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If you're the type of person who struggles to choose the perfect artwork for your apartment, there's a new vending machine that's going to help you out.
Mystry Mart is an art vending machine that dishes out pieces from local creatives. The catch? You can’t see the art until it’s out and already yours.
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The project was started by Eugene Bell and Victoria Orlovskaya after they visited Area 15 in Las Vegas, where they saw a vending machine that sold local art. They wanted to do the same in New York and create a "mini gallery" for artists who might struggle finding a platform to show their work.
From the start, the vending machine has been a grassroots effort.
"In the beginning we were DMing artists on Instagram hoping they would trust us enough to give us their artwork before we even had our machine or anything. We would find them through #nycart or #nycartist tags," Orlovskaya tells Time Out. "We focused on people who had a unique original style, like Bread Slug who paints on bread and then incases it in resin... Now we have an artist application on our website and work freely with creatives who make art their passion.”
Mystry Mart recently installed its first machine, which was painted by local artist C1MAH, at the Brooklyn Art Cave in Bushwick. Prices for items range from $5 to $100 and include prints, paintings, zines, jewelry, keychains and other unique works of art.
Bell and Orlovskaya fund the project themselves and split profits from the machine with the artists. Mystry Mart's goal is to make art more approachable and to provide a platform for underrepresented artists in the community and has worked with more than 20 artists, and they're planning to expand to more locations across the borough.
To learn more about the vending machine, apply to have your work at the machine and learn about the artists involved in the project, check out their website.