YOU DON'T NEED A RULEBOOK

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

My name is Jasha Berkenbosch, founder of Novus Arte, and I call myself an ''artpreneur''. I am not an artist and did not went to art school, but I built one of the bigger art communities in the Netherlands around one motto: contemporary art your grandparents will not like. That vision clicked, last year we reached more than 8 million art lovers worldwide. As the community grew, artists and galleries started reaching out. They saw what we did online and asked us to help them. That’s how Novus Arte grew from an Instagram page into an art marketing agency. We now help visual artists and cultural organisations sharpen their positioning and find new audiences, through social media, introductions to galleries and institutions, and our own events.

You started without a traditional art background. Was that an advantage or a disadvantage?

I would say mostly an advantage. I came in without a rulebook, so I look at art the way most of our audience does: curious and with a fresh eye. If a work makes me stop scrolling, that’s enough reason to find out who’s behind it. Running the Novus Arte community means I look at art and talk to artists, galleries and collectors a lot. I learn by doing. I am still learning every single day. The biggest lesson so far is that every success story is different. One-size-fits-all doesn’t exist in this world.

Why can art feel intimidating?

A few reasons. Sometimes it’s the high price tags. Some are afraid to say something “wrong” in front of the artist. I had that too in the beginning. And some feel they just don’t understand it, as if you need a degree before you’re allowed to be an art lover. Spoiler: you don’t. Whatever you feel when you look at a work counts.

How do you make something accessible without losing what makes it special?

For me it starts with feeling welcome. You can have all the money in the world, but if nobody takes the time to talk to you about a work, you still feel it is not meant for you. So we pick locations where lots of people pass by anyway, but that are special in themselves, like a historic church or a canal house. You are able to meet the artist in a relaxed setting, there is live music, and you can walk up to anyone and ask anything. We’ve also shown videos of how specific works were made. Seeing the process makes an artwork more understandable, and often even more impressive.

What have you learned about creativity from working with artists?

That inspiration does not always find you behind a desk. The artists I work with go out, sport, travel, relax, meet people and try things. When I started my business I thought I had to work from 9-5 to get my things done. But working with artists helped me to break out of my own 9-to-5 rhythm too. They also showed me the work never really stops: you keep improving, networking, experimenting. Turns out that’s exactly what being an entrepreneur is like

Has building a business changed the way you look at art?

It made me realise how similar the two are. An artist starting a new series and an entrepreneur starting a business both begin with an idea nobody asked for and no guarantee it will work. Since I took that risk myself, I have so much more respect for the blood, sweat and tears behind a piece, and for the risk artists take simply by choosing to be an artist.

Can being good at business make you a better creative?

No, business skills won’t make your creative work better. That comes from somewhere else. But every creative needs commercial skills, because without them you will depend on someone else’s agenda, whether that’s a gallery, a curator or an algorithm. Knowing how to position, pitch and price yourself gives you the freedom to make the work you actually want to make.

If you could steal one artwork and nobody would ever know, which would it be?

Easy: the entire Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres!! Visiting it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Dalí designed the whole building as one huge surrealist artwork, so picking only a single piece feels wrong. That whole museum comes with me