Emmanuel Perrotin, founder of the Perrotin Group — now present across four continents — brought digital innovation into the very heart of the art gallery, without ever renouncing the instinct and humanity at the core of his craft. A conversation with a gallerist who never stopped programming, innovating… and believing in the human eye.
Juliette Haller: In 1986, at 18, you developed your own gallery management software, long before the digital transformation reached the art world. Today, you lead twelve galleries and a full-time team of ten programmers. What pushed you, at such a young age, to understand that technology would become an essential part of the gallerist’s profession?
Emmanuel Perrotin: I don’t know if I had really understood it, but I had always been fascinated by computers. At 15, I was already attending programming workshops in my village on an Apple II, and later I managed to buy a computer called an Oric 1 — 68 kilobits of memory, which was impressive at the time. I saved my programs on my father’s tape recorder, and half the time everything got lost.
Then I worked for an engineer who was developing interactive slideshow systems for the Musée d’Orsay and La Villette. It was revolutionary: slides controlled by a computer. That’s when I realized that technology could help structure, classify, organize.
When I started working in a gallery, I thought the Bristol cards were impossible to manage. So I developed, on a Mac, a first management system using FileMaker. It wasn’t pure coding, but it was a database I improved every evening after work. It completely changed my relationship with the gallery.
Thanks to that, I could help artists manage their archives. In return, they sometimes allowed me to sell their works. I was 18, with very few resources, but this tool gave me real autonomy and a technological advantage that very few people in the art world had at the time.
You often say that “being a gallerist is above all a matter of instinct.” Today, artificial intelligence can analyse trends, anticipate markets, or process data. In your view, how can instinct and AI complement each other?
E.P: The difference is that AI analyses existing trends, while instinct anticipates the ones to come.
AI can detect aesthetic movements, dominant colours, recurring themes… but it does not grasp what makes an artist singular — their voice, their intention, their individuality.
Instinct is precisely that moment when you encounter someone whose work resembles nothing you’ve seen before. That’s what I’ve always looked for: artists who stand out, who surprise, who create their own visual grammar.
That said, I’m not opposed to anything. AI can help us — when it’s used properly. My teams are training with these tools. But my job is to remain a prescriber, not a follower. I’ve often supported artists whom everyone found “strange,” before they later became obvious choices.
Art is not about following the curve — it’s about creating the next one.
At Studio Bang during Big 2025, organised by Bpifrance, you said you wanted to avoid a world where AI “makes everything uniform.” Is today’s real danger the over-rationalisation of taste? How do we keep trusting intuition?
E.P: Yes, there is a risk of uniformity — but that also makes difference more visible. When everything becomes smooth, radical artists stand out even more.
Fifteen years ago, people blamed me for showing artists who were too colourful, too pop. Today, those same “serious” galleries are defending that aesthetic. Tastes evolve — sometimes in reverse.
To maintain diversity, I made our programming more collective: in my internal software, each team member votes for the artists they want to support. Their vote carries weight depending on their role. It allows us to mix sensitivities. Sometimes I accept an artist I wouldn’t have initially chosen, but I trust my teams. And just as they don’t always immediately embrace my choices, contact with the artist and their work often changes our perspective. I’ve found myself appreciating artists I didn’t like at first.
Intuition is something you cultivate collectively. And sometimes, it surprises you.
You were among the first to digitise the art market. When opening a space on eBay, you said you wanted to create “the scent of the art world.” Was this mainly a way to democratise access to art and reach a wider audience?
E.P: Yes, it is a way to make art more accessible — but also to diversify revenue streams.
I’ve always believed it was healthy for a gallery not to rely solely on selling artworks. That’s why we organise events, open bookstores, create pop-ups. In Las Vegas, for instance, we’ve had a space at the Bellagio for three years: far more than a pop-up — it’s a true cultural venue. It allows us to reach new audiences and bring them to contemporary art. In this gallery, which welcomes nearly ten million visitors, we open new horizons for people who might never have entered a gallery otherwise.
People sometimes leave an exhibition frustrated. Allowing them to buy a €20 poster or a book extends the link between artist and audience.
The eBay space follows the same logic: a more mobile, more digital way of consuming art, allowing a global audience to encounter our artists differently. It’s not consumerism — it’s a form of sharing.
Trust is central to your profession. Do you think AI — through traceability, certification, or artwork analysis — can strengthen that trust, or is it still something that only human relationships can guarantee?
E.P: Trust is everything.
On the primary market, there’s no risk — I’m not going to sell a fake by one of my own artists. But on the secondary market, it’s another story. Even serious galleries can be deceived.
Blockchain could help certify works, but the real challenge is linking that certification to the physical object. You could have a fake tied to an authentic digital certificate — or the opposite.
That said, the transparency brought by the internet and public databases has already changed everything. In just minutes, you can check past auction results. It’s a huge step — but human trust remains irreplaceable.
You often say that “real value resides in the eye.” Yet AI can see everything, calculate everything — but it has no soul. How do you maintain a singular gaze at a time when machines learn to quantify everything?
E.P: A gallerist’s eye is memory and emotion. It reacts to the works as much as to the people.
I know that some of my least commercial artists, like Claude Rutault, are actually the most culturally significant. It’s our responsibility, as gallerists, to defend that singularity.
Art is also a human adventure, a leap of faith. Replace that with algorithms, and you lose the poetry of chance. And without chance, there are no discoveries.
Artificial intelligence can analyse — but it cannot feel. And without emotion, there is no art.
NFTs were a “wave,” and now AI-generated art is another. Having seen many technological shifts, how do you distinguish genuine artistic innovation from a mere trend with no intrinsic artistic value?
E.P: NFTs were technologically fascinating — but disastrous in terms of speculation. People wanted to believe everything would rise forever.
True innovation happens when technology serves an artistic intention — not the other way around. I had already created video games with artists in 1996, or even a virtual museum project in 1988. We were very early, because it wasn’t a “trend” — it was exploration.
Innovation is not novelty. It’s what lasts.
What type of AI-generated art touches you personally? And if you were to exhibit an AI artist, what criteria would matter most in your selection?
E.P: What interests me most is interaction.
I was approached by a major American filmmaker working with AI — it was beautiful, but my gallery isn’t suited to selling photographs. It wasn’t the right context, and I didn’t want to use it just to generate buzz by claiming we were “ahead” because we were showing AI-generated photos by a famous director.
What truly fascinates me are immersive environments — works that react to the viewer, like a film where the story changes depending on the audience’s choices. That’s where technology becomes poetic.
And if AI manages to reveal something of the human soul, to spark emotion or reflection, then yes — it becomes art.
Une version française de cette interview est disponible pour nos lecteurs francophones.
Sources :
Perrotin Group: https://www.perrotin
Studio “Bang à Big” 2025 – Bpifrance, Emmanuel Perrotin interview on AI and Art (Paris, 2025): https://www.youtube.com
Master’s student in Digital Economy Law | M2 Droit de l’Économie Numérique
