Last week we delved into the recently published Art Basel and UBS report on the global art market in 2022. Led by economist Clare McAndrew, we discussed how the market has recovered from the pandemic and, despite a complicated war situation and inflationary, it has stabilized with the figures for 2019, remaining robust and growing by 3% compared to 2021, reaching 67.8 billion dollars. Especially driven by the sales of the highest price segment, the United States led it with a market share of 45%.
But there is more valuable data, such as the fact that it is the galleries, with 55% of global sales, who are leading it ahead of the auction houses, which have fallen by 2%. Or that the fairs have returned to have special relevance after a few years of difficulties with face-to-face events, since the galleries that have participated in them have accounted for 35% of their sales. A percentage that would explain why, despite the high costs they entail, they continue to bet heavily on them.
However, and as expected, this growth has been detrimental to the online market for works of art and antiques, which after the exorbitant rise as a result of the confinements in 2020 and 2021 that prevented attending exhibitions, fairs or auctions face-to-face, has dropped significantly, 17%.
But the interesting thing here would be to compare it with 2019, and there the figure that comes out is that it is 85% higher, marking the consolidation of digital channels by collectors, remaining in a quota of 16%. bad!
Another thing is the behavior that the famous NFTs had last year. From being the most commented topic in this industry after the massive sale of the Beeple of 69.3 million, to suffering the consequences of the so-called winter of cryptocurrencies. If in 2021 art-related NFT sales reached 2.9 billion dollars, in 2022 they stood at 1.5 billion, being the most significant drop in the market. This does not mean that their relevance in making digital works of art unique has diminished, on the contrary, they will be a key tool for the operation of this industry in the coming years. Another thing will be the high prices of some of the artists who use this technology, because they can see how they collapse.
