The interviews of ProfessioneArte.it

He is Domenico Filipponi, Art Advisor for Cordusio Fiduciaria

Five questions to know in advance the great art professionals, the daily challenges to face, the choices that have determined their path in the art system and in the art market, the digital changes and the advice for those who want to start the same career in collaboration with ProfessioneARTE.it.

Opportunities certainly cannot be missed, but personal skills have done much to build a solid professional career for Domenico Filipponi, Head of Art Advisory Services at Cordusio Fiduciaria, the UniCredit Group company specializing in Wealth Management.

As he himself confirms in this interview, his is a delicate profession that “changes with time“.

The Art Advisor is in fact a figure that has become strategic in the asset management of those who choose to diversify their portfolio into so-called “passion assets”, but rigor and lucidity of action are a must.

Fundamental is the experience that matures over time and that allows the professional to be able to decipher, with a certain but always expected margin of error, what are identified as the “codes of the art market” allowing the client/collector to make their decisions consciously.

A consulting role, therefore close to the more traditional collector as well as to the Millennial, to answer new questions through an always impartial and clear reading in the dynamics of selling and buying works of art.

Domenico Filipponi is responsible for the Art Advisory services of Cordusio Fiduciaria, the UniCredit Group company specialized in Wealth Management.

Domenico Filipponi, with a degree from the University “La Sapienza” of Rome, took his first steps in the art world thanks to his journalistic activity, as head of the economic pages of “Il Giornale dell’Arte“ and as correspondent from Italy for foreign newspapers such as the English “The Art Newspaper” and the French “Le Journal des Arts”. Subsequently, as General Manager of the Italian offices of the international auction house Christie’s, as an expert in the art market, especially modern and contemporary art, Filipponi has built a network of collectors, antique dealers, gallery owners, museum directors, curators and critics. In the mid-1990s, he proposed the auction house as a referent for Art Advisory services to private clients of major Italian banks. Among these, Unicredit, with which he has been collaborating since 2004, when he was appointed to build up the Group’s Art Advisory services, becoming its Head. Among the services offered are the management and analysis of artistic assets, the valuation of artistic assets, advice on buying and selling, art taxation, circulation of artistic assets at national and international level, and “logistics” consultancy (restoration, transport, insurance).

1.How has your path in the contemporary art started?

With studies, combined with an innate personal passion and the privilege of having met real mentors who have nurtured and nurtured my desire for knowledge.

The professional path that resulted (first I wrote about the art market, then I took care of it working in an auction house and finally I recommend it as an advisor) was nothing but the result of a set of opportunities and … I want to believe it, personal skills.

2.How would you describe your profession today?

A scale needle, but also a decoder. I believe that the advisor must offer an impartial and as clear as possible reading of the various market dynamics in order to analyse in the best possible way all the factors important for a purchase or a sale. “Deciphering” the codes of the art market and putting the client in a position to make an informed choice is the objective I pursue.

3. How has your profession changed over the year?

More than in time, it is a profession that changes with time.

It’s a job that has its raison d’être precisely in the ability to follow change. The change in taste (or fashion if we want to be less prosaic); the change in the economic and political structures of countries and the planet; the expansion of the market to new territories and new generations of buyers; the advent of new technologies that change the way of doing market, etc..

Deciphering (back to the example already done) this set of changes, assessing their impact on market dynamics and sharing their interpretation with the client is what I try to do on a daily basis.

A work in continuous evolution.

4. What impact is digital having on your business?

Another sign of the changing times that one cannot ignore in order to do one’s job in the best possible way. I believe that digital is now, to give just one example, an integral and indispensable part of the process of buying and selling.

By this I do not mean that the digital “experience” can or should replace in its entirety that of the real comparison with the work, the artist, the gallery owner, the specialist, etc., but it is certainly something that has now entered the “picture” of a negotiation, contributing to make it even more transparent and better for the protection of the various parties involved.

5. What would you suggest to someone looking to pursue your career?

Curiosity, curiosity, curiosity.

Desire to see, to know, to observe, to listen. To study, a lot. Train your eyes by looking as much as possible. To make comparisons, to space between epochs, disciplines, cultures, territories without setting limits to the field of one’s own investigation, interests or desires. To “collect” experiences. Different.

Yes I know, I’m describing an “old-fashioned” path but I think (it’s just my opinion) it’s necessary to first accumulate knowledge and experience in order to be able to share them and make them available to others.