Hello, I'm Josh Baer and welcome to the Baer Faxt Podcast. Today, we sit down with Jeff Poe, who recently announced that he'll be stepping back from his role as co founder of Blum Poe Gallery after 30 years helping to put LA on the map as an art city.
The rules are gone. The way things used to be. They are totally gone.
Give me a for instance.
It's just not the way it used to be. For instance, museums aren't as important any longer. Criticism is out the fucking door. Nobody gives a share of reads. Artists have careers that last five months, six months. You got the long museum selling at auction. I mean, these are all things that used to be like. You know, everybody would be clutching their pearls and saying, Oh dear, now it's like, this is normal.
In this episode, we'll look back at Jeff's career helping build Blum Poe, as he sheds light on how the art world has evolved from an insider's club to an international corporate industry. First, Jeff explains why he decided to step back from the gallery.
Jeff founded... with his partner Tim Blumenpo in the fall of 1994. I don't know if you realize that's just maybe two months after I closed the Josh Baer gallery. So I kind of see you as like, you know, my, uh, stepchildren that took over the helm and right at the time when that we created the Baer Facts. So welcome Jeff to our podcast. Thanks for having me. Let's get some of the, um, basics out of the way so we can get into the nitty gritty. Um, two things happened in the last month.
Um, you announced your new situation with Blum Poe. So I'd like you to explain what that is and why that is. And we were interested also because at the same time I wrote an op ed talking about when is enough. enough for people in the art world, in the art business. So first, what exactly happened in your words, and then why?
Basically what was going on is Tim and I saw the forward movement of the gallery in a different way. And he wanted to push it one way. I wanted to go another way. I feel a lot of, uh, just a lot of thanks that Tim is going to push it forward. He's keeping the gallery together. He's keeping the staff together. He's keeping the artists together. You know, nothing is going to change. The only change is that I have stepped back and I'm just going to move forward in different ways.
So that is what has happened, essentially. I mean, and I'm thankful for Tim for continuing this.
I was at the Armory Fair today and I talked to one of my favorite young dealers, Charlie Moffitt, and Charlie was saying and agreeing with me that this is kind of a win for Jeff. Well, as people are treating it like it's your obituary or something nefarious happened, it's, this is good news from where he was sitting, where I was sitting. Yeah,
no, I totally agree. I mean, look, we all have different motives of what we do in this business. And yeah, I, to kind of swing around to what you were saying a second ago, You know, what's enough? Like, how far do you need to actually go with it? And I know, for a lot of people, this move that I'm making seems completely unusual and strange, but from where I'm sitting, I mean, it's completely natural.
The way that this is being laid out, I feel is incredibly elegant and proper and correct, and just, I'm gonna move forward in a different way. You know, I said, in the press release, I just want to make my life basically kind of easier. And having a gallery, as you know, can be a stressful situation. And, uh, I'm just happy to be able to, like, take a step back from that.
To be sort of more specific, it's not waking up at 5 in the morning thinking, My God, I've got payroll of 50 people, I've got 12 Zoom meetings. What kind of thoughts were going through your head that you wanted to clear out? Yes,
there is a lot to deal with on a day to day basis from the gallery. There's also a lot to deal with in terms of strategy moving forward and trying to figure out how all those pieces are going to work. Because it's three for us, three galleries, you know, 40 something people, 60 artists, it's a lot. And I don't know, like, the being able to like kind of let go of that, I'm not sure what's going to wind up happening for myself in terms of how I'll feel about that.
Right now I'm still kind of in it, you know, still thinking about unwinding things and dealing with the gallery. So it's going to be a, it's a process, you know, and, and for right now I, I can't actually anticipate what's going to
be. But gallerists are either going forward or they're going backwards at any moment, I think. Do you agree with that? And the effort to keep it going forward can be really overwhelming?
I think it winds up for every gallerist is different. You know, who knows what their strategies are. Everybody has a different strategy for ourselves. It's really, of course, it always swung back to the artist and trying to do the best that we can and be able to have a proper platform to be able to show the work and do the right thing.
Well, for the artists, they're either going forward or they're being left behind. So the pressure from them is, where's my next museum show? When's my next big this, my next commission? They, they can't just stay in stasis. Right? No,
of course not. But I mean, the galleries, I mean, you said, does a gallery need to go forward or does a gallery actually, can it stay just static or, you know, the fear of going backwards? I don't know how people feel. I only know how I've dealt with it. And yes, I wanted to kind of like keep things together, not really interested in this empire kind of building. I find that completely strange. Um, but that's my own personal strategy.
But how does a gallery deal with 60 artists, two owners and a partner? It must be overwhelming. You'd think, oh Crap, it's February in Tokyo. What are we gonna do? And That's a force for growth But how much time can you spend with each artist if you spoke to each one of them an hour? A week, which doesn't seem like much as a dealer talking and artists they work with. That's 60 hours. That's five, 12 hour days. That's the old school.
When I had my gallery, I talked to every artist every day at 10 or 15 artists. That's the
old school, but that doesn't really happen as much anymore. There's liaisons who deal with the, with the artist and that's what the hell is that term? Well, no, that's the way it goes. You don't have the time for it. Yeah. Of course you'd reach out and talk to artists. You go over and do studio visits. You hang out. But, you know, once the gallery gets larger, you just don't have the time for it. Because the infrastructure needs to keep moving forward, you can't just like, spend all your time.
That's the beauty of having a young, small gallery, is you can actually really focus. Once things start to get larger, it becomes more difficult, like you said. Oh God, August is coming up in Tokyo, which is like the worst time of the year. Who are we going to throw in there? Like what's going on?
You know, those things, they need to be strategized a year ahead, longer, so you can kind of figure things out and how things are going to wind up unfolding, you know, and then the art fairs play into it now and it's complicated. Once it gets bigger, it becomes much, much more complicated.
But isn't it also true that the bigger you get. You know, when it was just you and Tim maybe, you were doing the shipping and he was doing the accounting and one of you was writing the press release, another one of you was cleaning the bathroom. That was all time taken away from art. So once you're a mega gallery and you're the owner, isn't it also true that you might be spending actually more time dealing with art and the artist because you're doing less time of all the other necessary things?
Not necessarily. No, not when it starts to get so big. Uh uh. No, you know, that's a problem It's like you get away from what you initially got into it for you know You wind up not having as much time for the artists and you wind up having to deal more with like I said Infrastructure strategies, you know, I basically did the back of the house stuff. That's also a huge advantage that we had over most galleries, is that we had this partnership and that we did disparate things.
Our kind of overlap, subset, wasn't that much. So we were able to actually kind of divide and conquer in a certain sense. And I think it really
worked. So going forward, are you going to be able to do just the things you like to do? Yes. Or are you going to be just like, hiking in Malibu?
That's a thing I like to do. I mean, yes, and of course I'll still be involved with art and artists. I don't know exactly what that looks like right now. You know, as I said publicly, I did the, you know, the real estate for the galleries always, and I like doing real estate, so I'm going to do that. I'm just going to be able to... Not have to think about what we're going to be programming in 24
after the break We'll hear from Jeff about the difficulties of keeping up with the competition as a gallery owner in the new era of the art world This episode is brought to you by art and tech innovator TR lab TR lab partners with artists Foundations and institutions to develop unique digital art experiences with an educational mission Visit trlab. com to see how TRLab is fusing blockchain technology with fine art expertise to pioneer the future of collecting.
The art world is a prudish place and a gossipy place. What's been the reaction from the artists you work with, your friends, and like, uh, the peanut gallery?
Absolute complete support. I mean, not only for myself, but also for Tim and Matt and the gallery moving forward. Like I said, we're all wired differently. So there's like this, this kind of shock, like, why would I leave? You know, why wouldn't I? I mean, it's just like, it's like, I don't need to do this anymore. And if I'm not getting enjoyment from it, it's just like, that's
why I wrote. Before this, when is enough enough? When do you have enough money, enough fame, enough challenge, enough creativity, that I think being a gallerist, you really have to commit yourself to, you're almost a fiduciary for the artist, to them first, it's very challenging, physically, emotionally, health wise. It's like, why wouldn't you, you know, take the win?
Yeah, to be constantly at service, is difficult. Yes. And that's basically what gallerists are, and they're serving the artist, they're serving the collector, they're serving their staff to make sure that they're, everybody's together. I mean, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot.
What about the competition for keeping and getting artists? That seems like a never ending battle.
I find that more of a New York centric You know, especially like what happened today or yesterday, I guess, with Beauvais leaving Zorner for Gagosian and there's chatter about it. Like, why would that happen? You know, LA never really did that. We don't steal from other galleries. Now it's an international situation and you know, that happens.
Even if you're Barbara Gladstone or Maren Goodman, you're fighting for new artists every day. That hamster wheel of that is how to still be relevant. Isn't that kind of one of the biggest challenges of a contemporary gallery?
We started this conversation talking about, you know, kind of music and shit. And I was in punk bands and the gallery's motto was play the game, change the rules. That's what we were going to do. We were going to do everything that was right, everything that we were supposed to do. But then we were going to show Merikami and somehow get in statements because we wrote something that nobody had ever seen before. And then get in there.
Statements being Art Basel. Yeah.
And, you know, do this insane show, which, you know, broke the bank, go for broke and see what happens. Just not do it in a certain way that was supposed to be. Done. We were going to do things a little bit differently. Come from LA, not be assholes, not be intimidated. There was a lot of intimidation in those early years towards us. That was kind of like, what the, totally stunning, but we never backed down. Now what's interesting is, is that the rules are gone.
The way things used to be, they are totally gone.
Give me a, for instance.
It's just not the way it used to be. For instance, museums aren't as important any longer. Criticism is out the fucking door. Nobody gives a shit or reads. Artists have careers that last five months, six months. You got the Long Museum selling at auction. I mean, these are all things that used to be like, you know, everybody clutching their pearls and saying, Oh dear, now it's like, this is normal. This is what happens all the time. You know, artists would stay with their dealers. For decades.
Were there contracts then? No, now there's contracts every day. People suing each other, then not that much now. Yes, I mean, look at Richard, look at Prince with Instagram and what's going on with that. Everything is kind of exploded. It's almost like it used to be kind of contained and then entropy kind of took hold and now it's all lukewarm. And all the old models are kind of thrown out the door.
Well, again, it comes back to money and greed, and I, for a while, I thought, well, if everybody's making more money, why don't they behave better? Because they have enough. And in fact, it seems to go the other way. It's like, the more you have, the more you want, and the worse you can behave, because it's about money. Isn't all the way you said about the rules come back to money? Yeah,
it does and connoisseurships out the door, you know, I mean that used to be a big part of it, too And it's like it's just shot.
Weren't you a bit naive in some ways at the same time? thinking like Murkami is interesting because I think of what he did that was kind of his exceptional which was the Louis Vuitton store at his show at mocha and that seemed radical and crazy at the time and now that seems like Louis Vuitton's got a different artist bag every three months.
Right. Schimmel had a lot to do with that, by the way.
I would say more than half of it. As chief
curator of MoCA Los Angeles, Paul Schimmel invited Louis Vuitton to install a boutique in the Takashi Murakami retrospective he organized in 2007. But it's,
what would seem radical then is normalized now. Right.
That's again, it's like what I'm saying, it's like things have just shifted and changed and how do you stay on top of the game?
After the break, Jeff and Josh talk about the differences between gallerists, dealers, and advisors. And what makes people successful in each role? Don't transact without TheBearFaxed. Subscribe to TheBearFaxed newsletter to receive the key developments in the art world and op eds from Josh Baer in your inbox each Thursday. Plus, special auction editions direct from the sale room. The only report on who bought what, and who tried to but didn't get it. Head to TheBearFaxed. com to learn more.
And check out our full range of content offerings.
What happens to the new iteration of like Goodman or Paula? You know, what does that look like as those galleries that were so significant kind of shift and change? You know, what steps up? Or you look at somebody like Arne.
Arnie Glimcher founded Pace Gallery, while Paula Cooper and Marion Goodman founded galleries under their own names.
And I'm talking about, you know, the older generation. But Arnie, who's a fucking genius, is still absolutely, completely curious, and opens up this small space down the street. I mean, that's a really super interesting... Like reiteration of what he's done over the years. It's almost like he's circling back to his early, early days, literally by taking the name of the gallery.
Well, I think what keeps me optimistic is that people really succeed. They actually love art. So Arnie's doing that because he loves art. And whether it's, you know, Tobias Meyer, when he was at Sotheby's and all the talk, he loves art. Larry, he loves art. Larry
Gagosian founded Gagosian Gallery.
And the people, they, they have all, many characteristics, but one characteristic that when people succeed in this business have is they love art. Do you think that's true or not true anymore?
No, I think that the people that succeed... They love art, but they love something else too, which is the artist. If you're a dealer, you have to love the artist because that's where it comes from. Like art consultants love the art and the money. Do they love the artist? Don't give a shit. Art dealers, successful ones love the
artists. Well, do you use gallerists and art dealer? Interchangeably. I mean, that's a term that took off 20 or 30 years ago. Gallerist to be a much higher level than, you know, somebody who flogs a third rate Frankenthaler. I've never
liked it. I mean, you know, art dealer of gallerist, we're art dealers. We deal in art, but I know what you're saying. I mean, just in terms of the language, you know, yes, then gallerist would be more towards loving the artist than an art dealer would be towards loving the art, you know. Well,
since I was an art dealer for a long time, and I'm an art advisor, what does that make me?
I think you love the art, and I think you love the money, but I think successful people who own galleries love the artist. Barbara Gladstone loves the artist. Arne Glimcher loves the artist. I guess Larry loves the artist. Some of them. Right. Tim loves the artist. You know, I mean, that's the difference.
And I would say for myself, I got to a position where that wasn't healthy for me, what I had to give because that love is a bit somewhat of a one way street. Mm hmm often and then I turned it into Yes, I want to love the object more because there's a lot of artists that I love. I just don't love their art Right, and there's some artists that I really don't like and I love their art, right I mean, can you, did you work with artists that you didn't like? Um,
not really. No,
no. Did you keep artists too long because you like them sometimes?
Absolutely. 100%. Do you regret that? No. I mean, the greatest success and the thing that makes me the happiest about. The legacy of the gallery was working with the artists that we worked with from the very beginning, like Dave Muller and Sam Durant and Annie Galaccio and seeing them get houses, have families, have lives. We all grew
together. Could you name a moment that you're most proud of, of like an artist career or
artwork? I can't really pin it on like one moment. No,
I can't. Maybe not one moment. Or one artist,
or one show, or one situation. I really can't. There were so many. I mean, there
were a lot. For me, I identify Henry Taylor with you. And I remember years ago, you did a booth in the Armory and it's like, You need to buy one of these Henry Taylors for one of my clients who collected work in that way. And I didn't get it right then. You may have thought I was blowing you off, but I was listening. And then you did a show in L. A. maybe six years ago in the gallery that was, like, full of installation and paintings that blew my mind. And now you see him at MoCA and all this.
I think what an achievement to have worked with somebody for helping develop that. That's the kind of thing an advisor can't do, and that those are the moments. That I think get harder to do when you have a mega institution. It is.
It's harder. I mean, the one that was hard in terms of that was the Colescott situation because it was in the state.
Known for his satirical approach, Robert Colescott was the first African American painter chosen for a solo exhibition in the U. S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. And
that's, that, having to like, re educate and create a market and, you know, do the right thing for the estate. That really did honestly come from a place of like, you know what, we've got enough, we gotta like take care of this work, we gotta take care of this legacy and not fuck it
up. I don't know when you started to work with them. I remember it was 17 in 1997, maybe being in Venice when he did the American pavilion. And I thought, man, the Europeans, they don't get this. They're just seeing this caricatures of, you know, sort of an anteromima thing. This is missing the mark. Like. Rarely has the mark been so misunderstood, and, uh, I thought, Whoa, that's, that was not that long ago. Yeah,
but as an art dealer or a gallerist, whichever term you want to take, the responsibility that comes with working within a state is a different subset, different way of working, a different way of thinking. I liked it because at that point, it was challenging. It wasn't the normal, this was something where you had to go back. And thankfully there was so much material to work with, and there still is. To be able to drive the narrative.
At the same time, too, to do what we're supposed to do, which is drive a market, too. It was really, um, refreshing for me.
Join us after the break as Jeff talks about how to deal with misbehaving artists, and how selling art has evolved from hawking works to placing them with top collectors. This episode is brought to you by art and tech innovator TRLAB. TRLAB partners with artists, foundations, and institutions to develop unique digital art experiences with an educational mission. Visit trlab. com to see how TRLAB is fusing blockchain technology with fine art expertise to pioneer the future of collecting.
And remember, In 1990, I hired a museum curator, well known, to be my gallery director. She lasted about three months. She never sold anything. She couldn't pick up the phone. When I fired her, she said, well, I don't understand the goals of the gallery. And I said, history and money. It seemed pretty simple. And that, that's what a gallery's goals are for their artists. What sort of code words would you use for... Mission of the
gallery to take care of the artist and just do the right thing. That's what we always did You just didn't want to fuck anybody up. You didn't want to screw anyone over you wanted to pay them You know I worked for galleries for years before and there was a gallery store work for Looking in the 80s and I saw him
get a shot to get dropped with me No, good. Okay.
I saw him. I saw him get a check for 10 grand and he needed the whole 10 grand He didn't give the artist five grand and then he was in the hole and that was a lot of money for him And then well now he needed to sell basically 20 grand to be able to give him back the 10 grand I saw him get in a hole really rather quickly And when we opened the gallery, I just said to him like the moment we get a check We're taking half of it, it's not ours, and we're gonna, like, that's it.
And that's why we fucking ate shit. Fifteen, twelve to fifteen hundred dollars a month for six years. And put everything back into the gallery. I mean, it was just really, really tough. Let me
ask you different questions, like, what about when the artist doesn't want to do the right thing? You've been in that position. I've
seen that. Well, haven't you? Haven't you gone into an artist's studio when you had a gallery and you saw something that was like, what the fuck are you doing?
Yes, and uh, my regrets are, I wasn't forceful enough to say, we're not showing this. Or I'm not supporting that. Or, I, I've seen artists just completely lie about what happened. And the gallerist is in as horrible spot as... My job is to defend and protect the artists. And what if they're wrong? Would you... You must have been in that spot. Of course. And then what? Well, you
gently maneuver them into seeing light, hopefully. I mean, and they can, and I think they will. And I think... The other thing is, is over time, as you have a gallery and you get a little bit more respect as a dealer, as having the space, then the artists will listen a little bit more. But when you're younger,
it's harder. And I think also, that's where having a partner really helps. Of like, talk that through, maybe I'm seeing this the wrong way. Not so much that it's two on one, but you get verification that, wait a second, I don't want to make that move. Even though they're trying to push me that way, we have to push back even at that. And I'd say a lot of the mistakes I made were from being alone. And not being, you know, as young, but also not being strong enough to, to say no.
Yeah. And with us, it was never, you know, good cop, bad cop. It was more like. Bad cop, bad cop. No, no, it was, it was good cop, gentle bad cop. And you were. Well, we either, it was interchangeable depending upon who it was. You know, we, we, we had to do that.
Another question about just partnership. Do you find that half the people only want to deal with you and half the people only want to deal with Tim?
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's natural, you know? And also too, it's like, there's language based stuff too. It's like a lot of the Asian artists like can't talk to them and Tim can, you know, it's like, that's just the way it works, but that's great. You know, it's like you go deal with that. And I mean,
every collector is like, you know, your specialty is young hedge fund guys. And the other one is like, you know, third generation. Well, I find that the other advantage of partnership is you find pretty. quickly, who's comfortable with what group. Yeah,
oh, absolutely. And, you know, even in the, like the higher levels, I mean, there are people that would talk to me more than Tim or whatever, back and forth. But I don't like selling art. I really don't. I don't enjoy it. Are you good at it? Yeah. I used to be really good at it and now. Well now the thing that's fucked up as another thing. It's like we go back to that question of like wide house, what, what, what, what happened? What, what are the changes that have happened over the years?
And one of them is, is that people don't sell art anymore. They place it, you get a list. You know, you throw out a PDF, 15 people come back for the same fucking thing. And then you just go through the list and you go, okay, well, and then who are you going to place this with? You don't have to actually stand in front of the work any longer and talk about it. There's no, that's gone. It's shot. So now it's, you know, it's become basically hyper driven commodity based.
And that part of the business is over unless you're back to having a small space and, or business
gets tough again.
No, even with that, I don't think so because now the business is too, there's, there's way too much going on. There's way, no, it's too, the fucking genie's out of the bottle. That never goes back and that's okay. It's just the way it's evolution. Well, it goes
back if there's 10 paintings and five people want them. It goes,
if there's 10 paintings and five people want them, yes, then you have to actually like figure that one out. Yes. And that does happen sometimes, but not like it used to be. I mean, when you open a gallery, if it was 1994, 1995, and people walk in You know, we would see we're not, we weren't in New York. We would see 10 people on a Saturday. That
would be it. And then I told her who Manny walked in and said, I want to buy that penny. You'd say, where do I invoice you?
I would not, but in those days it was much harder and you actually had to position the work in a way within a narrative that you could explain and you were comfortable with that. Touched on whatever you felt like touching on, be it history or, you know, just in that place, surface
of the painting and that placing of artworks. Do you feel compelled to do a sort of KYC of the ethics of the collectors? What does that mean? That means that I had an artist said, well, this guy wants to buy my work that he was out at for being like, maybe he's an arms dealer. Should I sell to him?
Right. That was talked about like money is money. Right. Larry was like, he said that in the New Yorker thing, you know, just make sure it's clean or some shit like that. Yes. There are people that are, that are bad actors. We haven't sold to bad actors that we know. Yeah. Yeah. But that you try to mitigate those situations, you know, when you're a dealer that this on the sales end of it.
Well, you're mitigating it also a little bit by the people at the front of the line or the people buying every show, right? Or the people at the front of the line, the most famous and the biggest now.
That's the sales part of it. Like I said, I didn't do sales that much in the last many few years. It's like, I just don't enjoy
it. And I think that is the thing about Larry is if he gets a message, I sold a print for a thousand bucks. It's like, yes, whether it's a thousand bucks or 10 million bucks, I think he gets a charge every time he gets a little ding on his spreadsheet or whatever, that anything was sold. And that's kind of like a constant with him for. Well, that's for
him, but I think that's a constant for any dealer that's successful. But you're sort
of implying it wasn't for you.
It wasn't for me, no. No. It's like, what wound up happening with the success of the gallery was like a byproduct of, it wasn't the goal. It was really like, let's just fucking put on a show and open it up. And then, So you're back to your
punk rock days. I'm definitely not doing that anymore. But in your mind, you still want to be Matt. In a sense, and now you have time to recreate yourself in this vision that you had of yourself as a young adult, right? Well,
it's, yeah, I mean, I was talking to Sam Durant when I told him what was going on and he was the first person I called and I was like, Sam, you know, you get to wake up every morning and be Sam and I get to wake up every morning and I'm Jeff of Blum and Poe with 46 people I've got to employ and 60 artists I've got to take care of in three spaces and all this other stuff. So I don't, you know, I still don't know what that will feel like. It's still not there yet. It's not
clear. Well, as I look to my next stages and watching, you know, my mom is 94 and she's still in the studio and what a luxury that she's able to like get up in the morning. That's what she wants to do. Believe me at 94. I don't want to be riding under bitter McRobbie and that's like, you know, a difference of being Sam. And being Jeff and I think it's like, you know, I just want to say thank you for 30 years of what you've put in to this business.
It's been important to the artists, to the art world, to the public. And we look forward to the next 30 years of whatever that might be. Even if it's like seeing you in some dive bar playing, you know, heavy metal again, I'll go. That will never
happen.
I wouldn't really go, but... Karaoke, maybe. Karaoke, maybe. I thought you gave up on all things Japanese. Anything you'd like to, like, say one last time to an audience so you don't have to answer these questions 300
times? No, no, no. You've been a sweetheart inviting me, I'm happy to be here, and, you know, you've always been around the block, and I'm glad you're still around the block. It's a good thing. And also, too, in different iterations, right? I mean, that's just the way the art world is. We all shift and change. You have in good ways, you know, I'm sure you've been happy about the path that's happened for you.
Thank you, Jeff, and we look forward to seeing you with a big smile on your face every time we see you.
Okay, thanks so much.
Thank you for listening to the Bare Facts Podcast, brought to you by the leading news source for the art world since 1994. Our host is Josh Baer. Our executive producer is Luyang Zhang. I'm Will Griffith, our associate producer. Our content advisor is Boliang Xin. And our editing team is Mona Productions. Special thanks to our guest for this episode, Jeff Poe. Subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts.
And check back soon for future episodes as we unpack the inner workings of the global art industry through exclusive, candid interviews with key players in the business. as they offer their perspectives on art and the market in the U. S., Asia, Europe, and beyond.