We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Conrado R P Maleta’ a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Conrado R, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
“If the system is against you, work with the system for your benefit”. After many years producing artworks in Cuba, Spain and Israel, I moved to new York City. Few weeks after my arrival to it, a very famous and well known Cuban artist told me: “I work with the number one gallerist for Latin American photography in this country. Let me take you to meet him”. After some time, we had scheduled a meeting with the Gallery team. I showed them 10 of my artworks and they gave me many words of praise as well as advice. The Gallery purchased at surprising high price 4 of my works and told me: “We will buy and storage it until your Artistic Identity in this country is mature.” I was completely unfamiliar with the way that American Galleries work so I asked what they are expecting to happens. Their answer was very interesting and reveling: “When 4 or 5 well known American Collectors have your works and write a letter telling, We Got Him, the our Gallery will make a contract with you and you will start be recognized here and making money…”
Time passed and I understood that this is an Ouroboros nonsense. A Gallery will not take me unless a Collector reassure them I have value. A Collector will not buy my items unless a Gallery tells them I have value. Mission impossible. After a while I was hired by an Auction House to manage their operations in NYC. Hard path to learning and understanding the way of functioning a systems based more on social Networking than in Meritocracy or even TALENT. When I felt my time arrived I created my own very modest, small auction house. It is a walk up the hill, but I am sure my new business will be not only exiting but also rewarding. One of my goals as businessman right now is to help less known artist who have a decent body of work and need help with exposure, specially online.
Time will tell. But I feel that the world of Art Galleries and Collectors is ignoring on purpose the most vulnerable creators. Something must be done.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a Cuban born architect with post-graduate studies in History and Philosophy. Since 2003 I developed a parallel career as visual artist. My works got enough relevance that I was invited to several relatively notable exhibitions and events. Lived and worked in Spain where national TV and Radio Stations did interviews focused in How my own experiences could be motivational to young creators. Moved to Israel and also got the attention of the artistic community there. My arrival to New York City was filled with great hopes and optimism.
For several years I have worked and implicitly studied the environment of eCommerce entrepreneurship as well as ART in our online ecosystem. Since 2020 worked directly with Auction Houses until the present day. In September of 2020 created ByBoboNYC Inc., an umbrella company absorbing my previous Art Collecting project Tc&Tc as well my own small auction business, Allure. A current adventure to which I’m giving special attentions and has as goal the discovering and promotion of new and unknown talented visual artists. If you are one of them, just contact me.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I think that not every business requires an initial monetary investment. In my case, a small amount was required, equivalent to a year of my previous income on savings. The most important is not the money I needed but the networking accumulated prior to my business creation as well as the knowledge about the “How” to do the things. Some business no need lot of money, but they demand a lot of strategic knowledge and social networking for having a successful starting.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
My current partner in crime was previously a customer for the company I worked before. We had enough time to know each other, he studied me as a worker; I studied him as a customer. Due this vertical relationship we were able to evaluate each other and jump to engage on a much more horizontal work relationship.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/auctioneer/8775/allure-auctioneers/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conradomaleta/
- Other: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/auctioneer/4958/heritage-of-civilization/
