{"id":58029,"date":"2024-10-14T19:24:53","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/?p=58029"},"modified":"2024-10-16T18:48:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T14:48:42","slug":"artnets-half-year-review-of-the-art-market-its-not-great-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/artnets-half-year-review-of-the-art-market-its-not-great-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Artnet&#8217;s half-year review of the art market: it&#8217;s not great news"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The mid-year reviews from Artnet, published under the sonorous title \u2018The Intelligence Report\u2019, are always an interesting read. Artnet knows about just every auction house in the world that specialises in fine art and antiques, big and small,; and for this half-term review it polled 1,041 of them for sales reports on anything valued at more than $500 to include in its Art Price Database.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The key headlines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-iconlist kt-svg-icon-list-items kt-svg-icon-list-items58029_8b2a05-d2 kt-svg-icon-list-columns-1 alignnone kt-list-icon-aligntop\"><ul class=\"kt-svg-icon-list\">\n<li class=\"wp-block-kadence-listitem kt-svg-icon-list-item-wrap kt-svg-icon-list-item-58029_6df1a8-5b\"><span data-name=\"ic_circleRight\" data-stroke=\"USE_PARENT_DEFAULT_WIDTH\" data-class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-single\" class=\"kadence-dynamic-icon\"><\/span><span class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-text\"><strong>$5.5bn<\/strong> was spent on fine art at auction in the first half of 2024. That was <strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">down 29.5 percent<\/mark><\/strong> on the equivalent period for 2023<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"wp-block-kadence-listitem kt-svg-icon-list-item-wrap kt-svg-icon-list-item-58029_94cfa7-ce\"><span data-name=\"ic_circleRight\" data-stroke=\"USE_PARENT_DEFAULT_WIDTH\" data-class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-single\" class=\"kadence-dynamic-icon\"><\/span><span class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-text\"><strong>$164.6m <\/strong>was spent at auction on ultra-contemporary work (by artists born after 1974). That was <strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">down 39 percent<\/mark><\/strong> on H1 2023<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"wp-block-kadence-listitem kt-svg-icon-list-item-wrap kt-svg-icon-list-item-58029_b2449c-9c\"><span data-name=\"ic_circleRight\" data-stroke=\"USE_PARENT_DEFAULT_WIDTH\" data-class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-single\" class=\"kadence-dynamic-icon\"><\/span><span class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-text\">The average price of an artwork sold at auction was <strong>$27,301<\/strong> \u2013 which was <strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">down 26 percent<\/mark><\/strong> on last year (and the lowest figure in a decade)<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"wp-block-kadence-listitem kt-svg-icon-list-item-wrap kt-svg-icon-list-item-58029_ea9382-46\"><span data-name=\"ic_circleRight\" data-stroke=\"USE_PARENT_DEFAULT_WIDTH\" data-class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-single\" class=\"kadence-dynamic-icon\"><\/span><span class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-text\">The total number of lots sold was also <strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">down, by 4.8 percent<\/mark><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"wp-block-kadence-listitem kt-svg-icon-list-item-wrap kt-svg-icon-list-item-58029_120bd5-61\"><span data-name=\"ic_circleRight\" data-stroke=\"USE_PARENT_DEFAULT_WIDTH\" data-class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-single\" class=\"kadence-dynamic-icon\"><\/span><span class=\"kt-svg-icon-list-text\">Total first-half sales generated by the three auction houses \u2013 Christie\u2019s, Sotheby&#8217;s, Philips \u2013 are <strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">down 29 percent<\/mark><\/strong> on last year<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One reason for the decline in total sales is a dearth of high-priced masterpieces coming up for salon to the market; but even those that have come up for sale have largely made the low end of their estimates. In short, there\u2019s a distinct lack of demand for works at high price points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artnet can\u2019t help but conclude that the market is going through something of reset. Or recession, as some might put it. As these figures indicate, Artnet\u2019s half year numbers don\u2019t include sales through though dealers or those made direct from artists or their agents. The accompanying commentary has a lot of input from dealers, however. \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that buyers are freaked out and that sales are slow to nonexistent at galleries, dealers said. \u2019Literally no one is buying art,\u2019 one gallery owner said. One of his clients, a major collector, is now shopping for $500 art at antiques stores and picking up works directly from artists\u2019 studios at half the price galleries charge \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s also a feeling that sellers are having to agree to unpalatably low reserve prices at auction, or even to sell with no reserve at all \u2013 common enough at the lower end, but formerly unheard of for mid- to high-priced works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And some buyers are reacting to the intensifying commodification of art. That, combined with a primary market feels overpriced and economic factors like \u201cpunishing interest rates, ongoing geopolitical tremors, and the melodrama of a U.S. presidential election\u201d, have had collectors hanging on to their chequebooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At least big auctioneers and the art fairs seem bullish about the future, talking about corrections, pointing to activity in specific sectors, and coming up with tricksy solutions like Christie\u2019s flowers-only show in New York last May (where Andy Warhol\u2019s 1964 <em>Flowers<\/em> sold for $35.5 million). And there are still notable results in Artnet\u2019s database, like catch-up recognition for artists such as Leonora Carrington and Joan Mitchell and the unstoppability of Basquiat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Download your own copy of<strong> The Intelligence Report: Mid-Year Review 2024<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/media.artnet.com\/image\/upload\/Artnet%20Intelligence%20Report%20Fall%202024\/Artnet_IR_Mid-Year-Review_24.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The mid-year reviews from Artnet, published under the sonorous title \u2018The Intelligence Report\u2019, are always an interesting read. Artnet knows about just every auction house in the world that specialises in fine art and antiques, big and small,; and for <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/artnets-half-year-review-of-the-art-market-its-not-great-news\/\" title=\"Artnet&#8217;s half-year review of the art market: it&#8217;s not great news\"> [&#8230; more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}