Fascinating. I went into this expecting an article on how AI art is killing sales, and instead got something that looks to me surprisingly like the Canadian housing market. The key paragraph for...
Fascinating. I went into this expecting an article on how AI art is killing sales, and instead got something that looks to me surprisingly like the Canadian housing market. The key paragraph for me:
Each case is different, but many voice the same laments: Overheads are killing businesses. Sales are down. It’s no longer fun. Primary pricing is untenable. Major collectors have stopped buying art or significantly reduced their spending. The next generation isn’t there to take over from the old guard. The art world has become bloated, and there isn’t an easy way to cure the malaise.
Like in real estate, we see boomers used to their speculation driving prices ever upward and now shocked that the market no longer can justify their absurdly over valued 'investments'. I'm sure there's some art nouveau version of avocado toast these boomers are blaming.
The art world is in a precarious state as it heads into the second half of 2025. Not a week goes by, it seems, without a major gallery closing: Blum, Venus Over Manhattan, and Kasmin are other prominent summer casualties. Smaller galleries are exiting and downsizing discreetly. Each case is different, but many voice the same laments: Overheads are killing businesses. Sales are down. It’s no longer fun. Primary pricing is untenable. Major collectors have stopped buying art or significantly reduced their spending. The next generation isn’t there to take over from the old guard. The art world has become bloated, and there isn’t an easy way to cure the malaise.
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Another revealing indicator: Soho Art Materials, a popular art-supplies company in New York that works with artists and galleries, traces the sector’s decline to the summer of 2022. The firm’s sales began falling gradually and then in June 2023 dropped 20 percent from the previous month, according to Jonathan Siegel, a co-owner. The company was stretching 700 to 1,000 canvases annually for three years, starting in 2020; it now does about 200 a year, he said.
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In the U.K., firms must file financial disclosures, which reveal razor-thin profit margins for galleries big and small, as falling turnover collides with stubbornly high fixed costs.
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Many investment-focused art buyers got burned and got out. Their disillusionment then spilled into the broader collecting world, the dealer said, creating “a kind of malaise.”
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Buying the work of fast-rising artists and quickly reselling them for higher prices became rampant during the pandemic. Demand got so intense that auction houses created new sales just for ultra-contemporary art by 20- and 30-somethings. Faced with a surge of investors from around the globe, galleries raised primary prices, aiming to capitalize on red-hot demand and dissuade speculators from reselling quickly.
But the strategy backfired. “And now they are $500,000 primary, but they’re $250,000 at auction,” the collector-trader said.
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Some younger galleries, unburdened by massive overheads, are surging forward. Sebastian Gladstone, 36, is moving into a new space in Los Angeles in September and expanded to New York in January. He keeps his costs low and employs only two staffers. His upcoming show of overlooked Abstract Expressionist Herman Cherry is sold out at prices ranging from $35,000 to $80,000.
I suspect these horrible people are primarily to blame. They juiced the market to an untenable position to begin with, and now that they've lost interest, everyone they took along for the ride...
Many investment-focused art buyers got burned and got out. Their disillusionment then spilled into the broader collecting world, the dealer said, creating “a kind of malaise.”
I suspect these horrible people are primarily to blame. They juiced the market to an untenable position to begin with, and now that they've lost interest, everyone they took along for the ride gets to suffer. Investors have ruined pretty much every collector's market. They don't actually care about $collectible, they just care about finding a place to park a bunch of money they don't know what to do with.
Fascinating. I went into this expecting an article on how AI art is killing sales, and instead got something that looks to me surprisingly like the Canadian housing market. The key paragraph for me:
Like in real estate, we see boomers used to their speculation driving prices ever upward and now shocked that the market no longer can justify their absurdly over valued 'investments'. I'm sure there's some art nouveau version of avocado toast these boomers are blaming.
From the article:
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I suspect these horrible people are primarily to blame. They juiced the market to an untenable position to begin with, and now that they've lost interest, everyone they took along for the ride gets to suffer. Investors have ruined pretty much every collector's market. They don't actually care about $collectible, they just care about finding a place to park a bunch of money they don't know what to do with.