May 21, 2009
Investment art: Vehicle artist lectures at the Henry May 28
New Yorkers likely did a double-take when they saw a cross between a hearse and an Amish buggy weaving between taxis on Canal Street last month. The man behind the wheel? Artist Seth Kinmont, whose handmade electric cars are featured in an exhibition, Vehicle, at Bellevue’s Open Satellite exhibition hall through July 3. He will give a lecture about his artistic concept of investing at the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium May 28 at 7 p.m. Members get in free; general admission is $5.
Investing is the central focus of all of Kinmont’s semi-functional art. As a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the late ’90s, he observed successful investment strategies in IT startups in the nearby Silicon Valley. While most people think of purchasing art as an investment, Kinmont began to see investment itself as an art.
“The structure of investing was meaningful to me in terms of art structure,” he said. He began creating a set of instructions for investing, testing it with his own stocks and simplifying the method for nearly 10 years.
The result is a “kit” Kinmont is creating for others to learn and follow his investment model, which is art in itself. It consists of a three-sided maple ruler that displays the investment math he has worked out; a pocket ledger; a book in which one can practice trading stocks; a newspaper-print of investment charts; and a net-worth map to keep track of progress.
Kinmont has used the investment method, which also involves selling his art, in his own attempt to work from zero to $1 million. His latest work reflects the financial journey. “I’m going from one place to another place, so there’s a component of travel in there,” Kinmont said of the symbolic electric cars. “Currency itself is a type of vehicle as well. A lot of the motif work and the carving on the vehicle relates to the investment charts and the math.”
The Amish buggy/hearse hybrid, which Kinmont calls a “self-driven hearse,” embodies the idea that each person “drives” his own destiny. It is just one of three vehicles Kinmont plans to complete during his residency at Open Satellite, an exhibition hall that gives artists a space to create large-scale artwork. The others will be a two-seat sports coupe, complete with racing tires, and a four-seat all-terrain vehicle. Visitors can watch Kinmont work on the vehicles in their various states of construction, as well as view one-tenth-scale models and sketches of all three cars.
In his lecture at the Henry, Kinmont will introduce his idea for the Colossus Fund, a self-driven mutual fund for artists in which each member could vote online on which stocks to buy and sell. “When I was building the investment kit, I realized, ‘Oh, you could use this [investment strategy] in a fund for a lot of different people,'” Kinmont explained. “I’m starting to work my way from zero toward $1 million, and I’d like to, at some point in there, start the Colossus Fund so that it could capitalize and grow and become a larger and larger fund for artists.”
Vehicle runs May 20 – July 3 at Open Satellite in Bellevue, 989 112 Ave NE, Suite 102. Call 425-454-7355 or visit opensatellite.org for more information.
