Artsicle, New Art Start-Up Offers Art For Sale, Rent

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 1st 2011 at 11:01PM

The world of online art collecting is expanding rapidly at all price points. The major auction houses and galleries have smart phone and tablet apps for easy access and a bunch of new start-ups have flourished appealing to younger or less wealthy collectors looking for a new way to buy art that feels fresher and less intimidating. The latest is Artsicle which launches this week. Venture Beat reports that the New-York-City-based start-up not only sells art but provides rentals for those in the New York area in a try-before-you-buy arrangement. Price points are low and the artists are ones that haven't hit the mainstream yet. Many pieces are in the $500-to$1,500 range with rentals costing $50 per month.

Other art start-ups which have launched recently include Art.sy; Exhibition A, which uses a fast sale format to sell prints; and the VIP online art fair which had galleries around the world participating in an online mimicry of destination art fairs earlier this winter.

Tags: art buying, art collecting, art start-ups, artiscle