Comment by d--b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by d--b | Hacker News Reader

Ok, the website looks totally ridiculous, but this kind of patronship have existed since artists are a thing, so it’s not completely out of whack.

It’s a bit of a mixture between an art residency program and an art gallery.

Residencies usually provide a place to live/work for a given period of time, as well as some social circle (fellow artists, curators, collectors) for the artists to meet, and sometimes some money. They usually are charities and artists don’t give them anything.

Galleries usually provide upfront money to produce work as well as connections to collectors and a place to show their work and take a cut in futures sales.

The main issue is that the art world is allergic to the language these guys use, so they’ll likely attract not-so-good artists and may not be able to connect artists with the people who actually matter in the art world.

Also giving artists 30% of what they earned the year before is a really bad idea:

1. Because artists’ income is very unstable, so people won’t apply if they had a bad previous year.

2. And because it’s not life changing. An artist who earns 50k will be happy to get 15k, But it’s not going to allow him to invest heavily in his art. An artist who earns 300k is already well established and doesn’t need those funds really to produce whatever they want.

Also 3 months is very short.

My guess is that these guys will attract early-retired-tech-millionaires-turned artists, who aren’t turned down by the language, and who sell stuff to early-retired-tech-millionaire-turned-art-collectors. Expect a lot of AI-based work!

Inversion founder here.

Most galleries do not provide production capital, and when they do, there become arguments about who owns the work produced. It's a very bad idea and the savviest artists we've worked with don't let their galleries pay for production.

We already have 7 artists we work with. They joined us because the language we use on our website is totally transparent about our plans and incentives. One of them is a Guggenheim Fellow who has had two institutional solo exhibitions just in the 6 months we have been working with them. One of them invented the NFT and has work in the Whitney collection. Another has works in the Smithsonian, the Guggenheim, LACMA, MoMA, and nearly every other major art museum.

Regarding 3 months being very short. We work with each artist for 5 years. It's only the residency that lasts 3 months.

Look, I am not your harshest critic here.

It is great for you that you work with famous artists. I don’t why you’re being secret about who they are. I have a feeling that these famous artists did not enlist in your program but are advisors in your program. My guess is one of them is Dmitri Cherniak who’s really good and also the nicest guy on the planet, and he happens to have been through YC twice before becoming a generative art guy. So of course he’s going to try to help other fellow artists.

My general point is that with that kind of language, you will be appealing to tech-oriented SV-friendly artists, which is somewhat niche. If that’s what you guys want, then it’s all good.

Also: you’re wrong about galleries upfronting the production money, it is very common for pricey projects.

We're not secret about the artists we work with. I just didn't much care to use their names in a forum where people are being unnecessarily negative. We see it as our responsibility to protect their brand, not the other way around. I'm happy to answer questions, so instead of having "feelings" about who is involved and how, why not simply be curious and ask?

I like Dmitri's work and agree he's incredibly nice, but most "SV-friendly artists" are not going to see their work appreciate over time. Dmitri may be a rare exception but he's not one of our clients.

We work with traditional fine artists. Five out of seven are painters. One does conceptual work. Only one of them has anything to do with the tech world, and that's Kevin & Jenn McCoy, who minted the first NFT back in 2014. They, too, make mostly physical work. Our website shares two case studies.

I understand where you're coming from about the language. It has been a balancing act speaking transparently about the business and appealing to the sensibilities of traditional artists. But the program and the way we speak about it appeal to them because we're transparent, which is refreshing, and because our terms are very fair, thoughtful and equitable. We guarantee we'll hold work for five years, we pay royalties on profits, we promise not to take their work to auction unless their work is already auctioned regularly, and so on. These terms were all designed based on conversations with fine artists and a deep understanding of what's important to them. It's true that they are not used to seeing people talk so openly about the art market and financial incentives of art investing, but they are also not used to people taking such great lengths to design something that works for them. They appreciate our candor and it builds trust. Some artists are turned off by it, there's no question, but many find it a refreshing change. You have to consider that most are tired of the way the art world functions currently, and artists today have very different ideas about how it should work than artists even 10 years ago.

As for galleries funding projects, it happens, but most galleries except for the Gagosians and Paces of the world cannot afford that at all. Either way, it's rife with conflicts of interest and most savvy artists avoid taking gallery funding for production.

>The main issue is that the art world is allergic to the language these guys use, so they’ll likely attract not-so-good artists and may not be able to connect artists with the people who actually matter in the art world.

Exactly. No proper fine artist will be part of this because it would be embarrassing.

See my comment above. We are already working with seven highly regarded artists. Their works are in the collections at The Whitney, MoMA, LACMA, SFMOMA, the Smithsonian, etc.

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