MG: Artive’s mis­sion to help pro­tect the world’s cul­tur­al her­itage by record­ing and index­ing data for pos­ter­i­ty and preser­va­tion through the use of tech­nol­o­gy seems to be in sync with SmartStamp’s vision to become the new stan­dard for the pro­tec­tion against art forg­eries. How do you envi­sion this part­ner­ship shap­ing up?
AM: A shared vision is always a strong foun­da­tion for a long-term part­ner­ship, which is Artive’s ulti­mate goal. We are eager to build rela­tion­ships that will con­tin­ue to devel­op solu­tions for the pro­tec­tion of cul­tur­al her­itage for posterity.

Our work togeth­er starts with Smart­Stamp pro­vid­ing Artive eas­i­ly imple­ment­ed blockchain time­stamp­ing of our due dili­gence reports while main­tain­ing our inde­pen­dent data. We didn’t have to rewrite our sys­tems or con­vert to expen­sive and ener­gy intense smart con­tracts. We hope it will con­tin­ue by Artive and Smart­Stamp pulling our resources togeth­er to help cov­er a mul­ti­tude of poten­tial high-risk objects, such as illic­it­ly exca­vat­ed and export­ed objects, espe­cial­ly from con­flict-affect­ed nations.

In any case, we are thrilled to be part­ner­ing with Smart­Stamp, a com­pa­ny that also strives to make the wider art mar­ket a safer, more trans­par­ent, and more sus­tain­able place!

MG: We see the impor­tance of Artive’s work to shed light on cur­rent risks in the mar­ket and advance due dili­gence to the fore­front of con­ver­sa­tions, as well as to pro­vide proac­tive solu­tions to com­bat threats against our world’s trea­sures. What dis­tin­guish­es Artive in the cur­rent land­scape of data­bas­es and art registries?
AM: I think the tech aspect sets us apart. Our data­base oper­ates with inte­grat­ed image recog­ni­tion soft­ware and our due dili­gence reports are anchored in the blockchain. Anoth­er aspect that I think sets us apart is that our data includes records from all over the world, cov­ers all types of objects and many types of claims that could pose a risk to a safe cir­cu­la­tion and trans­ac­tion of the objects – from theft, legal dis­putes, and attached finan­cial liens to unau­tho­rized reproductions.

We strive to be com­pre­hen­sive, inclu­sive, and col­lab­o­ra­tive in our approach in rela­tion to the data that we col­lect and in the part­ner­ships that we pur­sue. And we can make change hap­pen rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly through the way we are set up, which is also a great benefit.

MG: Why should artists use Artive to flag their works that have been stolen, with­held after con­sign­ment, or oth­er­wise in legal dis­pute over title?
AM: We do encour­age artists to reg­is­ter their work, con­fi­den­tial­ly on the Artive Data­base, before any issues arise. Nobody likes to think about the worst-case sce­nar­ios, but as is with oth­er things in life, a good prepa­ra­tion can real­ly make a big difference.

In art theft terms, a com­pre­hen­sive doc­u­men­ta­tion will always help to estab­lish and ascer­tain an artist’s claim to the works in ques­tion. Maybe it could be also a deter­rent if artists could say to their gal­leries that the con­signed work is reg­is­tered with an inde­pen­dent non-prof­it art data­base. In any case, objects can also be added free of charge even after an event has occurred. Whether it is a theft with unknown where­abouts, a refusal on the consignor’s part to return the art­work, or an unau­tho­rized repro­duc­tion of an image — and there can be so many oth­er legal dis­putes — hav­ing the objects in the Artive Data­base means that they have been flagged as being claimed by the right­ful own­er. Any inquiry that is being sub­mit­ted against the data­base pri­or to a trans­ac­tion or loan or move that match­es the work in ques­tion is help­ing to locate and ulti­mate­ly recov­er the work to the right­ful owner.

MG: What would be Artive’s ulti­mate goal or ide­al solu­tion for safe and trans­par­ent art trans­ac­tions and cul­tur­al her­itage protection?
AM: We want to help make the world a more con­nect­ed place by bring­ing forth some sys­tem change – to put it very blunt­ly. The sys­tem we have at the moment has many weak areas that could be strength­ened with smart tech­nolo­gies and we want to con­tribute to an improve­ment in how we trade, move, and research our world’s cul­tur­al her­itage, and how we com­mu­ni­cate with each other!

Due dili­gence and trans­paren­cy in the art mar­ket — and the oppor­tu­ni­ty that com­plete­ly dig­i­tal IDs, AI, blockchain, and image recog­ni­tion tech­nolo­gies offer — is a com­plex and mul­ti-lay­ered top­ic, and I know I’m gen­er­al­iz­ing here, but that’s what it boils down to.

MG: Artive’s Open Access and Dig­i­tal Out­reach Ini­tia­tives embody your core val­ues and make your efforts tan­gi­ble to the wider audi­ence. Would you please walk us through your strat­e­gy mov­ing forward?
AM: Both our ini­tia­tives fol­low our core belief that data is here to be accessed and used by every­one. Our man­date is a glob­al one and we are com­mit­ted to grow­ing our dataset to include a diverse range of objects. Our respon­si­bil­i­ty is to cov­er ter­ri­to­ries and com­mu­ni­ties that have not been caught on the cur­rent radar of cul­tur­al prop­er­ty protection.

We also want to go beyond record­ing data; what are we going to do with all this data? How can we add mean­ing to it? We believe that by trans­lat­ing dig­i­tal records into knowl­edge we could encour­age safer mar­ket deci­sions in the future.

Artive is call­ing for dona­tions to move those two ini­tia­tives for­ward, we can’t and don’t want to do it on our own.