The Baer Faxt Podcast

When Mary Stanley started her Young Collectors Club in Atlanta in 2006, it had two members. It now has 300, around 75 of them serious collectors. Josh Baer, who ran a New York gallery forty years ago, recalls having maybe one client in the entire city. Recorded on the opening day of Atlanta Art Fair, this is a conversation about how a collector base gets built from nothing, and what it takes to keep artists in a city rather than lose them to the coasts. Stanley's definition of a collector: somebody who can't not buy art. Atlanta Art Fair runs October 1–4, 2026 at Pullman Yards. For more information, visit theatlantaartfair.com. Recorded October 1, 2026, in partnership with Atlanta Art Fair. 00:00 What a New Yorker needs to know about Atlanta 00:45 Institutional support, MOCA GA, and Idea Capital 01:40 The art schools, and why artists are staying 02:33 Building a collector base: two members to 300 03:24 What a collector is, and what patronage looks like here 04:59 Inside the club: collectors' homes, art trips, and networking 06:37 Are galleries treating people better now? 09:43 Wearing several hats, and the artists she's watching

Mark Bell is Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Family Office Solutions at Balentine, which manages around $9.5 billion for 300 families, and for a long time has taught a course at Emory on art as an emerging asset class. He thinks art is a financial asset. Josh Baer, forty years into watching collections get built and dispersed, does not. Recorded on the opening day of Atlanta Art Fair, this is a conversation about what art is worth and what kind of thing it is. Bell makes the case for a complex asset with a consumptive component — nobody loves their Microsoft stock, but almost nobody buys art without loving it. Josh's answer is that the loving is exactly what makes it something other than an asset. Atlanta Art Fair runs October 1–4, 2026 at Pullman Yards. For more information, visit theatlantaartfair.com. Recorded October 1, 2026, in partnership with Atlanta Art Fair. 00:00 Atlanta on the fair calendar, and what it means for the Southeast 04:10 Buying without seeing: PDFs, the pandemic, and Teterboro airport 06:07 Is art a financial asset? 07:59 Fractionalization, and why nobody wants one-eighth of a Ferrari 10:02 Where the returns actually are: Basquiat, British Rail, Yale 13:03 Buy what you love — and what wealth management missed for decades 16:21 Store of value, transaction costs, and the case for an opaque market 19:52 AI, authentication, and the artists he'd point you to

Sarah Higgins has curated more than 40 exhibitions for institutions like MOCA Georgia and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, and led Art Papers, the country's longest-running nonprofit art journal, since 2018. This year, Higgins is the guest curator of the Atlanta Art Fair, where she's brought together three Georgia artists who work through absurdism and irreverent humor. She joins Josh Baer to talk about what happens to criticism when the authority to assign value moves (a crisis for some, democratization for others), why negative reviews now get aimed at institutions rather than artists, and why a city with this much art has so little to show it in. Atlanta Art Fair runs October 1–4, 2026 at Pullman Yards. For more information, visit theatlantaartfair.com. Recorded in partnership with AAF on September 28, 2026. 00:00 Intro: regional art fairs, and Printed Matter at PS1 02:10 Artist books, Nexus Press, and the return of the object 03:25 Criticism in crisis — or democratization 08:15 Greenberg, the glossies, and writing for an audience of three 09:15 Atlanta's institutional gap and Art Papers ending after 50 years 10:45 The state of the Atlanta market 12:45 The plane crash the city can't stop explaining itself by 13:30 Spelman, the AUC, and Black art in Atlanta 17:35 Two artists worth knowing: Jill Frank and Sergio Suárez 19:50 Special projects: Dada, absurdity, and the three artists for Atlanta Art Fair's Special Projects

If anyone can speak to the rising interest in art among sports stars, it's art advisor Gardy St. Fleur, whose education-first, community-centric approach has made him the person athletes call first. Over the course of his career, he's built a practice around studio visits rather than showrooms, working from a conviction Josh Baer heard about years ago from client John McEnroe: the artist alone with the work is in the same position as the player at center court, all the lights on you and nowhere to hide. Gardy joins Josh ahead of the Atlanta Art Fair to talk about what players see in artists, what happens when preview PDFs stop working, and what they're each hoping to find on the ground in Atlanta. 00:00 Intro: Josh Baer and Gardy St. Fleur, ahead of Atlanta Art Fair 00:22 Who the new collectors are 01:45 John McEnroe: all the lights on you, nowhere to hide 02:50 Why galleries still make people feel unwelcome 05:00 Education before the transaction 08:00 Price points, and blowing past your own budget 10:35 Women and Black collectors reshaping the market 12:12 Keith Rivers and the same energy 13:33 Artists taking control of their careers 18:55 "Don't send me the PDFs" 20:15 One lunch a week, fifty a year 21:30 What they're looking for in Atlanta 22:15 Most galleries have a finite life 24:55 Amoako Boafo, and the mistake Josh says he made 29:05 See you October 1st in Atlanta Atlanta Art Fair runs October 1–4, 2026 at Pullman Yards. For more information, visit theatlantaartfair.com. Recorded September 16, 2026, in partnership with Atlanta Art Fair.

Art Galleries Are Still Not OK—Now What? In the latest episode of The Baer Faxt Podcast, Josh sits down with Marc Spiegler, Cultural Strategies Consultant, former CEO of Art Basel and author of the New York Times piece that set the art world talking, along with Amy Cappellazzo, one of the most respected art advisors in the business and founder of Art Intelligence Global. Between the three of them, there's over a century of experience in the art world—and they're not here to commiserate. From the structural failures that predate the current crisis, to price transparency, to a student's idea that might actually save galleries money, this is an honest conversation about the gallery model that has struggled to adapt to changing conditions. Is FOMO a business model? (No.) Is hope a strategy? (Also no.) Out now on all major podcast streaming platforms. This episode is brought to you by Ursula - A Magazine of Contemporary Culture by Hauser & Wirth.