With a Ukrainian app called Cittart, everyone can buy a painting of a local artist in just a few clicks.
Founded by Ukrainian painter Daryna Mo Mot and tech specialist George Vardanyan, Cittart looks like a social network for those who love art.
Local artists can create their profiles there and publish photos of sculptures or paintings with a short description and a price tag. To avoid fraud, Cittart reviews artists’ profiles before allowing them to trade online.
To find a perfect piece of art, customers can sort artworks by size, style, painting technique and price. They have to pay 15% of the whole price in advance to confirm purchase and the rest after receiving the order. The app will automatically add the purchased artwork to the profile of a user.
Buying art with Cittart is easier than with art agents or galleries, Mo Mot said. The app allows to compare alternatives and see how the Ukrainian art market looks in general. Cittart also makes art accessible to everyone contrary to art galleries that usually attract those with knowledge and experience and thus offer higher prices.
Mo Mot said that ordinary Ukrainians are interested in buying art too. According to the research by Cittart, most of the local customers are ready to pay up to $500 for a work of art.
Mo Mot and Vardanyan think that services like Cittart will promote local art among Ukrainians and encourage them to invest more.
“We push forward ‘art as an investment’ because we believe in the future of the Ukrainian art and see that the price of Ukrainian artworks is growing despite the pandemic,” Mo Mot said.
Today Cittart works with over 100 Ukrainian artists. In the future, even ordinary users, galleries or art agents will be able to sell artworks via the app.
To develop an app like Cittart, Mo Mot and Vardanyan attracted $100,000 from the state-owned Ukrainian Startup Fund and Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
The app was downloaded 500 times in the three days after its launch on March 25. There have already been four purchases.
Apart from operations in Ukraine, The founders plan to enter foreign markets and find new investors there.
Users can download the platform for free. Cittart will charge artists a 15% commission for every sold piece of art. Its founders say that it’s much lower than a 50% commission that art galleries charge or a 35% commission charged by art agents or international online marketplaces.
According to its founders, Cittart could become profitable in a few months but the company will continue to invest in development. In the future, Cittart wants to use artificial intelligence software to help its users find suitable artworks faster.
Launching an art marketplace in Ukraine was a challenge for Mo Mot and Vardanyan. They told the Kyiv Post that the Ukrainian art market works in shadow — many artists are not registered as private entrepreneurs because they don’t want to pay taxes. That’s why they tried to make an app that would be so simple that more people would start trading legally.
According to the company’s policy, customers should pay for art objects online using the Visa or MasterCard online payment systems. Ukrainian postal service Nova Poshta will deliver purchased artworks within a few days. The customers will have to pay for the delivery.
Cittart employs 15 people, most of them work as freelancers. The app is only available on App Store, but the company plans to launch an app for Android devices in the near future.
