MEGAN LANE

AAB Productions, Inc.

April 2017 - Present day

 

AAB Productions handles event production for large scale charity galas. We organize the auctions, invite all the right people be it celebrities or high-net worth elite, book performers and travel, and then handle all the auction fulfilments afterward. AAB has produced events for amfAR, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Prince Albert of Monaco Foundation, and many more.

 

I had no idea what event production involved when I applied for the role but they wanted someone with experience in the art world and that I had. Everything else I learned along the way. The most important aspect about my job is keeping our clients and guests happy. It requires delicate communication, the ability to anticipate needs, and skill working under immense time pressure. I started working in the lead up to one of the biggest events my company put on - the Leonardo DiCaprio St. Tropez Gala, which eventually had an auction of 60 live lots and 116 online lots. I wrote catalogue text for dozens of these, which I absolutely loved doing. Then I handled all the fulfilments for the online auction which meant tackling the delicate process of asking people to pay for what they promised and then trying to find the cheapest and safest way to ship, which is not an easy job but one I took on with full force. I have done this job for most every auction we have had since. 

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I am the one my coworkers turn to when they need something tricky done fast and done well - whether it be getting art handlers to collect a work the next day or booking last minute travel for A list celebs. I have gotten very good at working in a quick time frame and I will forever be grateful for that. I am also the one that takes on the long-haul projects like creating an inventory of our auction results from scratch. Through this I got to know who buys what, what sells and where. It was an education in years of trends and that I digested in the weeks it took me to put it together. Now I am the one everyone asks if a work by an artist will do well or if a price seems reasonable for an item to sell. 

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I have taken on many more roles in my two years including working on the budget for a 115-look fashion show in Florence and managing the hair and makeup teams for the 80 plus top male and female models. I managed the complex contract negotiations for these teams to get the immense creative vision accomplished on an extremely tight budget. It was a hard experience but one that has taught me a lot about compromise - the value of it and the right ways to go about it. I take on more and more responsibilities every day.   

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Lio Malca Gallery - Intern and then Gallery Assistant

May - August 2015 (Intern) // September 2016 - February 2017 (Gallery Assistant)

 

I interned for Lio Malca the summer of 2015 and it was my first time working in the secondary art market, an experience that later became invaluable at my current role organizing auctions for charity galas. During the summer I interned, the gallery was opening up their space in Ibiza with a KAWS exhibition. I was asked to write the artist bio and press release and the owner liked my writing so much that he asked me to bios on Anish Kapoor and George Condo. It was a task I reveled in because it gave me the opportunity to use what I love about anthropology as a discipline and apply it to art. I was able to really hone in on my researching skills and became quickly able to assess the artist's ideology and precedent in art history and present it in a way that responded to the market. I was thankful for these skills when, in my current role, I had to write multiple catalogue entries at once with a massive time crunch.

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I then started working full time at the gallery after I graduated college in 2016. During this time, I learned a lot about how the auction market works and how to handle negotiations on pieces with private collectors. I lead the purchase of multiple KAWS companion works both large and small. The gallery was a small operation with just me, the director, and Lio, the owner, and I shouldered a lot of the day to day responsibility because of this. Paying bills, keeping track of expenses, and generally being the face of the gallery every day when clients visited. All the face to face interaction at the gallery desk has made me able to handle any interaction with poise as you never know who will visit. My major project while I was there, besides constantly trying to find good priced Keith Haring prints, was revamping their woeful inventory system that was inconsistent and for the most part not updated in years. I standardized all the entries in FileMaker and physically tracked down all the works in storage and recorded their locations. I was so thankful for my own work when a client unexpectedly came in and wanted to see this very particular work that I was able to find in no time with my location updates.

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Robert Miller Gallery - Intern

​February - May 2016

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Robert Miller Gallery provided a good mixed experience between the primary and secondary markets. I worked with a collection that comprised of works from artists like Lee Krasner and Patti Smith taking the two ends of the spectrum. This provided me experience on how to work with a wide range of clients to the serious, high-net worth collectors to super fans of Patti Smith. I utilized my computer skills to design and remotely curate the gallery's booth at the Dallas Art Fair on Sketchup. Furthermore, while most of the gallery staff was in Dallas for the fair, I took on designing the special invitation for the opening of the Lee Krasner exhibition and managing the guest list for the opening dinner. I also managed the sale of a few of Patti's works during this time. My day to day responsibilities included conducting a full audit of the inventory, which included over a thousand works, taking exhibition photography, managing the gallery website, and assisting with openings, including acting as a liaison for the artists.

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Indigo Arc - Administrative Assistant

June 2014 - March 2016

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Indigo Arc was my first foray into paid employment and within a month of my starting I was promoting the company's software platform at an international conference to potential clients. Beyond this, my day to day responsibilities included managing income and expenses (collecting timecards from the team of 15 subcontractors, reconciling timecards with the company's clients, coding expenses, and organizing books in preparation for taxation), conducting system testing on the software platform, and building web scripts. I had no previous experience in web design or testing but I was able to hit the ground running and built my first web script within hours of me walking in on the first day. 

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Brian Morris Gallery - Intern

September - December 2014

During my first internship at an art gallery I was quickly entrusted with the administration of the gallery and managed the day to day operations on my own for most of my internship including building relationships with artists and potential clients. I also managed the marketing efforts for exhibitions including interviewing arts and curators for press materials, designing invitations, and writing press releases. I also spearheaded the social media accounts utilizing Instagram and Facebook to highlight specific artists and continue interest in ongoing exhibitions. 

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