How did the Madison Ancient & Tribal Art Show start and how did you get involved?

How did the Madison Ancient & Tribal Art Show start and how did you get involved?
I'm an African art dealer. After college, I went to Africa and ran safaris, started going into villages and looking for art. I speak Swahili. I’ve spent most of my life in Africa, since my early twenties. Over that time, I would go to Africa for 6 to 8 months, come here, deal the art in New York, and slowly over time, as I developed into a dealer and developed my tastes, I started buying at Christie's and Sotheby's and different auctions. So now I do these international tribal art shows. Three years ago we rented out a townhouse, and about five of us New York dealers and couple of dealers from the west coast did a show. And then the next year we invited two people from Brussels, and then it developed. This year we have 14 of the best tribal art dealers in the world. So here you have these dealers who have really good taste, and they have a good sense of authenticity, so people are going to know the pieces are real because these dealers are world-respected. While it’s a whole week of tribal art and the Sotheby’s auction is going to be happening at the same time, we’re promoting MATA, which is Madison Ancient Tribal Art. That's our group. Really elite dealers. Basically, this gives the young collector, or even the seasoned collector, an opportunity to come and see all different ranges. Whereas Sotheby's is really top top, we have less expensive objects. We also have the very expensive objects, but we'll also have more of a broad range, so they don't have to be in competition with someone bidding on a piece. [Photo via]
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