Economics#

Working posture — 1 September 2026

MOOI NIET. is Mike and Karlie's creative project for circulating art they care about. It is not a venture proposition, a market-discovery exercise, or an economic model looking for attention and click-through. Money matters because artists, care, movement, and continued experimentation need to be funded. It is not the reason the project exists.

The first editions will probably begin with direct commissions, works from personal collections, and relationships with artist friends. This is a practical beginning, not a supply strategy to be scaled.

Work backwards from the edition#

MOOI NIET. does not yet know the right monthly price, stay length, commission, or allocation percentage. Those numbers should be worked backwards from an actual edition: the artists and works involved, what it costs to make, the period of circulation, transport, installation, care, gallery labor, and what the edition is trying to make possible.

The ambition is to provide best-in-class economics for everyone participating, especially the people doing the creative work. The working hypothesis is that an owner-operated, local, technically capable practice can carry less overhead and make smarter use of its structure than a conventional art-rental institution. That advantage has not yet been demonstrated. It should be tested in the accounts of real editions rather than repeated as positioning.

There is therefore no gallery-wide percentage split to announce in advance. Each edition should state, in ordinary language, what money enters, where it goes, what MOOI NIET. retains, and what that retention funds. The arithmetic can vary; the requirement for legibility does not.

A possible economic shape#

A host payment may support some combination of:

• the artist whose work is being made or circulated;
• transport, installation, care, insurance, and repair;
• Mike and Karlie's curatorial, operational, and technical labor;
• an amount the host can direct toward acquiring art;
• a shared capacity for new commissions and experiments.

Not every edition needs every component. A payment structure is useful only if it serves that edition's creative and practical proposition. It should not be kept because it resembles a familiar subscription product.

Solvency means the project can honor its commitments and continue taking interesting swings. It does not mean optimizing price, conversion, margin, or growth until those measures become the project.

The host's commitment#

Joining an edition means accepting its declared duration and mechanics. A host who dislikes a work has not had a failed experience; discomfort, indifference, and changing judgment are part of living with unfamiliar art. MOOI NIET. asks the host to let the work linger for the agreed period rather than treating an immediate negative reaction as a reason to replace it.

Life still happens. If a host needs to end early, MOOI NIET. can collect the work for a stated early-pickup fee. The default is no additional discretionary refund beyond whatever consumer rights and legal obligations actually apply. “Buying in” to the duration is part of the experience, not a cancellable bet on liking the object.

If a host leaves an edition or breaks a required rotation or handoff, that is a withdrawal from that edition rather than a moral failure. MOOI NIET. takes the work back and authors a way to fill, reroute, or leave visible the resulting gap. Damage, liability, insurance, and unavoidable changes of circumstance need plain terms before a real work moves; they cannot be settled by tone.

The directional amount#

An edition may include an amount that a host can direct toward buying a work. This is a contribution to future art, not a bank balance, savings plan, cash deposit, investment, or store of value.

While the amount remains available, the host may use it within the edition's declared purchase terms. It earns no return, has no secondary market, and is not refundable as cash by default. The offer should state its expiry before any money is accepted.

When it expires, any unused amount moves into a MOOI NIET. slush fund—an editorial fund, not a financial reserve. Mike and Karlie decide how to put that fund back into creative circulation. It might commission new work, support an unusual edition mechanic, make a new creative offering possible, acquire art, or fund a trip to find work in a local market somewhere else.

This allocation is deliberately editorial. It is not pro rata, democratic, or designed to reproduce each host's preferences. The concise version is: use it or lose it—and MOOI NIET. will use it.

The exact expiry period, purchase rules, accounting, and legal and tax treatment remain to be grounded before this mechanism is offered. The desired structure is simple: a contribution to future art that can fund a purchase or, if unused, fund the project more generally—not a financial product with culture wrapped around it.

Transparency without virtue#

Each real offer should provide a plain breakdown of what money enters, where it goes, what MOOI NIET. retains, and what that funds. This is a record of how Mike and Karlie chose to finance creative activity they find interesting. It is not evidence of purity, charity, fairness, impact, or social good, and it should not be formatted as a moral scorecard.

Minimum viable apparatus#

The desired financial and legal experience is closer to sending a Tikkie and walking out of a gallery with a painting, or receiving a plain monthly SBK invoice after providing an IBAN, than entering a financial programme. Use the minimum contracts, consumer information, insurance, accounting, and custody terms legally required to move the actual work and money safely. Friction is a cost to the experience, not proof of seriousness.

Correctness still matters. What the minimum is must be checked before the first transaction, but it does not need to become a creative workstream or public theatre now.

What real editions must determine#

The posture is set; the arithmetic comes from practice. A real edition must:

• cost a real first edition and publish its proposed flow of money;
• keep private participant details out of the public breakdown;
• state any work-specific payment or allocation terms its artists accepted;
• validate consumer, tax, insurance, liability, custody, transport, and refund terms before taking money or moving work;
• observe whether the supposed structural advantage appears in practice.

These are fields in an edition brief, not questions that need an abstract governance process before MOOI NIET. has circulated anything.