Streamlining Event Operations with ArtXCloud:Consolidating Five Tools into One

MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY

MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY, established in March 2016, showcases contemporary art through a lens of gender and cognitive psychology. The gallery, which exhibits at domestic and international art fairs, initially relied on five different tools to manage its various operations. By unifying these tools into ArtXCloud, the gallery has significantly streamlined its daily tasks.

Managing Up to Six Fairs a Year, with Three Employees

Please tell us about your daily operations. The gallery team, consisting of the owner and three other staff members, handles a wide range of tasks, from receiving artworks from artists to preparing for and conducting fairs and exhibitions, including sales and delivery. Male staff members often take on more physically demanding tasks like artwork management and installation.

How often do you participate in art fairs?

The gallery participates in numerous domestic and international art fairs, with up to six events per year.

What do you value the most in your daily operations? The gallery places a strong emphasis on building relationships with both clients and artists. They maintain deep connections with their clients, many of whom visit the gallery specifically because of the owner, Kubota. For artists, the gallery prioritizes collaboration and ensuring that artworks are displayed in a way that aligns with the artist's vision. Given the high value and delicate nature of artworks, the gallery takes great care in handling them.

Previous struggles: consolidating various tools

What kind of struggles did you face before adopting ArtXCloud?

Before adopting ArtXCloud, the gallery used various tools for different tasks. For example, they used PowerPoint for catalogs and Excel for lists. While they could have mastered each tool individually, managing five different tools was time-consuming and inefficient. Moreover, creating each document from scratch was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors.

And what made you decide to adopt ArtXCloud?

The gallery had been aware of ArtXCloud for about three years before deciding to adopt it. When our workload was overflowing, we actively sought a solution to improve efficiency. A further visit from the ArtXCloud team led us to revisit the service and ultimately decide on the implementation.

Teppei Takeda, Kaiga no Tame no Kaiga 075, 2024. Acrylic on paper, wooden panel, 39.3 x 31.8 cm

Document Creation Time Reduced from 30 Minutes to Just 3 Minutes

How often do you use ArtXCloud?

Almost every day. Not only for creating documents, but also during moving artworks and data inputs. We use it about half of our working hours.

Can you tell us about the results you've achieved since introducing ArtXCloud?

By consolidating the five tools we used previously into ArtXCloud, we have significantly reduced our working hours. For example, creating various documents required for customer deliveries used to take about 30 minutes. Now, it can be completed in as little as 3 minutes.

Have you seen any other positive effects from improving efficiency?

Creating catalogs and lists for fairs is something we always have to do at the last minute. Since work is concentrated in the few days before the event, when we were using various tools, we often couldn't finish everything and felt overwhelmed. Since introducing ArtXCloud, we have been able to complete our work within normal working hours, even during busy periods before fairs.

Future Potential: Facilitating Information Sharing with Collectors

What do you hope to see from ArtXCloud in the future?

We think it could be used to share information with collectors. For example, instead of attaching image data to emails, we could exchange it directly on ArtXCloud. If information entered by the gallery could be shared with collectors in real time, it would be even more convenient.

What kind of galleries would you recommend ArtXCloud to?

We would recommend it to small galleries with five or fewer employees. Especially for galleries like ours that hold solo exhibitions and regularly participate in fairs, ArtXCloud can be a great help in managing operations.

Exhibition by Teppei Takeda, Marude, hana no youna, 2024.