Chicago Art Leasing: Just in Time!

October 11th, 2010

Despite what the media might broadcast, I think this is a very exciting time for artists and a very exciting time for businesses.  In economic downtimes, people are forced to get creative and get smart.  They are forced to reinvent the wheel so it turns faster with less effort.  It is the time for the really creative to rise to the top and forge their path.

Still, regardless of the sort of opportunity tough economic times bring because much of the competition is eliminated, it takes a certain kind of person to open a new business, a new arts business no less, in any economy.  It requires a do-er, not a talker. It requires the rare bird who has both left and right brain capacities and it requires a workaholic who loves the arts.  Enter Josh Ginsberg.

Josh started Chicago Art Leasing in 2009 from the desire to support local Chicago artists while providing businesses with an affordable leasing option. Not only does Chicago Art Leasing offer economic art options, it allows each business to constantly change-up their collections, making for a much more interesting working environment.   This is good for business.  And if a business leases the artist’s work, the artist is paid over time for the entire price of the work while still maintaining ownership.  So the artist can make more than the actual price of the piece, doing away with the idea of the starving artist.   This is good for artists.    Chicago Art Leasing is such a simple and brilliant idea, it is no wonder, even in this economy, it is making traction when most businesses are still floundering.

Josh has an incredible background: journalism, sales, and finance such that sometimes he talks in ways that only a company man would.  When he mentioned to me the name of a recent article he wrote entitled, “Funnels and You”, I immediately assumed he was talking about the sweet, sticky big things you eat at summer festivals.  Being knowledgeable about business (graphs, charts, spreadsheets and I guess something called a funnel) isn’t a bad thing, of course, and the arts can always use the business-savvy in their corner.

Chicago Art Leasing seems to have hit on a goldmine of an idea that could finally make both business sense AND reel in money for artists.  It’s about time!

-Elysabeth Alfano


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