A few weeks ago, gallery intern Kaiyan Wang had the honor to interview Davidson alum Alex Locke ‘10. Alex is currently the Head of Client Strategy for the Americas in the 20th and 21st Century Art division at Christie’s. He undertakes this leadership role in one of the world’s top auction houses with years of experience in the art industry.
After majoring in art history at Davidson, he graduated from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in 2011, and started his 12 year career in the art auction business. His story demonstrates the power of persistence and the importance of following your interests, even if they lead you down an unexpected path.
In addition to sharing his personal journey, Alex also offered insights and advice for students interested in pursuing a career in the art industry or business more broadly. Join us as we dive deeper into Alex’s inspiring story and learn from his insights and expertise in the art business.
Kaiyan Wang: Can you tell us more about how you were interested in art history in the first place, and what internship opportunities did you have during your time at Davidson？
Alex Locke: Coming to Davidson, I didn’t know what I wanted to major in, but I took the ART 100 class with Dr. Ligo my first semester of freshman year and fell in love with art history. While I was at Davidson I used my summers to do a variety of internships to gain some practical experience, and the two that ended up being the most formative were completely different from each other. The first was at a museum in my hometown, which gave me exposure to a lot of great art, but ultimately I found that the work environment wasn’t for me. The next summer I switched gears and interned at a talent agency that represents athletes. It had absolutely no connection to the art world, but I was interested in business and sports, and I got a lot of good experience analyzing data and making presentations under tight deadlines. Ultimately when I was leaving Davidson, I knew that I wanted to do something in the art world, but I also wanted to find something in the industry that mirrored the work environment that I experienced at the talent agency. So in my senior year, I started thinking about the commercial art world and decided to move to New York.
Kaiyan Wang: How did you realize your interest in client development? And how does it combine with your interest in art history?
Alex Locke: After graduating from Davidson I studied at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where I got some academic background on the intricacies of the commercial art world, something I wasn’t exposed to previously. While I was studying there, I did an internship at a contemporary gallery in Chelsea, and when I graduated from the Institute I got a spot in the floater program at Sotheby’s, which was essentially a glorified internship.
The floater program is called that because you are moving (or floating) across different departments depending on the immediate business needs. For the first few months I was doing catalogue research for the Impressionist & Modern Department, then floated across a variety of support departments before landing by pure chance into client development, which I ended up really loving. In client development, you’re not working with the art directly, but are working with the art experts and business getters to get a sense of their insights, priorities, and concerns. Over time you develop a deep understanding of the art market and its key players, and it’s also a great department to work in to build up internal relationships at the auction house. Eventually I was lucky enough to get a full time position with that team. I stayed at Sotheby’s for about three years, but got an opportunity to move to a position in client strategy at Christie’s in 2015, and I have been there in a variety of roles ever since.
Kaiyan Wang: What are some challenges that individuals may face when entering the art industry, and what advice would you offer to students who have an interest in pursuing a career in the art business?
Alex Locke: The beginning is always hard – the entry level jobs require long hours and the work is usually very high volume and very high pressure. The main challenge when you’re first starting is that you need to figure out your ultimate career track in the auction house. There are broadly two paths: the specialist/art expert path and the business path. I’ve found most people going into the auction industry (myself included!) tend to gravitate toward the specialist side because the love of the art is usually what initially attracts them, but there are just as many exciting roles on the business side. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was actually better at the business side, and I’m very glad I figured that out early in my career.
My advice to anyone when they’re starting to work is to always be proactive about your own career and always be the person who volunteers to work hard. It is also really important to do the projects you’re given correctly and take a lot of ownership in their outcomes. It sounds basic, but doing things correctly, reliably, and efficiently is the best way to earn the trust and respect of your colleagues. The other thing I tell people is that if anybody offers you a project that’s maybe a little bit outside of your job description or a little bit of a stretch outside of your comfort zone, always say yes. Getting new experiences will help you meet new people and work with them in different ways. Then when the next project comes up, those people will think of you and you will get more opportunities.
I think the best thing Davidson teaches students to do is to be self-disciplined, especially with their time. Davidson students are able to schedule their own exams, which is really amazing and unique, and there is a huge freedom within the curriculum for students to build their own routines to study. I think that’s really important training for when you transition out of school into a career where you need to manage your workload and build a system that works for you within the framework of your job.
Kaiyan Wang: What is your insight on the work culture difference between galleries and auction houses？
Alex Locke: Christie’s is the largest auction house in the world, so we are very corporate and have regimented ways of doing things. There is a very clear hierarchical structure and standardized procedures under which most things are done. Galleries on the other hand, at least in my experience, are often run by a small number of very senior and very influential people, and the company culture and structure mostly flows from them. But overall the biggest distinction between the auction houses and the galleries is the direct relationships with artists. While we do work with artists directly on occasion at Christie’s, you are more likely to prefer working in a gallery if you are passionate about working regularly with artists. From a work culture perspective, the auction houses employ a wide range of personalities and skill sets, but the common thing among everyone is that we are all very hardworking and all passionate about art.
Kaiyan Wang: What is a typical workday of yours, which part of your job do you enjoy the most?
Alex Locke: I work in 20th and 21st Century Art, which is the biggest division at Christie’s and covers seven departments, the largest of which are Impressionist & Modern and Post-War & Contemporary. We have sales somewhere in the world virtually every week, but the sales that I’m primarily focused on happen in May and November in New York and are the company’s largest sales for the year. Currently (in February) we are in the sourcing stage of our calendar, where we are looking for works of art to put in our sale in May, and I am working on a lot of collections and single objects that we know are likely to come to the market over the next few months. During this period, I also spend time with our specialists thinking about medium and long-term business and clients that we can proactively approach to try to sell things, in addition to formulating strategies based on data insights into our client base on how we can differentiate ourselves in our proposals to be the best choice for the client. In about a month and a half we will be done sourcing the May sale, and I’ll then pivot to working with my colleagues to find buyers for all of the art we have on consignment and try to get as many bidders as possible to get to the highest price. In those days and weeks leading up to the sale, I put together lists of prospective buyers for each work, structure the outreach around each of them, and track the interest levels of each individual work in the auction so we can best manage the sale. Immediately after the sale I put together client analyses and present them to our executive team. Then we’re back to sourcing for the next sale.
Outside of the sales work, I am also managing a team of people, so I spend a lot of time talking with my team and making sure that everybody is contributing equally and on track with our projects. I had a lot of supportive people in my corner in the beginning of my career, so it is important to me to be a good manager and support my team’s career development.
Special thanks to Alex Locke for taking the time to speak to the Davidson College Van/Every Smith Galleries.