The DashBurst Blog

Artkick Brings Famous Paintings and Artwork to Your Screens for Free

What if you could bring any of the finest artworks ever created like Van Gogh’s Starry Night right into your living room with just a click? We use on-demand services like Spotify listening to music, or Netflix to watch movies, so one startup called Artkick wants to bring you art whenever you want it too.

How Artkick Works

Artkick has struck deals with over 2,000 museums around the world and obtained the viewing privileges to 50,000 digital representations of famous paintings and photography. Using the Artkick Android or iOS app, you can then select images to view on any television or computer screen connected to the Internet. You can keep the images static or switch them up every minute. Also you can rate what you like and have the images rotate based on other works by the artist, similar time periods and genres, along with other collections in the host museum.

“Why not stream images?” said Sheldon Laube, the CEO of Artkick. “Clothes, music, foods – we change around all sorts of things that give us pleasure. Art has been constrained by being physical.”

While having televisions show images isn’t a novel concept, Artkick is hoping to broaden our selections and discovery of art, while making the experience more social. Also televisions don’t have the same constraints they used to in terms of the amount of energy they consume and shelf life. But Artkick will have some challenges acquiring the rights to show you more contemporary artwork, as most of the current offerings are from artist’s who have passed by at least 70 years making their work fall into the public domain. Also the service only works on televisions made by Samsung and Roku boxes, but they are looking to roll out an update to work on Sony, Visio, Sharp and LG televisions according to Mr. Laube’s discussion with the New York Times. Right now Artkick is looking to secure a market that includes 77 million internet-connected TV’s in the United States alone.

Get the Artkick apps here: