The try-before-you-buy policy, popular in the automobile industry, has moved into the art world with nAscent Art New York’s Art Taster’s Circle. nAscent Art, an art event- and consulting-based business, launched the Art Taster’s Circle a couple of months ago with the intention of letting art buyers test-drive pieces before purchasing. In practice, the program allows an art buyer to select her favorite artwork from a catalog of 50 emerging artists represented by nAscent and have the work installed in her home.
If after a month of staring at the painting on the wall, the potential buyer decides that the piece clashes with the knickknacks on her mantle, she may send it back to nAscent in exchange for a new piece. “It’s like a wine-of-the-month club, but for art,” says Jennifer Wallace, nAscent’s co-founder. Fees come with the consultation, installation and renting of the art, but nAscent deducts up to 40 percent of the monthly fees you pay to keep a piece in your home (the initial consultation fee is $99, rental fees vary) from the retail price of the artwork if you decide to buy it.
nAscent’s returnable art idea is atypical, according to some, because most people simply do not return art. “Generally, it’s just not something that usually happens,” says one Chelsea gallery employee who asked to remain anonymous, though he thinks that an exchange might be permitted if the piece were disliked by a gift recipient. Another Chelsea gallery worker in art sales says that art returns would be considered on a case-by-case basis. Instead of renting art, this worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggests that, “For a layman, exercise your eye for at least a year to develop tastes” before purchasing an artwork. He does admit that purchasing art can be risky. “You like shoes?” he asks. “You’re going to like different things in the winter than you are in the summer. Your taste evolves in time.” But shoes have an easier return policy, no? “That’s why people take a long time to purchase a work of art.”
