New City breaks Artshare story

BusinessWeek May 10, 1999 by Joan Oleck

BusinessWeek writes:

It was a curious stock deal that art student Ben MacNeill brought before the Securities & Exchange Commission last fall. He wanted to go to the market--not the NYSE or NASDAQ but the Internet. The offering? Eight hundred shares of, well, himself.

The payoff: double the stock's $5 face value in five years--a compound growth rate of about 14.4% annually. The guarantee works like an IOU, MacNeill says. He hopes to avoid paying out of pocket as the certificates--which he lovingly printed--appreciate as works of art.

It's a long shot. Besides raising cash, the project, posted at www.artshare.com, is MacNeill's Master's of Fine Arts project. He graduates from the Art Institute of Chicago in May. The certificates, exhibited there in April, are ''conceptual art,'' representing the merging of art and commerce.

Viewers don't get it, MacNeill sighs. ''They didn't recognize the shares as a discrete work of art.'' Many thought the stock represented shares in MacNeill's paintings. And so far, he has only 169 buyers for 800 shares.

The SEC's take? A spokesman says: ''Although we're not in dispute as to whether this is art, this is a security.'' The spokesman adds that, art or not, MacNeill's project had better make good on its fiduciary promise.

 

-- Joan Oleck