New art rental service launched for hotels

A branded Dubai art gallery has launched a new corporate art rental service to enable hotels to lease artworks and pay for them on a monthly basis.

ArtLease by Gallery One has been devised to enable the gallery to meet the needs of its hotel clients, often frustrated by budget limitations when it comes to artwork and accessories.

Gallery One director of marketing, sales and innovation Rupert Diss explained the rationale behind the concept, which offers a range of art collections with payments starting at AED 1500 per month over 12 months.

Diss, who has previously worked with Jumeirah Group and InterContinental Hotels Group, said: “Hotels have a line item list of stuff — bedspreads, curtains, TVs etc — and within a list of 400 items there’s an innocent line which says ‘art’. They’re all running around getting things built, talking about that chair, and what colour it is, and art is this thing right at the end.

“They apply the same thinking to those 500 pieces in the corridor as they do to the in-room private dining area and yet if you think about it, art is an enduring investment; it’s going to stick around,” he said.

“We refer to them as wall furnishings — everyone’s running around on furnishings but no one’s remembered wall furnishings. The only wall furnishing on anyone’s tick box is an LCD 40inch screen isn’t it?”

ArtLease therefore offers various collections of art paid for monthly or quarterly over a 12, 18 or 24-month period, all of which are stored at Gallery One’s warehouse in Dubai.

“You can’t have blank walls, it’s just not an option, they’re forced to do it so we’ve borne this out of a very dire need to help them,” said Diss.

At the end of the contract, the hotel owns the art, or can exchange for it an entirely new collection.

The main aim, said Gallery One corporate sales manager Ruth Kirwan, who spearheaded the programme, is for Gallery One to be able to better service all of its clients.

“It’s a longer way of going about it but an easy option for those that don’t have the budget for it,” said Kirwan, adding that it is a useful option for both new launches and refurbishments.

“You don’t really end up paying much more than if you go to one of our stores, we didn’t want to do that, we want people to come to us.”

The company has recently partnered with Kempinski The Palm, which used the ArtLease programme to supply the artwork for its iftar tent.