Say Hello To The Online Art Rental Market; Can It Make A Dent In A £50bn Industry?

Featured on forbes.com

A new generation of art lovers and buyers is emerging as having faced down economic meltdown, political insecurity,  a super competitive jobs market, and the hardship of getting onto the housing ladder, the offspring of the baby boomer generation are finally settling down, and thinking about what to hang on the walls of their homes and offices.

According to research from the Hiscox group about a quarter of all 20-30 year olds bought their first serious piece of artwork online. Around half of those who had bought said that they had spent more than 10k, and a quarter had spent in excess of £50k.

There is one problem, however; around 82% of respondents labelled not being able to physically inspect the art beforehand as the biggest obstacle to making a purchase. Could the solution be to rent it first?

This is what Scott Phillips and Marcos Steverlynck, the founders of Rise Art, believe. “We launched the Rental model to help customers feel comfortable about buying statement pieces for their home online” notes Phillips. “Art is a considered purchase. Seeing it in the flesh and in your home makes it easy to know if it’s something you really want to live with everyday”.

Rise Art is a professionally curated ecommerce website where you can rent or buy works of art. The pieces for sale are chosen by experts (there is an approximately 3% acceptance rate), and the site itself has a range of special features: you can create your own art personality by completing an online survey, (I got “sophisticate”), browse through an impressive collection of over 3,000 works from 350 emerging and established artists, make outright purchases, or “try before you buy”, and have a piece delivered to your home and pay a monthly rental fee. Should you eventually choose to buy, 50% (plus 100% of the first month) of the rent you’ve already paid is deducted from the final asking price.

Rise Art is expanding its offering to include Corporate Services, renting out works of art from famous names such as David Hockney to offices, from top city law firms to bootstrapping start-ups. Rental can be anything from double figures to four figures per month depending on the work or works requested and the length of contract agreed.

There has been a lot of research into the difference an inspiring workplace can have on employee productivity; a recent study by the Cass Business School in London showed 80% of those questioned felt that art in the workplace improved their sense of well-being, whilst 64% agreed that it made them feel more motivated.

Google are fans; “We really needed something to inspire creativity in our room for video creators. The selection from Rise Art was the perfect choice for us, and the reaction has been great from our creator community”, says Marc Joynes at YouTube. The corporate art market in the UK has been estimated to be around £204m, which struck me as smaller than you might think; the UK has recently finished building 6.6m sq. ft. of new office space, and the refurbishment and fit-out market in the UK, where Rise Art expect to be active, was estimated to be worth £7.1bn in 2013, expecting 2-3% annual growth. a gap in the market perhaps?

Rise Art is supported by a network of art insiders who personally curate the art which is featured on the site. Noted art collector Chris Ingram and media consultant Anthony Fawcett are both insiders, as are publisher Kathryn Roberts, anthropologist Julie Taylor and Annalien Bruins, COO and Senior Art Advisor at Tang International Investments.

I spoke with Meelimari Arro, who joined Rise Art last September from Rocket Internet Group as Marketing Manager. Meelimari pointed out that currently furniture giant IKEA sells more art globally than anybody else, which, and no disrespect to IKEA, here, suggests that RiseArt can gain access to a sizeable ma

rket. Aspirational 25-35 year olds interested in furnishing their homes with objects of beauty but preferring to “try before they buy”, with slightly more emphasis on female buyers than male, represent the target market, as well as corporates looking to wow clients and get the best out of their employees.

“Given that artwork can increase productivity, it makes financial sense too”, Meelimari explains. Managers are increasingly looking for ways to keep their star performers happy in order to gain an emotional, financial and competitive advantage over their rivals. Aracelli Camargo, a renowned cognitive neuroscientist, suggests this is the role that office art can play:

“an enriched environment improves performance in hippocampus-dependent learning tasks such as problem solving, idea generation, cognitive flexibility and therefore our innovation potential. In the context of working spaces, we should apply this knowledge to create environments that are stimulating and neurologically nourishing. A constantly changing gallery creates a more visually interesting space, making it more neurologically stimulating. The key is to use art to keep constant change in the space, so people feel that a space is alive and evolving. Any space without change can become un-stimulating with time.”

Click here to read the full article.