About
Manifesto
The Art Pledge is a call to galleries, artists, institutions,
collectors, and art lovers to choose to make contemporary art a meaningful force
for a better life, planet, and future.
The (definite article): used as a function word before a noun denoting time to indicate reference to what is present or immediate or is under consideration. Example: “In the future.” (Merriam Webster)
Art (n.): a diverse range of human activity, and resulting
product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of
technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
(Oxford, Merriam-Websters, and Lexico Dictionaries)
Example: “Art for social causes. Art can be used to raise awareness for a large variety of
causes.”
Pledge (n.): a solemn promise or undertaking. Example: “The conference ended with a joint pledge to limit pollution.”
A dot?
A period?
A point?
RAL 5021 Water Blue?
A reference to Art?
Planet Earth?
A Pledge?
It’s all of these at once.
Tap formula
#Buy meaningful art.
Bring back Contemporary Art to its essence: Archeology of our time.
Meaningful art is our ultimate quest, not only to try and better understand
our world and our momentary existence within it, but for one other good reason:
public and private art institutions around the world are also striving towards it.
Artist institutional visibility thus makes history, and creates the most tangible long term value.
But don’t just follow institutions: read, search, and act as your own archeologist…
Institutions may follow you soon!.
This is why The Art Pledge focuses on meaning (what an artist is telling us about our world,
to which key issues does their work echo?) and visibility (where, with who, and how visible
is this artist in the world), rather than decorative (we have all been guilty of starting off
by looking for a piece that would match our sofa) and speculative (a profit oriented state of
mind which is often disinterested in the actual artist’s career).
From established, mid-career or emerging artists, buying meaningful art
is not only sensible but also wise in the long run, meaning builds visibility,
which builds fame, which builds heritage.
#Impact defining causes.
Here is a simple idea: we collectors sometimes negotiate on the purchase of an artwork by asking
for a 10% discount on its price. What if instead of going in your own pocket, this same 10% went to
a cause chosen by the artist (made evident through their work or through personal commitment), and
to an NGO project chosen by you? Isn’t it exciting to personally contribute to a cause which matters
to the artist you love, and to create tangible impact yourself?
The United Nations, our common House, made of 193 nations since 1945,
has created a roadmap to navigate through these global causes with the
17 Sustainable Development Goals
for this decade: “the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for
all. They address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality,
climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice.”
#Make life better.
“Art is what makes life more interesting than art”
Robert Filliou,
1926-1987, Fluxus
member, former UN advisor.
In this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world,
meaningful contemporary art has the power to embody the essence of life,
as it has since some of its first traces at the Chauvet Cave,
which contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in
the world. Our ancestors decided to make that place a tribute to Life,
and living wild animals they were taking strength, courage, and deep
inspiration from.
With The Art Pledge, we would like to bring Art back closer to Life.
On one hand, we believe that living with meaningful art has the power to
inspire you, just as the Aurignacian humans were inspired, around 35,000 years
ago, to make the
Chauvet Cave
a tribute to the Living World.
On the other hand, allowing artists to give 10% of their artwork value
to a defining cause, wherever you wish for this to happen as the buyer,
will make human and nonhuman lives better, for it gives a supplement of
soul to your meaningful artwork.
We will deliver on what we promised, twice.
COMMUNITY
The 1st art x cause global platform.
More than a marketplace, a forum for art lovers and beyond “everyday do-gooders”:
issue and cause oriented, they wish to lead the change post-pandemic.
TAP will also follow in the footsteps of the seminal
artists4climate
project at COP21 by creating initiatives around causes or UN events.
An alliance of galleries, artists…
Komunuma,
“Community” in Esperanto, and the name of a site in Romainville, Greater Paris,
is where it all began when 3 galleries accepted our invitation: Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Air
de Paris, and In Situ Fabienne Leclerc.
The Community grows with invited galleries and artists, and soon with institutions, either private
or public, willing to make their own impact on social and environmental issues.
…North to South, East to West
Moscow to Harare, Tokyo to Santiago today. Our aim is to touch the art community in its diversity, so we have engaged in discussions with galleries and their artists in more than 60 countries. Because cultural identity is essential to us, our team mirrors the world’s major ones, in order to act as close as possible to each one of them.
MECHANICS
10% of every sale goes to an NGO…
Chosen by you, art lover and “everyday-do-gooder”, willing to add a supplement of soul to the artwork you just fell in love with, for a cause and in a place dear to you. The 10% donation is made either by the artist or their gallery, within the 30 days following each purchase, under supervision of The Art Pledge.
…among 7000 projects in 175 countries…
Thanks to our two NGO platform partners, Global Giving and TransNationalGiving Europe, we can offer vetted projects grounded in all cause front lines of the world. We welcome galleries’ or artists’ desires to partner with specific local NGOs, like Le Refuge wished by Jean-Luc Verna.
…on a cause chosen by the artist…
Committed artists and committed galleries go hand in hand. Creating conversations with these actors and discovering a network of cause-oriented people has only enriched our roster of invited galleries and artists. We wish to foster a relationship based on exchange and trust with our partners.
…within the 17 UN Global Goals.
The Art Pledge is proud to have initiated their use to connect every NGO project, GlobalGiving, TransNationalGiving Europe, and artist to them, a first for both organizations. A worthwhile challenge! We believe in their visual power to make these defining issues immediately recognizable, and transversal projects understandable.
GAME CHANGER
“Collectors are among the most powerful people in this world, so they have the power to accelerate change”
(
Founder Didier Saulnier in Larry’s List interview, Sept 2021
).
Become a Game Changer through meaningful and trustworthy content, a frictionless online journey with transparent prices,
a CO2 calculator and offset, and
Anti Money Laundering
(AML) automated checks.
New ecologies of knowledge
Artist biographies are written in house, situating the artist in context and history, completed with an Art x Causes lexical field, from sciences to humanities, using Wikipedia as a global source. Career highlights give a snapshot of the best solo and group show, collections, and media sources.
Facts better than fads
To shed light on an obscure art world, The Art Pledge is proud to partner with Artfacts, the world’s leading database “mapping the world” of art: close to 1 million shows from 750,000 artists, 24,000 galleries, 8,000 museums. Learn about an artist’s career, as well as their presence in the media.
Shipping at your fingertips
The Art Pledge has chosen ARTA as its logistics partner worldwide, specialized in high-value goods and collectibles. ARTA gives our customers instant shipping quotes from most of the key art markets in the world, and soon a “Free Return” option on 8 major cities.
Reduce CO2 for good
The Art Pledge is proud to offer the first CO2 calculator with The Carbon Accounting Company, encouraging lower CO2 shipping options. Shipments are offset through the protection of a primary forest in the same region as the NGO project chosen by the buyer.
No surprise taxes
VAT and import tax & duties are a gray zone for most of us. We wanted to offer a full price of the artwork, and to address the issue of taxes, we work with the best worldwide expert, Avalara, “reinventing how tax is done”. You’ll have a detailed import tax & duties estimate: no surprise!
Make your dream a reality
In order to give you a little more help to make your dream come true with Klarna, “you can buy now and pay later, so you can get what you love today”. In installments of 12 to 36 months, give your home its new soul!
Nothing to hide and it shows
The art world being the sensitive market that it is, we are seeing new measures to regulate sources of funding in the EU, the UK, the US soon, and independently with galleries willing to do good from A to Z. With Arcarta, we make Anti Money Laundering (AML) checks transparent, easy, quick, and secure.
OUR ROOTS
From Artists4Climate to The Art Pledge.
The Art Pledge is rooted in the seminal
artists4climate's
initiative organized on the occasion of the UNFCCC COP21
in Paris 2015, which culminated in the Paris Agreement.
14 major international artists joined for a 2-step action:
raise awareness through public artworks such as
Ice Watch Paris with Olafur Eliasson
, and simultaneously through a Christie’s charity
to support Latin American, African, and Asian NGOs and the UNCCD.
This 1,5 year project preparation, impacted by the terrible terrorist
attacks in Paris 3 weeks before COP21, in addition to a charity which
is not sustainable for NGOs or artists’ careers, showed the limits of
this model to our founder, who dreamt a more sustainable model, beyond
Climate Change.
Discover founder Didier Saulnier's
interview for Larry's List, and his
journey from a contemporary art collection, to art industry entrepreneurship,
and finally The Art Pledge: bringing Art closer to Life.
CREDITS
Brand identity, graphic and technical design, development and production by Out of Pluto. https://www.outofpluto.com