Having worked as an auctioneer for Calmels-Chambre-Cohen, and then Pierre Bergé et Associés, which he helped expand in Geneva and Brussels, Frédéric Chambre has been with Piasa since 2013. As the auction house’s associate vice chairman and chief executive, he has quickly made his mark in the industry.Passionate for modern design, he introduced the genre at Piasa, reinforcing the auction house’s existing sales of Arts Décoratifs and design, which at the time represented one million euros a year in sales; this year, the French auction house had a little over 10 million euros in design sales alone in the first half of the year, with Chambre hopeful it can raise double that for the year.“The idea was to develop a distinct image for Piasa that would differentiate us from others. Design has long be a passion of mine, which I helped developed with Pierre [Berge] when I was associated with him, and I felt it would be good to look at design with a different eye, finding our own niche with a strong thematic. That’s why we’ve developed auctions around themes like Scandinavian design, Italian design, American and French design, and most recently, Brazilian designs. And under each of these themes we’re also creating sub-themes looking at specific designers like Peter Moos, George Nakashima, and Gambone Guido and Bruno,” he explains.“Today it’s important to create themes, and not wait [for them to be developed by others], because if you wait today, you die, you must be proactive. It is very difficult for an auction house of our size to be good in all subjects. That’s not possible. So to compete, you must be very good in some niche ones,” he adds.Chambre adds the auction house is still trying to develop its presence on the contemporary art market: “Last year we did seven to eight million euros and we would like to double that. It’s a lot, but doable.” But he also admits the auction house “has not yet found its niche” on that front: “There are already big players in the market, and it would be stupid for us to try to compete with them head on in that sector; the market doesn’t need other auction houses to do the same thing. But I do think that Piasa has a role to play in contemporary design, bringing its same eye and thematic spirit, and we’re starting to test that idea. We did the Support/Surface sale last October, which looked at the work of the French avant-garde in the 1980s] and tried to take on a very museum like position on what we offered in the catalogue with only 23 lots. We sold 22.”Chambre says the auction house is planning to introduce a new theme in the fall: Chinese contemporary design, with an auction planned on October 25, as well as further developing its Arts Décoratifs sale, particularly looking at 1880‒1930s.“I went to China recently and visited 32 ateliers in two-and-a-half days. We will only have unique pieces, some prototypes, or some very limited editions. But there is a common thread that surfaces in all these designs, a strong visible oriental influence, and I think that’s something important,” he explains.Amongst some of the designers included are Song Tao, Frank Chou, Lin Jing, Xiao Tianyu, and Design MVW. Chambre says he expects the buyers will be mainly Westerners, which he says, “is fine; the goal is really to show to our clients [in Europe] the work of young Chinese designers.”Asked about the biggest challenge for the next three years, Chambre says “to boost our contemporary art presence, to double our sales. That’s a priority.”The second challenge will be to have “external growth, with a new geographical presence in some strategic places. Not something I can really discuss at this stage; but yes, some representative offices, sometime in the first half of 2017.”
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