Can’t afford the $6 million penthouse at that new condo at 650 Sixth Avenue? You can buy a computer illustration of the unit for a mere $8,000. Michael Shvo, the marketer of the glammy, art-themed building, is the first in his field to try printing renderings onto canvas and selling them like paintings. Although none of the “works” has sold yet, “there’s absolutely interest,” insists Shvo, who’s enough of an aesthete to turn the lobby into a “gallery” and give the sales office a lofty name (“White Space: A Global Address”). In his judgment, “a lot of what I see in galleries is a lot less art than a rendering printed on canvas. You go to a museum and there’s a toilet seat on the floor that someone paid a half-million dollars for.”

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Faye Penn
• Table of Contents: May 7, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!