Strategic Generosity: Collecting, Curating, and Championing Emerging Artists with Leslie Fram

In this galvanizing episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by Leslie Fram—collector, curator, marketing strategist, MFA educator, and tireless champion of emerging talent—for a sweeping conversation that summons the urgent need for innovation as well as entrepreneurial literacy among artists today.

Fram’s multifaceted career is an exercise in forecasting trends. Formerly a dancer with the NYC Ballet, Fram studied art at Parsons, founded a fashion design company, became the Trends Editor of Cosmopolitan, obtained an MBA from Columbia University, segued into early Internet enterprises… and eventually arrived in Los Angeles to engage with the city’s emerging art scene. Fram has cultivated a holistic approach to art, deploying business models from the various industries she has worked in. Marrying aesthetics with infrastructure, community with commerce, her approach is unique.

Fram speaks candidly about the genesis of her annual MFAs of LA exhibitions, a curatorial endeavor born from her desire to showcase under-recognized artists while removing traditional barriers to entry for collectors. She shares her exhibition experiments in transparency, scale uniformity, collector-artist collaborations and her belief in art’s ability to generate new forms of economic and social engagement. Fram’s insights are consistently bracing, generous, out-of-the-box and solution-oriented.

Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of how artists can reclaim agency in the marketplace, why building relationships is central to sustainability, and how Fram herself continues to assist emerging artists on their respective trajectories to success. Through direct mentorship, educating with her strategic marketing workshops, sharing information as a form of gallery-whispering, and many other modes, Fram is always advocating on the artists’ behalf.

Topics covered include:

• The economics of emerging art: why size, pricing and communal experiences matter
• Institutional resistance to business education in art schools: how Fram works around it
• Collectors: her plans to ensure new collectors enter the marketplace, offering artists more opportunities for sales; understanding that they are artists’ best supporters and how to build authentic relationships with them; perhaps, finding a different name for “collector”
• New models and formats: from artists’ managers to new apps and technologies
• The future: art sales, blockchain royalties, and the power shift away from legacy galleries systems

This episode is a masterclass in strategic vision, offered by someone who has not only built a practice around elevating others, but continues to do so with a rare mix of compassion, clarity and enthusiasm.

Guest Leslie Fram Follow her on Instagram: @lesfram

Host Javier Proenza