Project Proposal: Art Subscription Service

The aim of my project is to connect young art collectors and enthusiasts on a budget with the promising emerging artists whose work will most likely appreciate in value over time and who can benefit the most from a relatively small monthly fee. This service could be administered via several media, many of which might work in tandem, including: a monthly newsletter (whether electronic or print, or both); operating from a gallery space (perhaps beginning in a small unit in a well-known art district in New York and eventually expanding to other cities); from an office with little or no public display space with communication carried out by telephone, internet and/or newsletter; a monthly event where artists and subscribers meet in a new locale every time to interact and pick up the month’s artworks. In as much as this service works to connect art creators to art consumers, the client and audience are young and new artists, as well as art lovers on a limited budget, young collectors interested in starting a collection, curators hoping to connect these audiences, eventually even interior designers who’d like to connect their clients with young artists.

In the beginning, the project will be very New York-centric, providing subscribers with relatively inexpensive original artworks by local artists selected by local curators and gallerists, all of whom will be compensated for their work, with a percentage of the fee going to fund the subscription service’s operating costs. Eventually the project can expand to cover other urban areas by creating a network of participating galleries and curators finding artists in cities throughout the country and further. Further down the road, still, the project could offer specific genres of subscription services to cater to collectors’ tastes (ie. photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, figurative, abstract, video, etc.). The appeal of this art subscription service is that for young art enthusiasts and curators starting out, the fee is much more affordable than buying directly from galleries and a rotating set of guest curators ensures the caliber of participating artists remains high. For artists joining the program it offers exposure to collectors just starting out, who may very well continue to purchase the artists’ work as their career evolves. Finally, the simplicity of the system offers a clear and approachable way into the art market for artists and collectors who may be unsure where to begin.