A Conversation with Tony Parker
Virgil “Tony” Parker is a former professional basketball player turned art advisor and dealer. An Atlanta native, Parker recently moved back to the city to become the Sales Director at United Talent Agency’s (UTA) newest and second gallery, UTA Artist Space. The gallery is the company’s first space in Atlanta. FORM caught up with Parker shortly before the public announcement of his new role. We discussed his transition from full-time athletics to academics and advising, moving back to Atlanta, and the importance of being yourself amidst all of the noise.
Abby Shlesinger: How did your interest in art develop and turn into a career?
Tony Parker: In between middle and high school, I noticed Kanye West’s album covers and his use of fine artists. It always piqued my interest that he would use fine artists to convey his message. Did I think it was going to be a career? Absolutely not. I was just a young kid who really, really liked it. I never thought, “Oh, let's go to a museum.” It was never like that. It was pop art, or album covers, art that I would regularly see — I had the most basic level of appreciation you can possibly think of. I was a basketball player, so my whole focus was on basketball. It was just what I did and how I was viewed, and I was totally okay with it. I actually got recruited by Duke, so this is not my first Duke interview.
AS: What changed when you got to college? What made you think that art was something you could pursue as a career, or that it could become a bigger part of your life?
TP: When I got to school, I was really happy playing basketball. We studied, but it was different. I had a major but my schedule was focused around getting to practice. I didn't think of it as a career then, either. When I decided to leave school and declared, I got hurt. I tore my ACL and got sent to Alabama. I had to make a life decision. I didn't see myself playing overseas; I wanted to build a life. A mentor of mine in LA said, “You should come back to school, finish up, and help us with our art collection.” I'm not going to lie, I was like, “Absolutely not.” I think it shocked him a bit, as I already knew the basics of selling art because my roommate in college was (and still is) an art dealer.
When I went back to school, I thought that maybe I should do the art thing because I was bored as hell. I really enjoyed taking a dive into understanding artists’ mindsets and what makes them who they are. It kind of drew me in. From there, I started changing certain courses and started taking art classes. It just went on from there. I started to walk around with an art advisor, Emily Freeman. I didn't think I would be doing this, but those conversations really, really resonated with me.
One of the determining factors of me choosing this path was that I was learning about artists that were from Atlanta. I never knew this person, my homeboys never knew them. We didn't grow up looking at this, nobody exposed us to this, but they were telling stories in a way that we could understand. That's when my interest piqued. I could help some of my homeboys make better investments; I could help educate them and give them access to something that we were gatekept from. I was a McDonald's All American and top 25 in the country. A lot of my homeboys are in the NBA. They just wanted to have somebody that they could lean on and trust to make investments. And that's kind of how art advising became a real thing for me.
AS: Do your clients usually approach you, or do you reach out to them? How do you build your client roster?
TP: It’s a lot different than what I thought it would be. I didn't start off just repping a bunch of athletes. When you rep athletes, it's a different type of investing strategy. I understood that my athlete clients face a steep financial drop-off in their lives when they turn 35. So when I first started, I worked with a lot of UCLA boosters because I played basketball at UCLA. It gave me the chance to help diversify their collections, but it also gave me the chance to understand how the investment game works: a chance to see which pieces gain value faster, which pieces take longer to gain value, figurative work from abstract work, how museums collect work, and more. I wanted to learn absolutely all of that before I pivoted into repping athletes and building their collections. Now I do rep a lot of athletes, but I also rep a lot of black businessmen.
AS: When did you move from LA to Atlanta, and how has working from Atlanta affected your role building people's collections?
TP: I am from Atlanta, so it's been pretty normal. The pandemic was crazy in LA, I really missed my family, and a lot of things were virtual anyway. I was also confident because I saw how the art scene was growing in LA. In one of the first collections I saw, I walked out of the elevator, and the collector had a Carrie Mae Weems [piece] right there. He had a Carol Walker statue, an Ed Rusche, a Picasso and a wide range of old, African sculptures. This variety of work really drew me to his collection. One thing that he said to me that will always stick with me is, “When you do this, you're not just doing this for yourself. You're building museums for people.” Coming back to Atlanta, I understood that the access wasn't there for black people collecting art. Ultimately, it's not there because the institutions weren't what they were supposed to be. If the institution isn't up to a certain standard, then the galleries aren't going to be up to a certain standard. Artists base where they go off of institutional presence. That's why LA and New York are big art markets. Even if the institutions themselves are not well done, LACMA can put pressure on The Broad, The Hammer Museum can put pressure on LACMA, and they can all coexist. Just like the Whitney can put pressure on the Studio Museum, the Studio Museum can put pressure on the Brooklyn Museum, and they all can put pressure on MoMA. That infrastructure helped build gallery systems that kept in mind the presence of the museums in their areas.
In Atlanta, you only have one major museum and nobody is putting pressure on them. The gallery system is not everything you need it to be, but you still have this major market here. When I came back, I slowly noticed this. Atlanta is such a big market, and I realized that it could be way better — it should be way better. I could help build that. I wanted to do it in a way where I could include everybody. I didn't want it to be me coming here doing a bunch of dinners and posting on Instagram. When you’re building something and you're moving art from a certain place, you want it to be represented well.
AS: Do you think that you would be interested in staying in Atlanta and building that infrastructure? Or would you prefer to be somewhere else?
TP: UTA is moving to Atlanta. I got connected with UTA and have been working with them ever since. They have an artist’s space and have plans to push the arts in the city. I think that will help build the infrastructure in Atlanta. I'm not a person who's not open to moving, but I really like what UTA can do in Atlanta to help this art market, and I’m looking forward to being a part of that.
AS: Is your group of collectors now based in Atlanta? Or are they all across the US and you direct them towards Atlanta-based artists and art happenings?
TP: It’s kind of hard to push them to Atlanta right now. When I'm coming to a collector, I try my hardest to bring to them things that I think that they can palette. We expand their minds and see what they like. When people first get into collecting, they usually have no clue what they like. With my clients in LA, let’s go to Hauser and Wirth, let’s go to François Ghebaly, let’s go to Gagosian. Let's walk through LACMA, let's walk through The Hammer, let's walk through The Broad. It might take us a year to get through all of that, but in that year, we're building a palette. They’re starting to understand what they like and what they don't like, what's profitable and what's not.
If I'm working with enthusiasts, they want to be involved in the art world. They want their collections to be representations of themselves. Working with somebody that's aesthetic, he or she wants to have something that looks nice. That's perfectly fine, but they still have to build their palette. They still have to venture out, and you still have to grow their minds and understand what they like. Then there are collectors who are only investors. Even if they're only investors, you still want them to have stuff on their walls that they can tolerate. You have to take every collector through a learning process. It's harder to do that in Atlanta because you don't have the necessary institutions, whereas in LA, New York, and Chicago, these institutions and galleries exist. I don't necessarily push my collectors to Atlanta. I just push them to the art, but I don't push work on them. When we talk about collecting, I think it's a very intimate process. It takes time to build a collection, and it takes a lot of learning. It takes going to shows, going to New York, going to Frieze. It takes a lot. I try my hardest to help clients build palates at their own pace. That's the most important thing.
AS: What would be your first piece of advice to anyone who is interested in working or getting involved in the arts?
TP: I would just say be yourself. I think a lot of things in art are trends. Stay true to yourself, and you can mask those waves. Even if you miss on something, at least you're being yourself. Now, sometimes the facts are the facts, and you have to make a move. But I will say that if you're trying to engulf yourself into the art world, I think being yourself is the best possible way to go about it.
I'm a kid from East Atlanta. I had never been to a museum before I got to college; I was 20. I was probably 23 or 24 before I walked through an art museum and really wanted to see the pieces. I came into the art world trying to be something, and then somebody told me, “No, be yourself because it's important for people to see you the way you are.” I listen to Future. I love Gunna’s new album. I'm not some uppity guy listening to classical music all day. That’s why I always say be yourself. Because even if you don't think so, somebody is looking at you and saying, “If she could do it, I could do it.” Or, “If he could do it, I could do it.” If you are yourself, nobody can alter your vision.