New City breaks Artshare story

Chicago Sun-Times June 11, 1999 Kevin M. Williams Staff Reporter

Ben MacNeill has already achieved an odd sort of fame. He's better known on Wall Street than he is in River North galleries.

MacNeill is a Chicago artist and freshly minted MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As his first printmaking project, he has created small, three-color works of art that also function as share certificates.

Each "future" costs $5, but MacNeill promises to redeem any returned to him in 2004 for $10. The initial offering of 800 shares sold out to 135 shareholders.

MacNeill hopes that he'll never see these things again, that they will be selling and trading for far in excess of the $10 that someone could get by tracking him down and sending them back.

"I think that the perception is that art and commerce don't meet," he said. "And that's what people in the art world try to craft, that sort of idea. But I think that they are tied together. The very notion that you aren't supposed to profit by [art] is absurd."

MacNeill is continuing an artistic tradition that has been played out in some rather famous hands. A check from Marcel Duchamp to his dentist became a high-priced work of art, and Picasso used his autographs to pay for meals.

In a more contemporary project, artist J.S.G. Boggs created "Boggs' Bills," art that he crafted to look like money. These bills are used for various transactions that are documented by the artist.

Banking on creative futures, rockers James Brown and David Bowie both sold bonds backed by their future royalties. Bowie had a $55 million bond offering in February 1997 that received a fiscal boost from his fame.

"Other artists have made transactions part of their conceptual work," said Kathryn Hixson, editor of the New Art Examiner. "In actually selling shares, one example is Dan Peterman, who sold pollution rights shares as art. What I'm skeptical about with MacNeill is that it's not attached to fame."

MacNeill hopes that the shares will become collectible, but they also provide the impetus to work hard, to prevent his shares from being a failure. And because his sales rush was spawned by an article in Business Week, most of his share purchasers are bottom-line financial types who will want their money.

"Some people have made this hard-line decision that this is going to be a business transaction," MacNeill said.

These shares are genuine, legally binding documents that MacNeill is obligated to honor if they are presented to him in 2004. Coming soon to his Web site (www.artshare.com) will be information on buying and trading MacNeill shares, forming a secondary market for those willing to bank on the future of an artist.

MacNeill is considering a second public offering for 2001.

 

-- Kevin M. Williams