Thanks to ArtsJournal for this:

A new for-profit company has formed in New York that will create a first-of-its-kind pension fund for artists. The fund, called the Artist Pension Trust, is designed to offer some retirement security for up-and-coming visual artists who are now in their 20s and 30s.

Instead of contributing money to the fund, the selected artists will contribute their own artwork to a trust. The artwork will be held for a number of years, then sold, with the proceeds going into the trust, from which artists will then draw their pensions.

But at issue is how does one guess who (in the 20s) will be a sellable artist in their 60s. Nonetheless, it is a novel and interesting idea.

There will be regional trusts in New York and Los Angeles. Each trust will have 250 artists. The artists will be chosen by a "prominent" group of artists, art professors and gallery owners in each region. Eventually, this outfit plans to have trusts in London, Berlin, Tokyo, Shanghai or Beijing, and possibly Miami.

Read the whole story here.

It may be fun to come up with a list of, say 25 DC area artists in their 20s and 30s, that we'd nominate for this Artist Pension Trust.... that is, if our area is considered for a trust fund.