Recap – 2016 ASA Personal Property Annual Connoisseurship Conference

ASA’s 2016 Personal Property Annual Connoisseurship Conference: The Sacred and the Profane took place March 10-12, 2016 at the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This conference promised to be an exceptional conference discussing and examining how appraisers deal with objects both sacred and profane—Bibles, Torahs, icons, erotica, crime material, politically controversial art—and the rules, ethics and protocols surrounding ritual artifacts. Participants explored the impact of these images spanning time immemorial to the contemporary art scene and present collector markets.

One of the panel discussions. Session title “The Profane- Discussion on the Contemporary Art and Collector Car Market”

The 14 presentations of panel discussions, keynote addresses, and special event tours proved to be an exceptional conference for attendees. Topics of discussion included, but were not limited to, indigenous materials, contemporary art market, Chinese fine and decorative art, tax policies, sacred and profane objects. All presentations proved to be educational and informative for attendees.

Special events included a welcome reception at the Bill Reid Gallery where attendees could reconnected with their colleagues over specially selected Canadian wines and appetizers. Attendees gathered at the University of British Columbia Museum Of Anthropology for a private, after-hours tour of the museum’s collection. Attendee Darcy Tell said of the tour, “The Northwestern art at the Museum of Anthropology was a revelation.” The Vancouver Art Gallery offered a private, docent- led guided tour of its current exhibition MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture. The conference concluded on Saturday with a special performance by Spakwus Slolem, translated as the “Eagle Song Dancers.” The Eagle Song Dancers are members of the ancient Squamish Nation, which has lived in the lower mainland of British Columbia for over 10,000 years. Their songs feature the beautifully carved masks that honor the spiritual powers of the animal kingdom. Ezra Tishman, an ASA candidate, said of the

The conference’s Sacred Closing Ceremonies with a performance by Spakwus Slolem.

performance, “I spent years living and working up in Alaska and have seen a number of Native American/First Nation ceremonies, but something about this particular one, accompanied by the brief but deeply respectful stories, and the connecting with the appraisal cohort in the audience, moved me in a manner not easily described as well as those around me. The entire conference was of a piece — and beautifully explored issues of sacred vs. sacrilege, culture, birthright and (re)patriation, authentic vs. “artifake”, and the often diaphanous if sometimes only cultural or syntactic boundaries between.”

To view photos from the conference click here.

What Attendees Had to Say about ASA’s 2016 Personal Property Conference
“About 20 years ago, I took a cross country road trip with my mother. One afternoon, she and I found ourselves in Arizona, standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, and, uncharacteristically, she was silent, for the longest time, after which she turned to me and said, simply: “I prefer to reserve the word ‘Awesome’, for things like this’.” And to this day, this set the tone for me as to what was, and was not ‘awesome’.

The 2016 ASA Personal Property Annual Connoisseurship Conference is proving, in all aspects, to truly meet my mother’s standards for awesomeness. The city is lovely, the venue gracious and welcoming, the speakers and panelists all experts in their field, the topic of “The Sacred and the Profane” fascinating, deeply powerful and exquisitely relevant to our profession as appraisers. And oh yes, the food and coffee are fabulous and plentiful, and the people in charge of laying out the spread, at the top of their game. Kudos to Edie Yeomans, John Henley and Laurene Sherlock for conceiving, planning and realizing a genuinely AWESOME experience!”

– Ezra Tishman

“The quality of the ASA conference in Vancouver was exceptional. The programs were engaging and expert, with little, if any, fluff. The hotel and food, just great. But beyond all of this, I want to give a shout out to my fellow conference attenders. Not only were they collegial, they were unfailingly generous, open, and accessible in a way that is extremely rare. That so much courtesy was extended to a more-or-less stranger just starting out makes such professionalism all the more striking.”

– Darcy Tell

A special thank you to the conference planning committee, chair Edie Yeomans, FASA; John Henley, ASA and Laurene Sherlock, AM; the conference marketing committee, chair Brooks Rice, ASA; Lise Johnson and Morgan W. Eldrige, ASA.

Thank you to Bonhams, our Gold Sponsor; Kersten’s Anitques, our Silver Sponsor; Hagerty, our Bronze Sponsor and Artprice, our Friend Sponsor.

Save the Date
2017 ASA Personal Property Annual Connoisseurship Conference will be April 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts.