The art market had an awful 2024, Art Basel and UBS report finds

The art market had a brutal 2024, with global sales declining 12% by value, according to a new report by Art Basel and UBS. The pain was spread across borders. Sales in the U.S. fell 9% by value year over year; in China they fell 31%, to the lowest level since 2009. Sales in France declined 10%, Germany 4%, Italy 10% and South Korea 15%. “I can’t sugarcoat any of the findings,” says Clare McAndrew, the founder of the research and consulting firm Arts Economics, who wrote the report. “It was tough in all of the big markets.” This marks the second down year in the art trade, which continues to struggle with something akin to an identity crisis. Collectors have bridled at what they perceive to be inflated prices; enthusiasm has foundered amid perceptions of a directionless contemporary market; and buyers have turned away from many “hot” artists who just a few years ago had seemed inviolable. The only unvarnished good news in the report comes via transaction volume, which was up 3% year over year, driven by what the report outlines as lower-priced objects — in the low six figures or below. “What we’ve been seeing is the ongoing process of what I would characterize as democratization in the art market,” says Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. “The number of sales is going up, but the value of sales is not going up in the same way.” Confidence falters as market becomes generational However diminished, “about $58 billion of art was sold last year,” says Noah Horowitz, the chief executive officer of Art Basel. “That’s a lot of art.” But, he continues, an unavoidable reality of today’s market is that “it’s extremely confidence driven: People are looking at other people who are looking at other people to read the tea leaves and see where the market is going.” And at the moment, there are myriad indications that it’s not going in an encouraging direction. One indication could be collector turnover. Even as art dealers collectively sold 6% less by value than in 2023 (which in turn was down 3% from the year before), 44% of the people they sold to were new to their business — which could indicate that a potentially significant chunk of their previous clientele was no longer buying. “This plays directly to the reality of where the market is,” says Horowitz. “A lot of the collectors who set the pace of the market in a 30-year arc — some of them are passing away, others are not collecting with the same aplomb that they once were, and their children are doing slightly different things.” The report quotes one anonymous dealer who says that “existing young collectors are no longer buying paintings. With the bursting of the Contemporary art bubble, there is a high reliance on older collectors who prefer Modern and Post-War art … (but) many of these collectors are in their 60s and 70s, so I am worried about what the art scene will look like 10 years from now.” High-end market takes a nosedive When new people do buy new art, it seems they’re unwilling to spend as much as their predecessors — both publicly and privately. Auction houses’ public and private sales were down 20% by value but sold 4% more by volume year over year. At the high end, the number of fine art works that sold at auction for over $10 million plummeted 39% year over year; worse, sales values in that price category declined 45%. The total value of the top 50 works sold at auction declined 30% year over year. It was the same story at galleries, which sold a median of 75 works in 2024, the same as the year prior. And yet the top end wasn’t delivering that stability: The world’s biggest dealers saw an average of 89 high-end buyers in 2024, down from 164 in 2023 — a more than 45% decline in client participation. These same dealers reported that one-third of their sales were in the sub-$50,000 segment; 60% were for less than $250,000. Just 2% of all dealers’ transactions took place over $1 million, down from 4% in 2021. Art fair model under strain The report comes at a time when the art market is bracing for a potentially devastating blow from global tariffs and collapsing equity markets, which could rock its increasingly shaky foundations. “There are some signs in the United States that politics has perhaps started to play a role in exercising a degree of caution in the market,” Donovan says. “You are not going to react to every fluctuation in the equity market or your every concern, but where you get a more profound concern [is a] question about liquidity in the future: ‘Is my business going to need more cash? Can I really afford to use this money to go out and buy this piece of art? Maybe we need that for expenses if there’s an economic downturn.’” More concretely, the report articulates an industry under pressure. The price of doing business has risen for galleries in particular, with 43% of them reporting they were less profitable than the year prior, an 11% increase since 2022. Of particular note, given that this report is published by the art fair Art Basel, it details art dealers’ increasing displeasure … with art fairs. “Much of the discussion and comments from dealers in the survey and interviews concerned the rapidly escalating costs of art fairs,” the report reads, quoting one anonymous dealer who says, “The number of people at fairs is increasing. However, the number of buyers is actually decreasing.” Outlook for 2025: Cautious and divided The fair model doesn’t appear to be thriving either: From 2020 to 2023, 129 fairs ceased operations, the report says, while only 39 started in the same period. Last year continued the downward trend: 31 fairs closed, and just two began. Understandably then, 31% of dealers exhibited at fewer fairs last year than they had the year before. Even though the report was compiled before tariffs were dominating headlines, dealers and auction houses were already glum about their 2025 prospects. Only 19% of the largest dealers thought sales would improve this year; overall, 47% of all dealers “were hoping” for a stable year; 33% thought sales would improve (down 3% from a year earlier); and 19% anticipated they’d fall (up 3% year over year). At mid-tier auction houses, only 15% of respondents anticipated improved sales; 40% forecast a decline. “I like to be able to say positive things, but this is the market we’re in at the moment,” McAndrew says. “Maybe it will surprise us and turn around again.” By James Tarmy

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The art market had an awful 2024, Art Basel and UBS report finds