INTERVIEW: JOHN DOFFING

Have one look at John Doffing's bio and you know he's a busy man. His involvement with many successful business ventures reveals he is a marketing man by nature. It's also remarkable that the more progress he made the more he tried to combine his love for art with doing business. He started an art hotel in San Francisco and he initiated a service called STARTMOBILE for mobile phone users to download wallpapers designed by emerging artists from all over the world. And his office is located in an art gallery! A businessman connected with art by heart. Intriguing. Enough reason to try find out what is driving him.

Can you tell bit more about the artist that must be hiding somewhere inside you?

"I am just a high tech entrepreneur who was alienated by the 'traditional' art world. So I tried to create something new + different to showcase the sort of art that I personally loved. It is my firm belief that ART should be for EVERYONE. With our first gallery - START SOMA - I had absolutely no interest in creating yet another pretentious white cube, selling overpriced canvases to folks sipping boxed wine and nibbling brie. So I set out to bridge the gap between emerging artists and new collectors, and have some fun in the process. Whether it is commissioning street artists to paint the walls in a downtown hotel, creating giant art shows in empty warehouse space featuring hundreds of emerging artists exhibiting amidst DJs, bands, and fashion shows, or bringing NEW ART to mobile devices via START MOBILE, my goals in this area have always been VERY simple: I want to bring NEW ART to the widest possible audience and create new collectors.

"There was no grand 'master plan' - over the past few years, I simply showed the art that I personally loved, and as a marketing guy, I tried to bring this art to the widest possible audience. We put on some pretty nice events, but even our biggest art shows were seen by only a few thousand people. The mobile medium presented a unique way to dramatically expand the potential audience for the artists that we were already showing.

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