Modern Art Share - The pitch

Tired of your Monet? Like to swap it for a Renoir? With Modern Art Share, you can rent out your art and enjoy the art of others in the meantime. The best part is, if your art is in demand, you can make money while still getting to keep beautiful art in your home. Modern Art Share handles all of the transportation and insurance. You just say what piece you want to rent out and Modern Art Share takes care of the rest.

Modern Art Share - The hard part

The key to MAS is making everything seamless and simple for those renting out the art and those receiving it. The people who would rent out their art are used to high-end services and MAS would have to be very focused on customer service.

Modern Art Share - The growth potential

The amount of revenue MAS would make depends on the amount of art in circulation. Just one art middleman, Sotheby’s, sold over a billion dollars in art last year. There is probably more than $100 billion in art that would be viable for circulation. If MAS got 10% of that, that would amount to $100 million a month or over a billion dollars in revenue per year.

Modern Art Share - The monetization

MAS makes money by charging people rental and transport fees for the art they are renting. The monthly rental price will be roughly 2% of appraisal price, half would go to the owner, the other half to MAS. MAS could also be a middleman for art sales if someone really likes a piece they are renting.

Modern Art Share - The idea

You love your paintings, but you’d also like to change things up from time to time. You set up appointments for Modern Art Share to pick up your painting and to deliver your new piece. An MAS representative shows up, evaluates the condition of your painting, gets your signoff, and takes it away for someone else’s later enjoyment. A few days later another representative will stop by to drop off the art you will be borrowing. You repeat the process of swapping art every few months until you want your originals back.

The process is fairly simple. When everything goes well, MAS picks up a piece of art and ships it to a customer or takes it to a warehouse for temporary storage. Renting art has two part pricing: a mostly fixed cost for delivering and taking back the art, and the rental cost per month of the piece. The monthly cost will be dependent on the value and demand for the piece. The prices could range from $100 to $1,000 a month for various pieces. If you let someone borrow a piece, you get to take a cut of revenue (about 50%).  Art owners could also keep their art in their houses until someone wants to rent it, and only ship it out at that point.

One important aspect would be damages. It’s important that each piece is appraised before any transaction occurs so that the necessary level of care can be determined and any impacts to the piece can be documented at all stages. In particular, the condition of the piece should be precisely determined before it’s shipped because small accidents during transport or in the renter’s home could result in large value losses. It would make sense for an MAS representative to come by to see the piece before it is moved so that it can be appraised and so that high quality pictures can be taken so others can decide if they’d like to rent it.

Modern Art Share - The motiviation

You know you've made it when you can own original pieces of art. Well, at least, you’ll feel like you made it. The downside of owning a nice piece of art is that looking at it gets a little boring after a while. It would be nice to still own the art, but get to see other nice pieces from time to time.