A new digital venture invites the public to fund the production of works of art—and share the profits if the work sells. art:i:curate, which launches officially this month, features more than 2,000 works priced between $300 and $15,000 by 150 emerging artists.
Individuals can partially or wholly fund the production of a work for 40% of the purchase price. If the work sells on art:i:curate’s online platform or at one of its exhibitions, the company takes a 12% cut, the artist receives 26.4% and the co-producers receive 61.6%.
Nur Elektra El Shami, a former fashion executive who co-founded the company with the investment banker Irina Turcan, hopes the model will encourage patronage in today’s speculative art market. “Instead of receiving a poster or a T-shirt, as you would from Kickstarter, your potential reward is financial,” she says. Projects that have been partially funded since the site’s beta launch in May include a telescope that converts light waves to sound by the San Francisco-based designers SuperDuperStudio (8% of its $3,200 target).
Meanwhile, the established crowdfunding platform Kickstarter is out in force in Basel this week. The organisation, which officially launched in Switzerland on 16 June, has set up a crowdfunding lab at the Messe Basel. Since Art Basel launched a partnership with Kickstarter in September 2014, 2,290 backers have raised more than $370,000 for a host of non-profit initiatives.
