Art Meets Culture is working with Pinterest this September to introduce more artists and creatives to Pinterest Create Community, and there are some genuinely interesting reasons to take a look. From greater discovery and creator insights to learning, events and potential brand opportunities, the programme opens up another ecosystem for creatives thinking seriously about how they grow their practice.

At the same time, Pinterest itself is still often overlooked by artists. For years, the conversation around building an audience online has revolved around the same platforms, with Instagram becoming the digital portfolio, TikTok becoming a place to chase reach and, more recently, LinkedIn becoming increasingly useful for professional visibility. Pinterest is still frequently reduced to somewhere you go to build a moodboard, but for artists and visual creatives, that might be seriously underselling what the platform can offer.

If you already want to explore Pinterest Create Community, you can find out more and apply to join here:

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Discovery Works Differently

One of the biggest differences with Pinterest is intent. On most social platforms, we’re scrolling through whatever an algorithm puts in front of us, whereas Pinterest is built around people actively searching for ideas, references and inspiration across everything from contemporary portraiture and photography to interiors, typography, fashion, ceramics and illustration. That creates an interesting opportunity for artists because your work can be discovered by somebody already looking for something connected to it.

Content on Pinterest can also continue appearing to relevant audiences beyond the day it is published, rather than relying entirely on the immediate life cycle of a social feed. For artists, photographers and other visual creatives, that changes the proposition: Pinterest doesn’t necessarily have to become another platform you constantly feed, but another route through which somebody can discover your creative world.

Your Practice Is Bigger Than the Finished Work

An artist’s world rarely begins and ends with the finished artwork. There are references, materials, sketches, studio experiments, architecture, books, fashion, film, photography, places and cultural influences surrounding what you make, and Pinterest gives creatives an interesting space to build out that wider visual language.

A photographer might organise work around projects, portraiture, locations and visual references, while a fashion creative could explore styling, materials, archives and emerging aesthetics. An illustrator or designer could create searchable collections around different areas of their work and influences. The point isn’t to turn your practice into a moodboard, but to give someone more ways to discover, understand and connect with what you do.

Discovery Can Create Opportunity

Artists increasingly work across multiple worlds, and the traditional boundaries around an artistic career continue to shift. A painter might exhibit while collaborating with a fashion brand, a photographer can move between personal projects and commercial commissions, while illustrators and designers regularly work across publishing, advertising, culture and brand projects.

That means the question isn’t only how a collector discovers your work. It’s also worth thinking about how a creative director, editor, collaborator or brand encounters your practice and visual language. Pinterest has built creator tools around audience growth and monetisation, including paid brand partnerships, which makes being discoverable within its wider ecosystem particularly interesting for creatives looking to build commercial opportunities alongside their practice.

Joining Pinterest doesn’t guarantee paid work, and it shouldn’t be presented that way. What it does create is another potential route for your work to be discovered while giving creators access to tools and opportunities designed around audience growth and commercial partnerships.

If greater discovery and potential brand opportunities are relevant to where you’re trying to take your practice.

Explore Pinterest Create Community Here

Trends Can Be Intelligence, Not Instructions

Pinterest also gives creatives access to information around what people are searching for, emerging interests and category trends. For artists, that shouldn’t mean changing your practice because an algorithm says a particular colour, aesthetic or subject is suddenly popular; creative work shouldn’t be dictated by whatever happens to be trending that week.

Instead, trends can be treated as intelligence without becoming instructions. Understanding the language people use around certain aesthetics, which visual conversations are growing and what audiences are actively searching for can help you think more intelligently about how your work is described, published and discovered. For photographers, designers, stylists, filmmakers and other creatives who also operate commercially, that kind of cultural and audience intelligence can become particularly useful.

Pinterest Create Community × Art Meets Culture

This is ultimately why we’re interested in bringing Pinterest Create Community to the AMC audience. The opportunity isn’t simply about encouraging creatives to sign up for another platform; it’s about making sure artists and creatives know where new tools, opportunities and forms of discovery are developing and have enough information to decide whether those spaces could genuinely benefit their practice.

Pinterest Create Community offers access to monthly trends, creator insights, learning resources, interactive webinars, early product information, office hours and support, exclusive activations and events, content challenges and selected growth and brand partnership opportunities tailored around different content categories.

Importantly, this isn’t only relevant to traditional influencers. Artists, photographers, designers, illustrators, filmmakers, stylists, fashion creatives, creative directors, makers and content creators can all think differently about how Pinterest fits around the work they’re already creating and the audiences they’re trying to reach.

You don’t need to completely rethink your content strategy either. A useful starting point is simply thinking about the visual world surrounding your practice, considering how someone might search for the type of work you create, making sure your work has enough context to be discoverable and paying attention to what audiences are already looking for.

Could Pinterest Be Useful for Your Practice?

If you’re looking to get your work discovered, reach new audiences, better understand emerging trends, access creator support or put yourself closer to potential commercial opportunities, Pinterest Create Community is worth exploring. It won’t replace the platforms, galleries, networks or relationships already important to your career, but it could provide another valuable route for your work and creative practice to reach people who haven’t discovered you yet.

Art Meets Culture is working with Pinterest throughout September to introduce more of our creative community to Pinterest Create Community. Explore the programme and apply to join here:

Apply To Join Here

This article was produced by Art Meets Culture as part of our partnership with Pinterest to introduce more artists and creatives to Pinterest Create Community.

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Sometimes a brand needs distribution. Sometimes it needs somebody who can tell millions of people that a product exists, create conversation around it and move attention in a measurable way. There is nothing wrong with that, and influencer marketing is not going anywhere. But there are other moments when a brand does not need another person to distribute its message. It needs somebody capable of bringing a different point of view to it, and sometimes that person is an artist.

Artists bring something different because, at their best, they do not simply communicate culture. They make it. They build visual languages, create worlds, question familiar ideas and develop practices that can live far beyond the lifespan of a campaign. Yet artists are still too often brought into brand work at the end, after the strategy has already been written, the campaign has already been conceived and most of the creative decisions have already been made.

The artist then becomes the person asked to customise something, illustrate something, paint something or make the campaign feel more culturally interesting. That feels like a missed opportunity. If a brand genuinely wants to work with an artist, the more interesting question is not simply what they can make for the campaign, but what they might bring to the thinking behind it. The strongest collaborations usually happen when the artist is able to influence the work, rather than simply decorate it.

There is a reason those partnerships feel different. They carry somebody else’s fingerprints. The artist has not simply been inserted into the campaign; they have altered its visual language, changed its atmosphere or taken the brand somewhere it might not have gone on its own. That could mean reinterpreting a product, building an installation, creating an exhibition, shaping an experience or developing something that sits somewhere between art, design and culture.

That becomes harder when the relationship begins and ends with a list of deliverables. Of course, there still needs to be structure, deadlines, budgets, usage rights and commercial objectives. But creative work becomes less interesting when every possibility has already been closed down before the artist enters the room. If brands genuinely want originality, they have to leave enough space for originality to appear.

There is also a wider shift happening around how brands participate in culture. More conversations are moving away from the idea that every cultural relationship needs to begin with an immediate campaign objective, and towards questions of patronage, access, funding and longer-term support. That does not mean every company needs to behave like an arts foundation, but it does mean brands can think more seriously about how they contribute to the creative ecosystems they want to be associated with.

Artists should be central to that conversation. Commercial relationships can still be commercial, and brands are allowed to expect value in return. The question is what kind of value they actually want. If the objective is immediate reach, then an influencer may be the right partner. If the ambition is to create a stronger visual identity, enter a creative community with credibility or build something people remember, then an artist can offer something very different.

What they often offer is authorship. That matters at a time when so much branded communication looks increasingly similar. The same references move between agencies, the same visual cues appear across moodboards and the same faces can end up appearing across fashion, sport, technology and entertainment campaigns. The work can be polished, expensive and technically impressive, but still feel strangely interchangeable.

Artists can break that cycle because their value is not simply that people recognise them. Their value is that they have spent years developing a way of seeing the world that belongs specifically to them. That cannot be downloaded from a trend report or pulled from a social listening deck. When the right artist is given enough room to work, a brand can gain access to a visual language and cultural perspective that it could not manufacture internally.

The challenge, though, is knowing who is right. There is no shortage of extraordinary painters, photographers, sculptors, illustrators and multidisciplinary artists working across Britain and internationally. The harder part is understanding why a particular artist makes sense for a particular brand, how the relationship should be approached and how to structure it without reducing the artist’s practice to another layer of branded content.

hat is where curation matters. Not every popular artist is right for every brand, and not every brand should work with whoever is currently dominating social media. Sometimes the more interesting partnership is with someone whose work makes sense conceptually, culturally or geographically, even if their audience is smaller. A strong artist can introduce a brand to a community, but they can also introduce the brand to an idea, and that second part is often where the real value sits.

Brands can also fall into the trap of treating culture like a destination they arrive at once it becomes visible enough. By the time an artist, scene or movement has been validated by every major publication, institution and algorithm, everybody wants to participate. Culture usually becomes interesting much earlier than that, in studios, independent spaces, smaller exhibitions, community conversations and networks that remain largely invisible until the mainstream decides they matter.

The brands that understand this behave differently. They are less interested in attaching themselves to whatever is hottest that week and more interested in building relationships with the people shaping what comes next. That requires patience, trust and a willingness to give up some control. An artist cannot offer a genuinely independent creative perspective if the entire collaboration has already been decided for them.

Audiences can usually tell the difference. They can tell when an artist has been added to a campaign because somebody decided the brand needed cultural credibility, and they can tell when there is a real relationship behind the work. The difference appears in whether the artist’s language survives the partnership, whether the collaboration feels natural and whether anything meaningful remains once the campaign ends.

Brands will continue to work with influencers, athletes and musicians, and they should. But cultural relevance is not always a distribution problem. Sometimes the person a brand needs is not the person with the biggest audience, but the person with the strongest point of view.

The opportunity is not simply to put artists into more campaigns. It is to build better relationships with them, bring them into the process earlier and give them enough room to create something that could not have existed without them. That is when a collaboration stops feeling like borrowed culture and starts contributing to it.

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In this episode of Inside the Art World, Ade Sanusi sits down with self-taught artist Puretee Elusive for an honest conversation about building an art career on your own terms, finding your artistic voice and creating opportunities without waiting for the traditional art world to choose you.

Puretee’s journey did not begin with galleries, institutions or a carefully planned route into the industry. She started painting from a young age, eventually putting on her own exhibitions, building community around the work and learning the business of being an artist through experience.

A big part of this conversation is about what success actually means. Social media can make an artist look established long before we understand what is happening behind the scenes. For Puretee, real success happens in the studio: understanding why you are making the work, knowing what you want to say and developing a practice that genuinely feels like your own.

We also speak about her recent travels across the US and what meeting artists and creative communities in different cities taught her about collaboration, confidence and creating things for yourself. The biggest lesson is simple: artists do not always have to wait for institutions, galleries or somebody else to create the opportunity.

The conversation also gets into the practical side of an art career, from selling work and gallery commissions to shipping, tax and learning how to make money sustainably as an independent artist.

For emerging artists, Puretee’s message is clear: be honest in the work, understand the business, build your community and stop waiting for permission.

Puretee Elusive on Inside the Art World Episode 8 is out now.

Watch the full episode here

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Almost everybody, in his view, was doing the same thing.

“Bling, bling, bling, bling, bling.”

Manny’s instinct has always been to move in the opposite direction.

“If everybody in the room is wearing a certain pair of trainers or style, I’ll go the other way.”

That mentality has shaped more than a decade of work in luxury horology.

Manny began designing watches around 2010, not from the position of somebody who had grown up inside the luxury industry, but as someone looking for an opportunity to make something that felt different.

The watch dial became the answer.

Instead of treating it purely as a functional part of a timepiece, Manny began thinking about it as a surface for ideas, identity and eventually art.

That thinking would take him from researching Middle Eastern royal families on Google and cold-messaging potential customers to creating bespoke watches for international collectors and working with artists including Slawn.

It has also taught him some expensive lessons about business, ego and what it takes to survive when you are building without an established network.

Finding the Opportunity

Before watches, Manny had already been working around customised luxury phones.

The business gave him something valuable: data.

He could see who was buying.

Many of the customers willing to spend significant amounts on highly customised products were coming from Russia and the Middle East.

When competition increased and margins in the phone business began to fall, Manny decided to move into watches.

But rather than simply launching a product and hoping somebody found it, he became extremely deliberate about the market he wanted to enter.

He researched royal families across the Gulf, learned how to identify family names and started looking for ways to contact people directly.

Instagram was still developing. Twitter was a much bigger part of how he reached people.

So Manny started sending messages.

Again and again.

Some people ignored him.

Some questioned whether the watches were real.

Others asked to see more.

“I had no other choice,” Manny told the audience. “I didn’t know nobody. I had no connect.”

That lack of access became part of the strategy.

If there was no introduction available, Manny would create one himself.

One of his first significant breakthroughs came through a watch created for a member of Kuwait’s royal family. He took a white-gold watch, gave it a black DLC finish and incorporated the Kuwaiti emblem and national colours into the design.

For Manny, the sale confirmed something bigger.

His thought process worked.

There were collectors who wanted a luxury object to feel more personal, more culturally specific and more connected to their identity.

That became the foundation for what followed.

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State of the Art brings together the artists, collectors, curators and cultural leaders shaping what the art world becomes next.

In this audio edition, mother-and-daughter duo Natasha Landers and Maya Landers-Price join us to discuss what happens when art is taken out of the traditional white-box gallery and placed inside a home.

Through The Lemon Seed Project, they have created an intimate gallery model centred on Black artists, first-time collectors and genuine community.

The conversation moves beyond the idea that collecting belongs only to the wealthy, connected or institutionally approved. It examines why galleries can feel intimidating, how social media is creating new collectors and why the future of the art market may be more diverse, personal and decentralised.

For generations, the art world has maintained a certain level of distance.

The white walls. The unfamiliar language. The quiet expectation that you should already know who matters, what you are looking at and how much you are supposed to spend.

For anyone who did not grow up around galleries, collectors or auction houses, entering that world can feel less like an invitation and more like a test.

The Lemon Seed Project is building something different.

A Gallery Built Inside a Home

The Lemon Seed Project did not begin with a conventional gallery plan.

Natasha had already been collecting work by Black artists for more than 30 years. Her home was also being used as a location for filming and photography, as well as opening its doors through Open House London.

When artist Stephen Anthony Davids wanted to clear work from his studio, Natasha suggested exhibiting it inside the house.

The response revealed something important.

People experienced the art differently when it was placed inside a real living environment.

“When you go to galleries, it can feel kind of distant,” Maya explained. “You can’t necessarily envision it in your own home.”

Inside The Lemon Seed Project, artwork is not separated from everyday life.

It appears above furniture, alongside personal objects and within the dimensions of an ordinary Victorian house.

Visitors can begin to imagine what a painting might look like in their own hallway, bedroom or living room. They can see that collecting does not require a mansion, an adviser or a deep understanding of art-market language.

It can simply begin with finding something that moves you.

Listen to the State of the Art Audio Preview

In the opening section of the conversation, Natasha and Maya explain how The Lemon Seed Project began, why they chose to create a home gallery and how conventional art spaces can make people feel excluded.

Paid subscribers can continue listening to the full audio conversation and unlock the complete article below.

The full video edition will also be released later today.

on the Art Meets Culture Patreon, where members can watch State of the Art conversations and access our growing visual archive.

Continue the Conversation

Inside the full episode, Natasha and Maya explore:

• How to begin collecting art at almost any budget

• Why traditional galleries can alienate new audiences

• What institutions continue to misunderstand about Black artists

• How Instagram is creating collectors across borders

• Why community is becoming more valuable than prestige

• The role collectors play in preserving Black cultural history

• Why the future of collecting will be more diverse and decentralised

Read more

It was to create the kind of conversations we felt were missing from the art world.

For years, I’ve watched artists navigate galleries, collectors, partnerships, social media and the business of art with very little guidance. Too much knowledge stays behind closed doors, and too many creatives are expected to figure things out on their own.

State of the Art exists to change that.

This series brings together artists, curators, collectors, cultural leaders and industry professionals to have honest conversations about what it really takes to build a career in today’s art world. It’s about decoding the industry, sharing practical insights and creating a space where knowledge is more accessible to everyone.

Why we’re making this first episode free

If you’ve been following Art Meets Culture for a while, you’ll know that we’ve always believed access is important.

That’s why we’ve decided to make our opening conversation available to everyone.

In this episode, I share why State of the Art was created, why I believe the art world still feels difficult to navigate for many artists, and why creating more transparent conversations is so important. We discuss artist ownership, gallery relationships, building partnerships and why the industry needs more spaces where people can learn from one another.

Think of this as the introduction to everything we’re building.

What happens next

From next week, State of the Art will become part of our paid membership.

Every new episode will feature conversations with leading artists, curators, collectors and cultural leaders, exploring the ideas, challenges and opportunities shaping the future of the art world.

As a member, you’ll receive:

• Full weekly State of the Art audio episodes

• Exclusive articles and behind-the-scenes insights

• Early access to new conversations

• A growing archive of practical discussions designed to help artists, collectors and creative professionals better understand the art world

This membership helps us continue producing independent conversations and investing in the platform we’re building through Art Meets Culture.

Listen to the opening conversation

This first episode is free.

Press play above and join us as we explain why State of the Art exists and where we’re heading next.

Join the Membership

If this conversation resonates with you and you’d like to hear every future episode, we’d love to have you as part of the State of the Art community.

By becoming a member, you’re not just unlocking new conversations, you’re supporting a platform committed to making the art world more open, transparent and connected.

Become a member today and join us as we continue decoding the art world.

Become a Member

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Why We Created State of the Art

When people look at the art world from the outside, they often see exhibitions, openings, fairs and auction records.

What they don’t see are the conversations.

The conversations that explain how galleries work.

How artists negotiate partnerships.

How collectors think.

How brand collaborations happen.

How careers are actually built.

For too long, much of that knowledge has lived behind closed doors.

That was one of the reasons we created State of the Art.

Not because the art world needs another event.

But because artists deserve greater access to the information that helps them build sustainable careers.

During our opening conversation, I was asked what part of the art world still feels unnecessarily difficult to understand.

My answer was simple.

Ownership.

Even today, many artists still don’t fully understand what they’re signing, what percentages mean or how different partnership models work.

That isn’t because artists lack talent.

It’s because the industry often assumes people already know the rules.

We wanted to challenge that.

Opening the Gates

One sentence from the conversation has stayed with me:

“The art world is quite gatekept. I’m trying to open the gates.”

That isn’t about removing standards.

It’s about removing unnecessary barriers.

Knowledge shouldn’t depend on who your friends are.

Or which room you happen to be invited into.

The more transparent our industry becomes, the stronger it becomes for everyone.

Why This Matters

Before working in the art world, I spent time in music.

One thing I noticed immediately was how connected that ecosystem felt.

People knew where to go.

Who to speak to.

What opportunities existed.

The conversations happened publicly.

When I entered the visual arts space, it felt different.

Many artists,particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds,were asking the same questions.

Who are my allies?

Which galleries should I approach?

How do I build partnerships?

How do I actually build a career?

Those conversations weren’t happening enough.

State of the Art exists to change that.

Decoding the Art World

Every conversation we host has one objective:

To make the art world easier to understand.

Not by simplifying it.

But by bringing the people shaping it into the same room.

Artists.

Curators.

Collectors.

Cultural leaders.

Creative businesses.

Because when those conversations become more accessible, opportunities become more accessible too.

This Is Just the Beginning

The opening address is now available to watch on YouTube.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll begin releasing the full conversations recorded at State of the Art.

Each episode explores a different part of the creative ecosystem, from artist careers and collecting to technology, business and the future of culture.

If our goal is to build a more connected art world, it starts by sharing the conversations that too often stay behind closed doors.

Welcome to State of the Art.

Watch the full opening talk on YouTube.

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His story does not begin in a gallery. It does not begin with an institution, a collector, or a traditional art-world introduction.

It begins with basketball. With customised T-shirts. With painted skates and jean jackets. With selling work from the trunk of a car. With sleeping on couches in Los Angeles, trying to figure out whether a creative dream could become something real.

And, perhaps most importantly, it begins with faith.

“When people hear King Saladeen, I think they need to understand the story,” he says. “To understand the art, to understand me, you've got to know the story. You've got to know the mission.”

The name King Saladeen was not something he immediately embraced. Saladeen is his middle name, but the “King” was given to him during a period of risk and uncertainty. He had left his job, gone to Los Angeles, and was sleeping on a friend’s couch while trying to build his first art show. That friend, Queen Angel, told him the show needed to be called the King Saladeen all-white art show.

At first, he resisted it. Coming from Philly, he says, nobody calls themselves king unless they truly stand on it. But Angel saw something in him before he fully saw it in himself.

“She was like, you a king,” he remembers. “Look what you're doing. You left Philadelphia. You are literally sleeping on my couch to figure it out.”

That moment became part of the identity. But the title was never about ego. It was about survival, sacrifice and belief.

The biggest push came from his best friend JP, who passed away from cancer in 2013. JP was the one telling him the work was bigger than he realised. He had seen Saladeen at basketball games, seen his creativity, and kept encouraging him to take the risk.

“He was the one putting the battery in my back with art,” Saladeen says.

At the time, Saladeen was working a job he knew was not going to take him where he wanted to go. JP used to call it “the plantation.” That phrase stayed with him. It forced him to confront the life he was building and the life he actually wanted.

One day at work, he started thinking about the future. He was around 25. He did not have children yet, and he understood that there was a window where he could still afford to fail.

“I was like, if I don’t do it now, I’m going to be just like everybody else I was working with,” he says.

That decision was not just creative. It was spiritual.

He remembers praying in a way he had never prayed before. Asking God to show him something. Asking for direction. Then, while still at work, he began having visions of himself travelling, creating and living a different kind of life.

“I feel like that was God showing me the next level, if I believed in Him,” he says.

That belief became the foundation of everything.

West Philly also gave him something no institution could: tough skin.

For Saladeen, the neighbourhood was a training ground. It showed him life could be short. Many of the people he grew up with are no longer around, either lost to the streets, prison or death. Basketball gave him an escape route. Through AAU tournaments, he got to travel to places like Florida, Vegas and Maryland. Seeing palm trees for the first time changed something in him.

It showed him there was a world outside of what he knew.

“West Philly gave me my grit,” he says. “It taught me to never care about people saying no, because that’s one group of people saying no. That’s not everybody.”

It also taught him not to fake anything.

In Philly, if you were not good, people would tell you. If you could not play, rap, dress or create, the people around you would let you know quickly. That level of honesty became preparation for the wider world. By the time he reached the art and brand industries, criticism did not break him. It refined him.

“West Philadelphia gave me tough skin,” he says. “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.”

His first understanding of art as a business did not come from canvas. It came from product.

Growing up, he was inspired by hand-painted T-shirts, sneakers, colourways and the visual language of sport and streetwear. Before he ever thought about selling paintings, he was customising clothing, skates and jackets for people in his community. Product was his entry point.

“I never really saw art in anybody’s house, other than my grandparents’ house,” he says.

That shaped his thinking. He did not come into art through museums. He came into it through things people could wear, hold, collect and live with.

When he started going to New York with JP, he met artists who were actually living from their work. That opened his eyes. In Philly, surviving from art felt almost impossible. In New York, it was a real path. Still, Saladeen’s mind always returned to product. Sneakers. Jerseys. Cards. Objects. Things that could carry art into everyday life.

That is why the relationship between sport and art feels so natural in his work.

For him, sport was never separate from creativity. As a kid playing AAU basketball, he noticed the teams with better uniforms, better tracksuits, better bags and better presentation. Some teams arrived sponsored by Adidas or connected to NBA players, while his team had basic jerseys. Even then, at 14, he was asking coaches if he could design the uniforms.

They told him to go play defence.

But the idea never left.

Years later, when brands began calling him for collaborations, he realised he had already been thinking about these worlds for decades.

“I already thought of that,” he says. “I thought of that 20 years ago.”

That is what makes King Saladeen’s work feel bigger than a collaboration. He is not forcing art into sport. He is revealing that the two were always connected.

Trading cards became one of the first major bridges. His collaboration with Topps changed the scale of what was possible for him. He says he was able to buy his house through trading cards, a detail that speaks to how powerful the sports collectibles space can become when artists are given real creative and commercial room.

But for Saladeen, accessibility matters as much as success.

He understands that not every young person feels comfortable inside a museum. A kid from where he is from may not immediately connect with a quiet gallery space, rules about where to stand, and the feeling that they do not belong. But jerseys, cards, sneakers, sports and culture already speak their language.

That, for him, is the opportunity.

“It’s the perfect entryway,” he says. “Anything that you can relate to a kid with, sports, clothing and culture, that’s where it starts.”

He sees sport as a way to bring art closer to people who might not otherwise feel invited into the art world. A card, a jersey or a football can become a canvas. A collectable can become a cultural object. A fan can become a collector without even realising they are entering the art conversation.

That is the lane Saladeen is building.

His relationship with Fanatics is one of the clearest examples of that vision.

The connection began at the first Fanatics Fest, where he was invited to take part through an Artist Alley-style setup connected to trading cards. He almost did not go. But, as he says, many of the best things in his career have happened simply because he decided to show up.

At the event, he brought a seven-foot statue and created a setup that stood out. A Fanatics team member named Isabella helped him, and he gave her one of his trading cards as a thank-you. When she realised he had made it, she started bringing other people from the company over to see his work.

That moment led to conversations with Fanatics Authentics.

But by then, Saladeen had grown tired of one-off collaborations. He had seen the pattern before: a brand pays an artist once, takes the energy, then disappears. He was not interested in being used as a cultural accessory.

So when he first spoke to Fanatics, he was direct.

“I appreciate the opportunity, but I’m not looking to do any one-offs,” he told them.

He knew it might have rubbed people the wrong way. For months, he heard nothing. He even wondered if he had gone too hard. But when he followed up, they told him they were not offended. They were trying to figure out the right programme for him.

That patience turned into a real relationship.

For Saladeen, the lesson is clear: the first drop is rarely the biggest thing. The power is in building over time.

“If we can work on something multi-year, multi-project, or across each sport, I’m with it,” he says. “But if it’s just one thing, I got to bow out.”

That is the difference between getting a cheque and building value.

Through Fanatics, Saladeen has been able to bring his energy into the world of memorabilia and fine art. He speaks about selling signed Jalen Brunson jerseys for $15,000 and setting records through that space. But what matters most is that he told them he could do it before it happened.

“I told them I could do this,” he says. “I’m just not doing the one-offs.”

There is a bigger message there for artists.

Know your worth. Understand what you bring. Do not let the excitement of being chosen make you forget the power of what you are building.

That conviction also connects to the challenges he has faced as a Black artist.

Saladeen speaks openly about how Black artists are often boxed into narrow categories. He mentions being pushed into the street art lane, even when his practice, thinking and business reach far beyond that. He has watched opportunities go elsewhere, even after proving what he can do for brands and communities.

That is where faith returns.

Faith, for him, is not passive. It is not just about waiting. It is about staying sane, staying grounded and staying on your path when comparison, frustration and industry politics start to cloud the vision.

“When you cut these phones off, when you cut these computers off, it’s just you and God,” he says.

That faith has also shaped his sense of responsibility.

Through his foundation, Create Motivate Inspire, Saladeen has spent years giving back to his community. He does annual initiatives around Thanksgiving, back-to-school and Christmas, and whenever possible, he brings a community element into brand partnerships.

Recently, through work with Lotto, he helped create a community sports experience in North Philadelphia, introducing soccer to inner-city kids ahead of a moment where football’s global spotlight is growing in the U.S.

For him, this is personal. He remembers being the kid in the park watching successful people come back to the neighbourhood in nice cars but offer nothing. No jerseys. No advice. No real inspiration. He promised himself that if he ever made it, he would do more.

“It’s not about making money and leaving,” he says. “It’s about making money and being able to pour into the community.”

That is what makes his story resonate beyond the artwork.

King Saladeen is not only building a career. He is building proof. Proof that an artist can come from outside the system and still create a system of their own. Proof that sport can be more than entertainment. Proof that product can be an entry point into fine art. Proof that ownership matters. Proof that faith can be a strategy when the path is unclear.

Toward the end of the conversation, he offers a line that feels like the heart of the whole interview:

“Dreams manifest at our lowest points.”

He created that quote from lived experience. From being in his mother’s basement, painting and working while feeling unseen. From being frustrated online when artists like him were not being recognised. From understanding what it means to feel overlooked, but choosing to create anyway.

His advice to young artists is not to obsess over likes, fire emojis or validation. It is to fall in love with the work. To spend less time watching everyone else and more time building the thing inside them. To recognise that talent is a gift, but discipline is what turns that gift into a life.

“You got to love what you do,” he says. “You got to fall in love with creating.”

That may be the real lesson of King Saladeen’s journey.

The art world did not hand him a lane. Sport did not hand him one either. He built one by trusting his story, his eye, his community and his faith.

And now, from West Philly to Fanatics, from trading cards to fine art, from jerseys to global stages, King Saladeen is showing what happens when an artist refuses to be a one-off.

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Sometimes it lives in a painting. Sometimes it lives in a restaurant. Sometimes it lives in a book, a conversation, a hotel lobby, a dance floor, a group chat, or a dinner table where people are honest enough to say what they really mean.

That was the feeling inside The Standard, London, where we were invited to attend an evening with Eddie Huang in celebration of his new novel, Come Undone. The night brought together a live recording of Canal Street Dreams, Eddie’s podcast with his wife Shia Blanca, alongside the wider global partnership between Eddie and The Standard.

The Standard has always positioned itself as more than a hotel. Since launching in 1999, the brand has built itself around culture, nightlife, dining, design, events and entertainment. In many ways, it sits in that interesting space between hospitality and cultural venue: a place people don’t just pass through, but gather inside.

For Eddie Huang, that context makes sense.

He is not easy to reduce to one thing. Chef. Writer. Director. Restaurateur. New York Times bestselling author. Former host of Huang’s World. Creator of Baohaus, the Taiwanese-Chinese restaurant that became part of a wider food and culture movement. Author of Fresh Off the Boat, later adapted into an ABC sitcom. Filmmaker behind Boogie and Vice Is Broke.

But the more interesting thing is not the list of titles. It is the way all of these things speak to each other.

When we asked Eddie whether he sees food, writing, film and media as one creative practice, his answer was immediate:

“All of my work is one cohesive practice. Nothing is siloed.”

That line feels central to understanding Eddie Huang.

For him, cooking influences the writing. Writing influences the cooking. The on-camera work, directing, storytelling and restaurant culture all feed into one another. Nothing sits apart. Everything becomes part of a larger language.

That is where the art context becomes important.

Art is not only about the object at the end. It is also about the way someone builds a world. Eddie’s world has always been built from appetite, humour, contradiction, identity, family, immigrant experience, friendship, anger, tenderness and the need to say things plainly.

His new book, Come Undone, published by One World on 16 June 2026, is described as his first novel: a sharp, funny story about love, intimacy, masculinity, food, culture and the messy search for connection. The publisher frames it as a story about how people run from love and how love eventually finds them anyway. Penguin Random House

But hearing Eddie speak about the book in person made it feel less like a simple romantic comedy and more like a creative turning point.

During our quick-fire interview, we asked him what he felt ready to explore in Come Undone that he may not have earlier in his career. He spoke about vulnerability, and specifically about his relationship with his mother. He said the novel allowed him to unpack how a difficult relationship with a parent can “completely paralyse somebody in their adult life.”

That answer changed the shape of the conversation.

Because underneath the humour, the food, the party scenes, the romance and the cultural references, Come Undone seems to be asking a deeper question: what does it take to stop performing and start telling the truth?

At the live podcast recording, that question was present in another way too. Watching Eddie and Shia in conversation, what stood out was their dynamic. There was humour, sharpness, affection and a sense of two people who understand the beauty and difficulty of being seen clearly by someone close to you.

It did not feel like a polished press moment. It felt more like a window into growth: the kind that happens through love, partnership, challenge and the slow process of becoming more honest with yourself.

That honesty came up again when we asked Eddie how important it is for culture to come from a truthful place.

His answer was one of the strongest moments of the interview:

“To me, culture that isn’t coming from a true place is just commerce.”

For Art Meets Culture, that line sits at the heart of why this conversation matters.

We are living in a time where culture is constantly packaged, branded and sold back to us. Every gathering can become content. Every community can become a market. Every idea can be flattened into a campaign. But Eddie’s answer pushes against that. It reminds us that before culture becomes commerce, it has to come from somewhere real.

A memory. A wound. A joke. A kitchen. A relationship. A neighbourhood. A family history. A night out. A conversation that was never meant to be public.

That is also why The Standard partnership feels interesting. Alongside the events in New York, London and Miami, the collaboration includes the Come Undone room package and a deck of conversation cards created with Eddie. The idea is built around intimacy, connection and the kind of questions that move people beyond small talk. The Standard Shop

When we asked Eddie what makes a space feel genuinely cultural or curatorial, he spoke about The Standard as a place that had supported his work for years. He talked about launch parties, friendships with the creative team, and how the collaboration came together through genuine relationships. A friend gave the novel to someone on The Standard’s creative team, they loved it, and from there came the card game, the room package and the wider idea of romance on the road.

Again, it comes back to connection.

Not connection as a slogan. Connection as something built through people, places and shared history.

One of our final questions was about where Eddie feels the most exciting ideas in art and culture are coming from today. His answer was not “institutions” or “the market” or “the algorithm.”

He said:

“The most exciting ideas are coming from the group chats… the dinner table… parties.”

He also spoke about the dance floor as a place where ideas happen naturally, without too much forced intentionality.

That feels like a very important cultural point.

Sometimes, when we try too hard to engineer culture, we remove the randomness that makes it alive. We over-program the room. We over-curate the guest list. We over-explain the purpose. But some of the best ideas come from the spaces where people are simply together: eating, dancing, arguing, laughing, flirting, dreaming, sending voice notes, making plans they may or may not follow through on.

For younger creatives, Eddie’s final advice was simple but powerful:

“You have to protect your heart.”

He warned against judging the value of your work only by what sells, what numbers it does, or how it performs externally. Instead, he spoke about process: birth, creation, release.

That is a message many artists and cultural workers need to hear.

Because building outside the traditional system can be freeing, but it can also be exhausting. You are often your own institution, your own marketing department, your own editor, your own publicist, your own critic. Protecting your heart becomes part of the work.

What stayed with us after the evening was not just Eddie Huang the personality. It was Eddie Huang the builder of worlds. Someone who has moved through food, television, literature, film, podcasting and hospitality without treating those spaces as separate.

In that sense, Come Undone is not just a book launch. It is another chapter in a longer creative practice: one rooted in truth, contradiction, appetite, love and the courage to keep becoming.

And maybe that is where the art really is.

Not only in the final thing we publish, serve, screen or sell.

But in the process of coming undone enough to make something honest.

Explore More

Read Come Undone by Eddie Huang via Penguin Random House.

Explore the Eddie Huang x The Standard room package here.

Shop the Come Undone conversation card deck via Shop The Standard.

Follow @thestandard and @mreddiehuang for more from the partnership.

For more conversations at the intersection of art, culture and creative life, subscribe to Art Meets Culture.

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We went down to the launch day of Koby Martin’s solo exhibition, TERROIR, and honestly, it was amazing to see how much depth, memory and cultural reference was packed into the work.

There are some exhibitions you walk into and immediately feel like the artist is building a whole world. This felt like one of those moments.

TERROIR is rooted in the politics of land, inheritance and memory. The title itself refers to the way geography, soil, stone and climate shape the character of wine from particular regions. But Koby takes that idea and stretches it further, using it to question ownership, cultural identity and colonial extraction, particularly through Ghanaian histories.

What really stood out was how he drew parallels between French vineyards and Ghanaian land, looking at the way value becomes attached to cultivation, export, labour, branding and control. It made us think about who gets to own a story, who gets to profit from land, and how certain products become celebrated globally while the people and places behind them are often overlooked.

The exhibition looks at Ghana’s relationship with cocoa, palm wine, akpeteshie and agricultural production, while also bringing in the language of European still life, particularly the work of Paul Cézanne. That connection was powerful because it made you question how fruit, produce and domestic objects have historically been displayed, consumed and given value in art.

But for us, one of the most exciting references was Street Fighter.

Growing up, Street Fighter was one of those games that lived in the memory. The characters, the backgrounds, the repetition, the battles, the selection screen, the feeling of choosing who you wanted to be and fighting your way through a world. So seeing Koby use that visual language as a way to explore colonial histories, survival, repetition and identity was really special.

It brought back memories of playing as a kid, but it also made us think about how video games were never just games. They were visual worlds. They were cultural entry points. They shaped how we saw characters, power, movement, place and imagination.

Koby filters the exhibition through the aesthetics and logic of Street Fighter, combat, repetition, character selection and survival. In doing so, he reimagines colonial histories as staged battles, where memory becomes fragmented, repeated and replayed. That idea stayed with us because it speaks to the way history can feel cyclical, especially when it comes to land, ownership and identity.

At the centre of the work is Koby’s mother, whose image becomes a recurring motif throughout the exhibition. Through her, the work opens up questions around inheritance, domestic space, generational resilience, grief and rebirth. The exhibition also reflects on the loss of his grandmother, drawing a connection between personal memory and the constant cycle of loss, life and return.

There’s also a wider conversation happening around Ghana’s global connections. The exhibition references how Asian culture, particularly Japan and China, permeated Koby’s household through Kung Fu films and video games. It also brings in Nam June Paik, whose work explored African iconography in relation to global technology, including his 1994 mixed-media artwork, Ghana Oara Airways.

That connection between Ghana, Japan, technology, cocoa, wine, gaming and family memory could easily feel overloaded in the hands of another artist. But with Koby, it feels intentional. It feels like he is mapping the many ways culture travels, mutates, gets absorbed and becomes part of who we are.

One detail we found fascinating was the reference to “Ghana” chocolate being produced in Japan and South Korea since the 1960s and 1970s, relying on Ghanaian cocoa for production. It raises such an interesting question about branding, ownership and cultural homage. If Ghana is one of the world’s leading producers of cocoa, why are there still so few examples of globally recognised Ghanaian-owned chocolate brands?

That question speaks directly to the heart of TERROIR.

What happens when a country produces value, but does not always control how that value is packaged, sold or remembered?

What happens when land carries the labour, but another place carries the prestige?

What happens when cultural memory becomes a product, a brand, an export, a background, a stage?

This is where the exhibition becomes more than a visual experience. It becomes a conversation about history, power and imagination.

Koby’s work sits between painting, sculpture, screen printing and cultural storytelling. It is layered, but not in a way that shuts the viewer out. Instead, it invites you to look closer. To think about your own references. Your own memories. Your own relationship to images, games, land, family and culture.

For us, the brilliance of TERROIR is that it uses something familiar, like Street Fighter, as a way into something much deeper. It reminds you that cultural references from childhood can carry serious weight. They can become tools for understanding history, identity and survival.

Koby Martin has built a body of work that feels personal, political and visually rich. It connects Ghanaian memory with global culture, family with land, gaming with colonial history, and grief with rebirth.

And that is what made the exhibition so powerful.

It did not just show us work.

It gave us a world to enter, fight through, remember and rethink.

To hear more about Koby’s story, his practice and the journey behind his work, check out our latest episode of the Inside the Art World podcast.

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We’re sharing this with our Substack community first before the wider public rollout.

State of the Art London is now open to all.

This July, Art Meets Culture returns with State of the Art London, a two-day programme of talks, panels, live conversations and a bespoke workshop exploring the art world, creative talent and the future of culture.

Taking place on Saturday 18 July and Sunday 19 July at art’otel London Hoxton, the programme is built for artists, collectors, curators, cultural workers, creative professionals and anyone looking to better understand the business, infrastructure and future of the art world.

Presented in partnership with Oatly, State of the Art London will bring together a community of people who care about art, culture, creativity and the conversations that sit behind the work.

Across the weekend, we’ll be opening up honest conversations around visibility, cultural value, collecting, creative careers, storytelling, artist development, brand partnerships and what it actually takes to build a sustainable life in and around art.

Saturday 18 July
The Art World Decoded
Power, Value and Influence in the Art World

A day exploring how the art world works, how artists become visible, how cultural value is created, and how collectors, galleries, institutions, brands and cultural leaders shape the wider ecosystem.

This day is for anyone who wants to better understand the business of art, from collecting and patronage to access, visibility, institutions and cultural influence.

Sunday 19 July
The Artist’s Playbook
Visibility, Opportunity and Building a Sustainable Career

A practical day for artists and creatives focused on visibility, storytelling, partnerships, opportunity and building a sustainable creative career.

This day is for artists and creative professionals who want to better understand how to position themselves, build relationships, communicate their work and create a career with more clarity and intention.

What to expect

Across the weekend, audiences can expect:

Talks and panel conversations
Live audience Q&As
Networking
A bespoke workshop experience
Insight from artists, curators, collectors, cultural leaders and creative industry voices
Practical takeaways for building within the art world

The first wave of speakers will be announced soon.

We’re also pleased to share that all ticket holders will receive access to an exclusive 20% Phaidon discount code after purchase, with more partner moments and programme updates to follow.

Who is this for?

State of the Art London is for artists, collectors, curators, cultural workers, creative professionals, students, founders, brand teams and anyone who wants to better understand how the art world works.

It is for people asking questions like:

How do artists build visibility?

How do collectors, galleries and institutions shape cultural value?

How do creative people build sustainable careers?

How do you move through the art world with more confidence and understanding?

How do art, culture and brand partnerships connect in a meaningful way?

State of the Art exists because these conversations should not only happen behind closed doors.

Tickets are now live

Tickets are now open to all.

GET TICKETS HERE

For our international community

We know not everyone will be able to make it to London.

For those outside the UK, or anyone who cannot attend in person, we’ll be using the Art Meets Culture Patreon to share selected State of the Art recordings, key takeaways and post-event content after the programme.

Patreon will give our wider community access to the conversations beyond the room, while also helping us continue building Art Meets Culture as a platform for talks, media, community and artist-focused programming.

If you cannot attend in person but still want access to selected State of the Art content, you can join the Art Meets Culture Patreon here:

AMC Patreon

The room is in London, but the community is global.

More soon,

Ade Sanusi
Founder, Art Meets Culture

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In this episode of Inside the Art World, Ade Sanusi sits down with Koby Martin for a conversation about faith, Ghana, painting, social media, legacy, relationships and what it really means to build a serious artistic practice.

Koby speaks about why he does not make work for the algorithm, why art is spiritual to him, and why artists need to build beyond visibility by nurturing real relationships, doing the groundwork offline and staying rooted in what they actually want to say.

The conversation also connects directly to Koby’s latest solo exhibition, Terroir, which is open this weekend at Sarabande Foundation by Lee Alexander McQueen.

Terroir explores the politics of land, inheritance and memory, looking at histories of ownership, produce and colonial exchange. In the episode, Koby speaks about Ghana, cocoa, land, colonial history, his mother, his grandmother, Street Fighter and how personal memory can live inside a body of work.

If you are in London this weekend, make sure you go and see the exhibition.

Solo Exhibition: Terroir
Artist: Koby Martin
Dates: 11th to 14th June
Location: Sarabande Foundation by Lee Alexander McQueen, 22 Hertford Road, London N1 5SH

RSVP here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/koby-martin-solo-show-terroir-tickets-1990168940876

Watch the full episode here

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In this episode of Inside the Art World, Ade Sanusi sits down with Louis, also known as Spraying Bricks, for a conversation about graffiti, street culture, artist management, brand partnerships and building a career outside the traditional art world route.

Louis’ journey does not follow the usual gallery or institution path.

He came through basketball, hip-hop, graffiti, street art, video production, branded content, artist projects and creative strategy.

That is what makes this episode valuable.

It shows that the art world is not only built by people who studied art history, worked in galleries or followed a set route. It is also shaped by people who understand culture, community, artists, brands and how to make things happen.

A big part of the conversation is about integrity.

Louis speaks about working with artists in a way that protects the work, rather than forcing artists to bend around a brand or outside agenda.

That is an important lesson for artists, managers, agencies and brands.

The best partnerships are not about using artists as decoration. They are about understanding the artist, respecting their practice and building something that makes sense culturally.

We also speak about Slawn, internet-native artists and why a new generation is forcing the art world to rethink visibility, influence and value.

Whether people agree with every part of that new wave or not, the shift is clear.

Artists are building audiences differently.

They are using the internet differently.

They are creating cultural moments before the traditional art world has decided how to respond.

That is why this conversation matters.

It is about alternative routes.

It is about street culture.

It is about protecting artists.

It is about building with integrity.

And it is about understanding that the future of the art world will not only come from the old systems.

It will also come from people who built their own way in.

Watch the full episode here

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We’re excited to share that artist Koby Martin will be presenting his solo exhibition, TERROIR, at Sarabande Foundation by Lee Alexander McQueen from 11th to 14th June.

For anyone in London, this is definitely one to see.

TERROIR explores the politics of land, inheritance and memory, looking at histories of ownership, produce and colonial exchange. The exhibition draws from the meaning of “terroir”, the way soil, stone, climate and geography shape the character of wine, and uses it as a way to question land, cultural identity and colonial extraction within Ghana.

Through painting, sculpture and screen printing, Koby connects Ghanaian traditions around palm wine and akpeteshie with wider histories of trade, labour, value and consumption. The exhibition also brings in the visual logic of classic video game culture, particularly Street Fighter, using combat, repetition, survival and character selection as a way to think through history, memory and generational resilience.

At the centre of the exhibition is Koby’s mother, who appears as a recurring motif across the work, opening up reflections on inheritance, domestic space, grief, rebirth and memory.

We previously had Koby Martin join us at State of the Art, where he shared such powerful insight into identity, storytelling and the emotional weight behind his work. So it’s great to see this next body of work come to life in such a considered way.

Exhibition: TERROIR
Artist: Koby Martin
Dates: 11th to 14th June
Location: Sarabande Foundation by Lee Alexander McQueen, 22 Hertford Road, London N1 5SH

If you’re in London, come through, support the work and RSVP below.

RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/koby-martin-solo-show-terroir-tickets-1990168940876

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In our latest episode of Inside the Art World, I sat down with Marine Tanguy, founder of MTArt Agency, for a conversation that goes straight into one of the biggest questions facing artists today.

How do artists build sustainable careers beyond the traditional gallery model?

Marine’s answer is clear. Artists need credibility, visibility and revenue.

Credibility means being validated by the right curators, museums, critics and cultural institutions. Visibility means reaching wider audiences beyond the small group of people who already understand the art world. Revenue means creating new income streams that allow artists to build sustainable practices without relying on one narrow route.

What I found powerful about this conversation is that Marine does not speak about artists as people who should remain hidden behind the work.

She speaks about them as talent.

In the same way athletes, musicians and entertainers have agents, strategies, partnerships and platforms around them, visual artists also need structures that help them grow, protect their value and reach wider audiences.

We spoke about public art, brand partnerships, visual literacy, AI, creative ownership and the future of the art world. But underneath all of that was a bigger question about access.

Who gets to see art?

Who gets to benefit from it?

Who gets represented properly?

And how do we make sure artists are not limited by systems that were never built with their full potential in mind?

Marine also speaks powerfully about the role of public art and why visual culture matters. In a world where people are surrounded by thousands of images every day, from advertising to social media to political messaging, art has a role to play in giving people something different to see, feel and think with.

This episode is for artists thinking about how to build sustainable careers, brands thinking about how to collaborate with artists properly, and anyone interested in the future of public art, representation and cultural infrastructure.

Watch the full episode here

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It was always about building a space for real conversations. Conversations that help people better understand the art world, not from a distance, but from the people actively shaping it.

Over the past few episodes, we’ve sat down with voices across the industry who each bring a different perspective on what the art world is, where it is falling short, and what needs to be built next.

helped us think deeply about systems, structure, cultural value and what it means to build a healthier art ecosystem.

gave us a grounded view of the reality behind running galleries, fairs and cultural platforms, reminding us that the art world is not always glamorous. It is work, resilience, spreadsheets, community, risk and a willingness to keep going.

brought a much-needed conversation around accessibility, fairness, artist payments, collecting and why the art world still feels intimidating for so many people.

Touria El Glaoui took us into the global conversation around contemporary African art, the creation of 1-54, representation, infrastructure, collectors and why African art is far bigger than a trend.

Each episode has taught us something different.

The art world needs more transparency.

Artists need more than talent. They need structure, relationships, confidence, community and access to information.

Collectors need to be part of the conversation earlier, especially those who may not come from traditional collecting backgrounds.

Institutions and galleries need to think more deeply about how they welcome people, how they support artists and how they build long-term value.

Cultural platforms need to become more than moments in the calendar. They need to become ecosystems.

And most importantly, the knowledge that often sits behind closed doors needs to be shared more openly.

That is the value we want Inside the Art World to keep bringing.

We want this podcast to become a place where artists, collectors, curators, gallerists, cultural strategists, founders, writers and anyone interested in the art space can come to learn from people who have built, failed, grown, experimented and found ways to keep moving.

We also want it to be useful.

Not just interesting.

Useful.

If you are an artist trying to understand how to build a sustainable career, there should be something here for you.

If you are a collector trying to understand where to start, there should be something here for you.

If you are trying to work in the art industry, build a cultural platform, understand the market, navigate galleries, or simply feel more confident entering the space, there should be something here for you.

That is the bigger play.

We are not here to just complain about the art world.

There is enough of that already.

We are here to have honest conversations, learn from the people doing the work, and use those lessons to build better routes into the industry for more people.

As we continue to grow the podcast, we’ll be bringing on more guests across the art world and wider creative industries. The aim is to keep widening the conversation while staying focused on value, insight and access.

We want to speak to the people building platforms, shaping culture, supporting artists, collecting work, challenging old systems and creating new ones.

We want to keep documenting what is changing.

We want to keep asking better questions.

And we want to keep making the art world feel more understandable, more open and more useful to the people trying to navigate it.

If you’ve watched, shared, commented or subscribed so far, thank you.

It genuinely helps us grow the channel and keep building this properly.

You can watch the full episode playlist here:

FULL EPISODE PLAYLIST

If you prefer to digest shorter clips and key moments from each conversation, you can watch the clips playlist here:

CLIPS PLAYLIST

Please subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven’t already. It helps us grow, reach more people and continue bringing in the best guests to share real value with the community.

This is still early.

But we’re building.

And every conversation is helping us understand what the art world needs next.

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The art world misunderstood African art for years.

Too often, contemporary African art was flattened into narrow ideas of “tribal art”, treated as a singular aesthetic, or placed outside the major conversations shaping contemporary culture and market value.

But that story is changing.

In our latest episode of Inside the Art World, I sat down with Touria El Glaoui, founder of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, to unpack the real story behind the rise of African art globally and why this conversation is much bigger than hype, trends or temporary market attention.

Touria founded 1-54 in response to a clear gap in the international art market. Artists from Africa and the African diaspora were producing powerful, urgent, globally relevant work, but the visibility, infrastructure and access points were not there at the level they needed to be.

What stood out in this conversation was how much of the challenge has always been about perception.

For many collectors and institutions, African art was not seen through the lens of contemporary practice. It was too often viewed through outdated ideas around anthropology, craft, masks and “tribal art”. That framing did not just limit how people understood the work, it limited how artists were valued, collected and positioned globally.

Touria also speaks about the danger of treating Africa as one thing.

One continent. One aesthetic. One story.

That was one of the strongest moments in the episode because it cuts straight to the heart of the issue. African art is not a single category that can be flattened into one visual language. The work coming from Nigeria, Morocco, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, the Caribbean, Brazil, the UK and the wider diaspora carries different histories, materials, references, languages and contexts.

That complexity is the strength.

But visibility alone is not enough.

A major part of the conversation focused on infrastructure. If artists from Africa and the African diaspora are going to build sustainable careers, there needs to be a stronger ecosystem around them. That means collectors, galleries, institutions, residencies, archives, scholarships, publications, local markets and long-term support systems.

Touria makes the point that success cannot only mean international collectors acquiring the work. If the majority of the work leaves the continent, then years from now we risk repeating some of the same problems that have shaped earlier conversations around cultural ownership and restitution.

That part of the conversation felt important.

Because the rise of African art should not only be measured by market growth. It should be measured by whether artists are being supported properly, whether local collectors are building collections, whether institutions are acquiring work with intention, and whether artists have the infrastructure to keep creating without constantly fighting for survival.

We also spoke about what the future of art fairs and cultural platforms might look like.

Touria sees the future as bigger than a four-day event. Platforms need to become year-round ecosystems that support artists, galleries, collectors and audiences through education, programming, travel, studio visits, live experiences and deeper cultural exchange.

That feels like where the art world is heading.

People still want to gather. They still want to experience work in person. They still want the emotional impact of standing in front of a piece, meeting an artist, entering a studio, or discovering something they could not feel through a PDF or screen.

But platforms also have to evolve.

The future is not just about selling work. It is about building connection, context, visibility and long-term value.

This episode is a reminder that African art is not suddenly important because the market is now paying attention.

It was always important.

The systems just needed to catch up.

Watch the full conversation here

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Make the work.
Develop the practice.
Find your voice.
Wait for the right gallery, curator, collector or institution to recognise the value.

That model has shaped the art world for decades. In many ways, it still does. Galleries matter. Curators matter. Institutions matter. Good representation, good collectors and good cultural partners can completely change the trajectory of an artist’s career.

But they are no longer the only route.

Across culture, creative power is moving closer to the creator. We have seen this shift before.

I started my career in music, and for a long time, the label system carried a certain mythology. The label signed the artist, developed the artist, funded the campaign, pushed the record and introduced them to the world. That machinery mattered. In many cases, it still does.

But then came a generation of independent artists who started to understand their own power.

They learned distribution.
They built audiences directly.
They understood ownership.
They treated content as part of the rollout.
They created their own worlds before the industry fully understood them.

The most successful ones were not always anti-label. They were just more aware of what they brought to the table. They were not waiting to be saved. They were building enough leverage to decide what kind of partnership made sense for them.

The art world is now approaching a similar moment.

Visual artists are beginning to understand that their power does not only sit in the finished work. It sits in their intellectual property, their audience, their archive, their documentation, their image rights, their story, their partnerships and the way they position themselves in culture.

This is not about rejecting galleries or pretending the existing art ecosystem has no value. That argument is too simple.

Some of the most exciting things still happen when artists, galleries, curators, collectors, writers, institutions and cultural platforms work together properly. The point is not that artists should do everything alone.

The point is that artists should no longer enter the room without understanding their own value.

The artist is no longer just the maker

The romantic idea of the artist has always centred the studio.

The studio is where the magic happens. The studio is where the artist disappears from the world and returns with something meaningful. There is truth in that. The work still has to lead. Without the work, there is nothing to build around.

But the reality of being an artist today is bigger than making.

Artists are now expected to understand how their work moves, how it is reproduced, how it is sold, how it is licensed, how it is written about, how it appears online, how it enters collections and how it is protected over time.

That is a lot to carry.

Most artists were never properly taught this. They were taught how to make, how to critique, how to research, how to develop a visual language. But many were not taught how to read a commission agreement, how copyright works, what moral rights mean, what happens when an image of their work is used commercially, or why selling a work and licensing a work are not the same thing.

That gap matters.

Because the business of art is not separate from the practice anymore. It is part of how the practice survives.

Self-sufficient does not mean unsupported

The phrase “self-sufficient artist” can be misunderstood.

It does not mean the artist who does not need anyone.
It does not mean the artist who rejects galleries.
It does not mean the artist who becomes their own lawyer, agent, curator, publicist, accountant and manager all at once.

That is not sustainable, and it is not the point.

The self-sufficient artist is the artist who is informed enough to make better decisions.

They understand what they are signing.
They know what rights they are giving away.
They understand the difference between opportunity and exploitation.
They can tell when a collaboration is aligned and when it is simply extracting value.
They are building an audience before the system validates them.
They are thinking about their legacy before someone else defines it for them.

That type of artist still needs support. In fact, they may attract better support because they are clearer on who they are, what they are building and what they will or will not compromise on.

The best partnerships happen when both sides understand the value exchange.

The shift is already happening

You can already see this shift in real time.

Artists are building their own audiences through Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, newsletters, podcasts, studio visits, open calls, artist led exhibitions and direct collector relationships.

Some are creating limited edition prints and objects.
Some are collaborating with brands without waiting for gallery permission.
Some are documenting their process so well that the story around the work becomes part of the value.
Some are using digital platforms to educate collectors, build community and show the thinking behind the practice.

This does not replace the art world. But it does change how artists move within it.

The artist who has an audience, a clear narrative, strong documentation and an understanding of their rights is in a different position from the artist who is simply waiting to be discovered.

That does not mean every artist needs to become a content creator. Not every practice needs to be loud. Not every artist needs to perform their process online.

But every artist should understand that visibility, ownership and communication now shape opportunity.

Complaining is not the same as building

There is a lot of frustration in the art world, and much of it is valid.

Artists are tired of unpaid opportunities.
They are tired of vague promises.
They are tired of gatekeeping.
They are tired of institutions asking for access to culture without properly investing in the people who create it.

But there is a difference between only complaining about the system and actively building alternatives.

The artists who feel most interesting right now are not just pointing out what is broken. They are showing what else is possible.

They are creating their own platforms.
They are organising their own shows.
They are building collector bases.
They are learning the language of business without losing the integrity of the work.
They are asking better questions before signing agreements.
They are treating their archive, image rights and creative output as assets that deserve protection.

That is where the energy is.

Not in waiting for the art world to become fair overnight, but in building enough knowledge, community and leverage to move with more power.

Why this matters now

The rise of AI and digital reproduction has made this even more urgent.

Images travel quickly. Work can be copied, scraped, reposted, reinterpreted and circulated without context. Artists are being asked to make more, share more and be more visible, while often having less control over where their work ends up.

This is why legal and business literacy can no longer be treated as boring admin.

Copyright is not just paperwork.
Licensing is not just legal language.
Contracts are not just formalities.
Archives are not just storage.
Estates are not just something to think about later.

These are the structures that protect the value, authorship and future of the work.

If artists are expected to operate in a more complex cultural economy, then the art world needs to do a better job of giving them the tools to navigate it.

Why Art Meets Culture exists

This is part of why Art Meets Culture exists.

Not to tell artists they need to become something they are not, but to help bridge the gap between creative talent and cultural opportunity.

We believe artists should be able to make ambitious work and understand the world around that work. They should be able to build relationships with galleries, brands, collectors and institutions from a place of clarity, not confusion. They should be able to protect their ideas, understand their value and see themselves as part of a wider cultural economy.

The future of the artist is not just about being discovered.

It is about being prepared.

Prepared to ask the right questions.
Prepared to protect the work.
Prepared to build an audience.
Prepared to collaborate properly.
Prepared to understand the business without letting the business flatten the art.

The self-sufficient artist is not the artist who does everything alone.

It is the artist who knows what they are building before the world decides what it is worth.

And maybe that is the real shift.

The next era of art will not only be shaped by who gets chosen. It will be shaped by the artists who understand their power early enough to use it.

Continue the conversation

This July, we will be bringing back State of the Art, our live event series exploring the ideas, systems and people shaping the future of the art world.

If you are interested in more conversations around the business of art, artist development, ownership, visibility, collecting, culture and creative power, join the waitlist below.

This is not just about talking about the art world.

It is about helping more people understand how to move within it.

Join The Waitlist

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We’ve just released a new episode of Inside the Art World.

This time, I sat down with , an artist representative and curator whose work is rooted in accessibility, fairness and trust.

What I loved about this conversation is that Georgina did not enter the art world in the traditional way. She came in first as a collector, then found herself helping a gallery rebuild financially, before eventually deciding to pursue the art world on her own terms.

That perspective matters.

Because so much of this conversation is about what the art world feels like from the outside.

The silence of galleries.
The lack of prices on walls.
The awkwardness of asking questions.
The feeling that you need to already know the rules before you enter the room.

But we also spoke about the other side of it, artists not being paid on time, poor communication, lack of transparency and the need for more fairness in how artists are treated.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wanted to collect art but felt intimidated.

It is also for artists who are trying to understand the business side of their practice, build their network and protect their value.

Georgina brings a grounded, honest perspective to the conversation. No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just a clear belief that the art world should feel more open, more transparent and more human.

Watch The Full Episode Now

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We’ve just dropped the next episode of Inside the Art World.

This time with Jacob Barnes, co-founder of .

What stood out in this conversation wasn’t just what’s been built, but how it’s been built.

From starting something scrappy in London to building one of the most exciting art fair concepts in the city, Jacob speaks openly about failure, resilience and the reality behind the scenes.

The art world isn’t as glamorous as people think.
It’s emails, spreadsheets, logistics and constant problem-solving.

But more importantly, it’s about:
- Building community
- Creating opportunities
- And rethinking how the system works

sits right at that intersection, bringing together galleries, artists and new audiences in a way that feels open, intentional and of the moment.

If you’re trying to understand how to build in the art world today, this is a conversation worth watching.

Watch The Full Episode Now

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