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Curator and advisor Marlene Corbun shares what it means to act as a true mediator in today’s art world - guiding artists in the creative process, educating collectors over time, and building bridges between traditional institutions and emerging Web3 practices. With over a decade of experience, from White Cube and Christie’s to her current role as Head Curator at laCollection, Marlene reflects on how digital and physical art are not in opposition, but in dialogue. Her practice is a rare mix of care, precision, and vision for what contemporary collecting can become.
Some curators stay in the gallery world. Some stay in the digital world. Marlene Corbun has spent more than a decade building fluency in both - moving from White Cube and Christie's into digital curation, becoming Head Curator at laCollection, and consistently asking how physical and digital works can talk to each other rather than occupy separate rooms.
Marlene Corbun is Head Curator at laCollection, where she brings more than ten years of experience at institutions including White Cube and Christie's to the project of placing digital and physical art in genuine dialogue. She is one of the key bridge figures in the digital art ecosystem: someone with deep roots in established contemporary art practice who has committed fully to building the infrastructure for digital collecting and exhibition. Her background gives her credibility in contexts where digital art is still proving its institutional legitimacy - and her conviction about the importance of that work has not wavered.
The phrase "digital and physical in dialogue" is used frequently and demonstrated rarely. Marlene Corbun's work at laCollection is an attempt to demonstrate it - to create conditions in which works from different traditions illuminate each other rather than existing in parallel. This conversation explores what that curatorial project involves in practice: the relationships with artists it requires, the institutional contexts it needs to navigate, and the specific challenges of helping a collector community that is often divided between those who collect one way and those who collect the other understand why the dialogue matters.
White Cube and Christie's as formation
Fourteen years in major contemporary art institutions gives Corbun a foundation in institutional rigour, market dynamics, and the slow work of building collector relationships that most digital curators haven't had. She brings that formation intact to her digital work.
laCollection as bridge
laCollection's model - placing digital and physical works in the same institutional framework - is an argument about what collecting should look like in the next decade. Corbun's curatorial direction shapes how that argument is made.
Web3 as access and authenticity tool
The blockchain tools Corbun uses are not primarily financial instruments in her framing - they are tools for provenance, authenticity, and the kind of direct artist-collector relationship that the traditional art market makes difficult.
Caring as curatorial mode
The word "caring" in the episode title is not metaphorical. Corbun brings a specific quality of attention to her relationships with artists - one that treats their development and wellbeing as part of the curatorial mandate, not separate from it.
If you collect both physical and digital work, Marlene Corbun's thinking about how those practices can reinforce each other is directly relevant. Her curatorial framework for putting works in dialogue - across medium, tradition, and market context - offers a model for building a collection that is coherent across those apparent divisions.
Unlocked is the podcast by 100 collectors - the global network for digital art collectors. Each episode, we speak with artists, curators, collectors, and builders shaping the digital art world. No market speculation. No hype. Just honest, substantive conversations about art, practice, and what it means to collect today. New episodes release throughout the year. Find Unlocked on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 100 collectors is a membership network. [Explore membership →]
