Accessing the world of fine art is a dream for many — little wonder when considering some of the sales that have been made this year alone.
Many paintings are now being sold at auction for hundreds of millions. One of the latest is Modigliani’s Nu Couché (Sur le Côté Gauche), a 1917 oil painting that was sold at Sotheby’s New York auction house mid-May for an incredible $157.2 million USD.
Over at Christie’s and Phillip’s in Hong Kong at the end of May, works from Chinese-French Modern master Zao Wou-Ki dominated the auction scene. At an evening at Christie’s alone, Zao’s work 14.12.59 made HK$176.7m ($22.6m USD), representing the third highest price for the artist at auction.
For millions who want to join the world of fine art investment, taking part in these auctions is an unrealistic ambition. However, this could potentially no longer be the case — all thanks to blockchain technology.
Blockchain makes it possible to participate in fine art ownership
Fine art ownership isn’t only a world for those who can splash the cash. Many also explore the possibilities of an art investment to preserve their wealth and grow it in an alternative market that is less volatile than many others.
There are schools of thought within the industry, though, that the nine-figure sales sum is becoming ever more common. While this may be music to the ears of some investors, and auction houses who make large commissions on items sold, it also serves to underline how closed the art investment market is to so many worldwide.
Very few individuals can compete with investors and art funds with hundreds of millions — even billions — at their disposal to invest in the world’s most famous pieces.
Maecenas ultimate goal is to disrupt that market.
Enter the incredible world of art with Maecenas
Disruption can mean a lot of things. From our perspective, we’re building Maecenas to diversify the market and open up a huge new array of options for individuals to have access to art, presenting them with ways to enter this world outside the traditional avenues.
For centuries the art market has stayed relatively unchanged and unchallenged. The Maecenas platform has been built to decentralise and disrupt this, using blockchain technology to offer an alternative to the auction houses and allow investors across the planet to buy shares in some of the world’s most well-known and famous works of art.
Maecenas is designed to create an art market without intermediaries, to make information more accessible to potential investors, to open new avenues of capital generation for galleries and collectors, to reduce overall costs, increase liquidity and — essentially — open the global art market up to everybody.
Find out more about how the Maecenas platform is set to decentralise and democratise the art world with blockchain technology by reading our briefing documents.
Originally published at blog.maecenas.co.
