Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Five years ago, starting an art collection felt intimidating and unattainable to Miami native Chris Menendez. \u201cI was raised by a Cuban single mom,\u201d he says. \u201cArt was not in the picture growing up.\u201d Today, he is the editor-in-chief of LoHi Magazine, a new publication focused on the Florida city\u2019s cultural offerings and throughout his career has interviewed artists and attended white cube events. Yet he still felt like an outsider to the art market. \u201cUltimately, it came down to economics,\u201d he says.\u00a0Now, though, his home is filled with contemporary works by Miami-based artists: a gold-painted, treasure-encrusted sculpture from Loni Johnson\u2019s Visceral Pod Series (2024); a glowing textile piece by Michelle Lisa Polissaint (2022); an ink and gouache depiction of a ship by Beatriz Monteavaro (2023). All have been purchased through Commissioner, a membership programme co-founded by Dejha Carrington in 2017 that offers art-lovers the opportunity to acquire work by local creatives at a reasonable price point, bringing collecting to a broader audience.\u00a0Members pay an annual subscription fee, with different tiers to choose from. The entry-level patronage membership ($90) supports scholarships for arts educators and artists, and also includes Art Week passes and invitations to events and workshops. But it\u2019s the collector membership, arguably, where the fun really starts. Each year, up to 40 members, each paying $1,800 (or $550 quarterly), collectively commission four Miami artists, strategically selected at critical points in their careers. In exchange, they each receive four pieces of art, which are created as limited editions or part of a series, and unveiled at events throughout the year.\u00a0Up to 40 members, each paying $1,800, collectively commission four Miami artists. In exchange, they each receive four art piecesAt the point of signing up, members don\u2019t know who the featured artists will be or what the works will look like. \u201cYou are working with 39 other people to have access to and acquire work, and you need to have trust,\u201d says Carrington. \u201cYou also give artists time and space to create and explore new ideas. That is part of the contract.\u201dSo far, Commissioner has worked with more than 30 artists and commissioned $325,000 in new works. \u201cIn some art worlds, $325,000 could be raised by less than 10 people in one room on a sunny afternoon,\u201d says Carrington. \u201cBut the art world is a multiverse, and our intention is to do it differently.\u201dRecent art market reports focus on how the ultra-rich are buying less art, but creative strategies might help to tap new groups as future collectors. \u201cInclusivity and community-driven cultural engagement are all factors that could allow the gap between artists and collectors to be bridged,\u201d says art historian and economist Charles Moore, author of The Brilliance of the Color Black Through the Eyes of Art Collectors.Commissioner was inspired by African, Caribbean and women-led group saving clubs known as susus and is one of many initiatives aiming to democratise art collecting. Other models include LA interdisciplinary artist April Bey\u2019s Equity in Collecting Program, which gives potential collectors from marginalised groups direct access to artists, and online collector communities such as Salon, a decentralised, blockchain-orientated art fund through which people can collectively invest in major works.\u00a0Born in Montreal, Carrington has worked across various roles in the Miami arts sector. As well as running Commissioner, she is a board trustee of MAP Fund (known initially as the Multi-Arts Production Fund) and a professional advisory committee member of Miami-Dade Art in Public Places and the University of Miami\u2019s Center for Global Black Studies. Her focus, she says, is on \u201csupporting artists and building models for access in the arts\u201d.\u00a0When Miami artist Anastasia Samoylova \u2014 the first woman photographer in 33 years to headline a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art \u2014 was approached to collaborate with Commissioner in 2022, she didn\u2019t hesitate. \u201cAll I want is to keep being a full-time working artist until I die, and you need support for that,\u201d she says. Her exclusive photographic print, \u201cLooking\u201d (2022), a poetically structured image of a local storefront displaying traditional Sunday dresses, was unveiled to an intimate group of Miamians, many of whom remain friends and supporters. \u201cIt was like attending the cool kids\u2019 club; such a thrill,\u201d she says.\u00a0For the architect and designer Germane Barnes, whose work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, creating signature pieces for Commissioner allowed him to experiment with smaller scales and meet new supporters. \u201cThe experience brought me out of my comfort zone,\u201d he says.At member events, collectors can ask the artist questions and connect with the piece in ways that go beyond traditional art-purchasing transactions. \u201cWhen I think of Commissioner, the first word that comes to mind is community,\u201d says multidisciplinary Cuban-American artist Antonia Wright, whose sound installation \u201cState of Labor\u201d (2022) was recently acquired by the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami, and who will create Commissioner\u2019s first set of commissioned pieces for this year\u2019s iteration. \u201cIt adds a new layer to the art ecosystem,\u201d she adds.For Menendez, attending a \u201cCollecting 101\u201d Commissioner event taught by David Castillo in his Design District gallery altered his mindset. \u201cAfter that, I stopped fearing the art market,\u201d he says. \u201cWe loved the last piece [Beatriz Monteavaro\u2019s \u201cVoyager\u201d] so much that we reached out to the artist for another commission.\u201dcommissioner.usCorrection: this article has been updated to reflect the fact that Dejha Carrington is a professional advisory committee member of University of Miami\u2019s Center for Global Black StudiesFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Five years ago, starting an art collection felt intimidating and unattainable to Miami native Chris Menendez. \u201cI was raised by a Cuban single mom,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-152369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152371,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152369\/revisions\/152371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}