Artists launch trust to fund pension

There's more good news for Indian artists hoping to play a role in the global art market as Artist Pension Trust arrives in India to sweep up 250 emerging artists under its aegis.

With all the speculating and conjecturing encircling the art fund space of late, here's one trust fund that professes to replace investor-welfare with the welfare of the artist. Not that artists have been suffering from a lack of market interest.

But to protect them from the vagaries of a market that might start rationalising or, god forbid, slow down, comes the Artist Pension Trust (APT). "We're the antidote to the short-term profit booking of art funds," says Bijan Khezri, CEO and president, APT.

APT Global has trusts operating in seven locations worldwide; Mumbai, Mexico City and Beijing make up their latest global ambitions. The financial services model, in principle, works on similar lines to a pension fund or mutual assurance society, but is structurally aligned with a barter based risk-management programme.

APT aims to have 250 participating artists in each trust place 20 works of art with them (APT will play the role of trustee and not owner) over a 20 year period, essentially allowing artists to participate in long-term value appreciation.

These works will be stored in "museum-quality conditions", until such a time when they are sold (when APT will retain 28 per cent to cover operational costs). But why not sell it now to make the most of a receptive market? "The art market moves in 20-25 year cycles. Obviously, recent developments suggest differently, but it will be only a matter of time for stability to return to the market," says Khezri.

David Ross, previously director at the San Francisco MOMA and Whitney Museum, and chairman of APT Curatorial Committees, says the trust is founded on primarily utopian principles. "No free market is fair but this is our way of making it equitable for at least a group of artists."

What he's referring to is the risk diversification involved in the partial sharing of sales proceeds among the entire group of artists -- 32 per cent of net proceeds, to be precise.

Crucial to the artists' career trajectory will be their access to a global promotional network. An additional revenue stream for APT is based on loaning out works of art to relevant museums and exhibitions.

Already 10 percent of the work, of 500 artists, accumulated by the three older trusts -- New York, London and Berlin in the last two-and-a-half years, are out on loan. Equally significant is that APT will make use of the global marketplace for selling.

For the first group of 25 Indian artists (the trust aims to have 250 by year five) that make up the APT Mumbai trust, a key consideration seems to have been the compulsive saving of artwork. "At the end of 20 years, I will have a historically representative body of work collected," says Sheetal Gattani, one of the participating artists.

The APT claims its focus is on selling a whole body of an artist's work rather than individual works. "We encourage depth of collection, so a reputed museum for instance, gets the opportunity to buy entire portfolios. That way we also ensure the highest returns for a body of work that will be "collected" in the best way possible."

And while it is improbable that the trusts will benefit from the participation of established artists, the risk of potential financial loss for the trust, is in truth, minimal.

The advisory and curatorial positions in each country are held by museum professionals, former gallerists and collectors with outstanding track records -- people like Lady Elena Foster, chairman of Tate International Council, David Ross, and illustrious artist Kiki Smith, among a host of others. Presumably, their collective power to not just endorse but create opinion is enormous.

One might be tempted to believe the Artists Pension Trust is little more than a potentially high returns model for its small group of investors. But one can scarcely be led to believe that it's just about the money.

Even less likely is the outcome that participating artists will not benefit from the association -- for the truth is that there can be no greater benefit for participating artists than the accumulated erudition of the trust's management.