MutualArt Holding is an independent company dedicated to the development of new services for the art world, founded in 2003 by the American entrepreneur Moti Shniberg. In that year, Shniberg and Professor Dan Galai created Artist Pension Trust (APT), a pension fund for artists, and subsequently from MutualArt Holding was born MutualArt.com, and online resource for collectors, aspiring collectors and art lovers. To understand more, we addressed a few questions to the founder, Moti Shniberg.

D: You have established two art-related organizations, MutualArt.com and Artist Pension Trust® (APT). Could you please explain what both of these services offer?

MS: The two organizations are linked through their innovative approach to serving the art world.

Artist Pension Trust (APT) is the first investment program dedicated to the needs of emerging and mid-career artists. Its long-term financial planning services allow artists to invest their artworks alongside a community of select artists, thereby providing a uniquely diversified, alternative income stream. The Artist Pension Trust was founded in 2003, and it now operates in 40 countries, with 700 artists participating in trusts based in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Beijing, Berlin, Dubai, London, and Mumbai.

MutualArt.com started in 2006. It's an absolutely revolutionary new online information service with a completely new approach to art on the web. The site offers an unprecedented amount of art information and online tools, a global solution for people starting to collect art, as well as established collectors, art professionals and art enthusiasts in general.

D: MutualArt.com resembles a personalized on-line travel guide to contemporary art. Is this the case?

MS: It's that and much, much more. Firstly, it's a huge research database, containing over 150,000 art-related articles from magazines, newspapers and art journals – collected in one central source. Secondly, it's a tool for keeping up to date with the art world. In fact, MutualArt.com members can track categories of art – even individual artists – and receive new information on these from thousands of sources. They also receive advance notification of art events that may interest them – from exhibitions and lectures to opening parties and galas, to auctions offering works by their preferred artists. So, thirdly, MutualArt.com, in the long term, helps members to organize their commitments in the art world, whether at home or traveling, so they can receive information on events selected according to their personal tastes. And this works not only for exhibitions, but it equally works for social events like openings and galas, enabling you to meet people involved in the type of art that interests you even if you have no personal network in that city to introduce you.

D: The Mutual Art.com site relies on a vast network of collaborators, museums, magazines and a high number of private galleries. What does it guarantee them and how does it work?

MS: MutualArt.com provides a cooperative neutral platform for its content providers. The portal has signed partnership contracts with over 120 museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Modern, SFMOMA, the Whitney Museum, the Kunstahalle Basel, K20K21 Dusseldorf, as well as many of the world's leading art dealers. These partners promote their exhibitions and events to an international public, as well as being able to publish their catalogues in digital form. Content providers benefit from MutualArt.com's customization technology, that delivers their content to selected MutualArt.com members based on those members' preferences. The site is powered by "semantic web" technology, uniquely enabling users to filter vast quantities of diverse art information, in a way that they are only delivered information that interests them.

D: According to the financial model that you came up with for The Artist Pension Trust (APT) - protected by a patent - the artists accrue a pension by investing, over twenty years, twenty of their own artworks. From the receipts of the sale, half of the sum received goes to the artist. The other half goes to your company?

MS: Of the receipts from the eventual sales, 40 goes to the artist, 32% is distributed to the pool of artists in that trust, and 28% to Artist Pension Trust (APT). The demand has been phenomenal and we are extremely proud of the roster of artists that have been selected by our curatorial committees. The Chairman of the curatorial committees, David A. Ross, former director of SFMOMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art, was critical in assembling the team. The full details of how APT works and on the people involved can be found on the website aptglobal.org.

D: The artists who can join the APT are generally established, or in any case well introduced in the art-system. With the huge sums which are paid for an artwork, do you really think the artists need a pension?

MS: Intelligent financial planning should be a lifetime concern. The pension fund is a unique opportunity for emerging and mid-career artists to embrace long-term financial planning, at an early stage, without any cash investment. Plus, the pension fund guarantees very real support to its artists from the time they first join. Its website is a showcase for the artists who take part, and it has a very active exhibiting program through its "APT Curatorial Services" and "Lending Program". While on deposit with APT, all of the artworks around the world are available to art professionals for viewing, academic scholarship and curatorial projects.