds. Art needs to help us get out of Plato’s cave. It’s like taking the “red pill” in The Matrix, he says.

Despite collecting digital and video art early on, Servais is not a fan of today’s much-hyped NFTs. “Most NFTs are just images, so don’t call it art,” he tells Swizz Art Biz. “Everyone can create an image: Kellogg’s does it. McDonald’s does it. But is Ronald McDonald art? It’s just an image.”

Listen to the full podcast or watch the conversation on YouTube to find out more.

Alice Bucknell is a North American digital artist based in London. She focuses her work around the topics of architecture, cryptocurrencies, the environment, and capitalism. Bucknell recently showed her piece “Swamp City” in Zurich which was also part of the Venice Biennale for Architecture this year. In this latest Swizz Art Biz podcast what motivates her work, why she went from being an art and architecture critic to becoming a digital video artist, why she boycotts the Ethereum blockchain, and how NFTs can make a difference. 

Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, made headlines earlier this year by selling a non-fungible token at Christie’s for $69 million. It was the most anyone paid for an NFT, and it catapulted Beeple to one of the best paid artists in the world. Now Christie’s just announced that it’s selling another Beeple piece, called Human One, in November. 

Noah Davis was one of the people behind the record-sale and has since been known as “the NFT guy at Christie’s.” He joins Swizz Art Biz from his office in New York and tells Tanya König how business has changed for the auction house since it opened up to NFTs. 

What does a buyer actually get when purchasing an NFT? Access to a community, Davis says. He also addresses the problem with lack of diversity in the NFT space, why he loves the artist FEWOCiOUS, and what to expect from the next Beeple auction. In that same auction, Christie’s will also sell their first NFT minted on the Algorand blockchain, which uses about 99.9 percent less energy than the Ethereum blockchain. 

Johann König is one of Germany’s most innovative art dealers at the moment. His eponymous gallery has a spin-off called MISA, which started as a fair in his gallery bringing the primary and the secondary art market together and has grown into an online platform. In the meantime, MISA is the first art market player presenting paintings, installations, sculptures, and NFTs equally. 

Kenny Schachter is one of the most outspoken figures of the art world. With his monthly column on Artnet he points out the good, the bad, the ugly, and the worse of the art market. Besides writing, he has also been creating digital art for about 30 years, and is now very much into NFTs. So much so, that he’s even trying to trademark the term NFTism. Now he is showing his first piece at Art Basel, which is taking place in a few days in Switzerland. It's called “Crypto (NFT) Kiosk” and will be displayed in Nagel Draxler's booth.   In this revealing conversation, Kenny tells Tanya König of Swizz Art Biz, why he wants to live and work on the blockchain, why he is surprised by the pushback of traditional galleries when it comes to NFTs, why he thinks that good intention and passion is all it takes for art, and why he likes the radical democratization in the NFT world. “Ethereum is the only cryptocurrency that has practical application in my life,” he says. “What differentiates Ethereum from Bitcoin is that it has a smart contract.” And for the ones that are still trying to figure out what NFTs are, Schachter has a very simple explanation: You’re not buying anything with NFTs except for the certificate of ownership, which is lodged on the blockchain. It’s a way to not lose your certificate of ownership ever again.   Podcast was recorded at Tablecast / Christoph Soltmannowski Follow Swizz Art Biz on Instagram or Twitter.

Georg Bak organized the very first art exhibition of Larva Lab's CryptoPunk's. Now some of those NFT's artworks are being sold in the London auction of Sotheby's this month. Find out more about NFT's and the history of it.

Video version on Youtube https://youtu.be/Ph-bfuna22s

It’s been over a year since I interviewed art dealer Dominique Lévy for CNNMoney Switzerland. During that 2020 conversation, Lévy gave a brutally honest assessment of how she saw art galleries and art fairs moving forward. The interview was picked up by  the international press, including The New York Times, Financial Times, Artnet, and The Art Newspaper. Even noted New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz Tweeted it out. Now I've done a follow-up interview with Lévy.