Remember, March 2020. All turn signals were red. The pandemic, it was said, was going to wipe out a third of merchants, bury fairs and satiate shoppers’ appetites. A year later, the art market shows almost insolent health, returning to pre-Covid-19 peaks. Christie’s specialist Laetitia Baudouin acknowledges this, “We are seeing a madness that we have not seen since … 2006.”.
The proof in figures. In November 2021, in just seven sales of modern and contemporary art in New York, Sotheby’s totaled $ 1.3 billion (approximately € 1.15 billion). The wonderful Macklowe collection alone, which featured masterpieces by Rothko and Giacometti, reached more than $ 600 million. “The year promises to be historic”, welcomes Sebastian Fahey, Sotheby’s Managing Director Europe, whose sales reach a record $ 7.3 billion in 2021.
Various explanations for this. The rich in the first place have never been so rich: According to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report, the number of high net worth individuals increased 6.3% in 2020, and their wealth increased 7.6% during this period. By flooding the financial system with liquidity and making money “cheap” with very low interest rates, central banks have boosted the art market. “Those who have earned, say, 25% on the CAC40 easily have fun buying a work”, resume Stéphane Mathelin-Moreaux, director of Neuflize OBC. Antoine Lebouteiller, Christie’s especialista, confirmed: “People who bought works for 50,000 euros four or five years ago are now going up to 500,000 euros”.
Unexpected rise of NFTs
The large auction houses have particularly benefited from an influx of new buyers, of the order of 30%, mainly Asians. He is a Chinese who paid 46.7 million dollars for the Young man with blueberry, by Van Gogh, in November at Christie’s. It is about an Indian who won a painting by Bernard Buffet for a record $ 2.1 million in Hong Kong in December.
In addition to the rise of Asia, there is the unexpected rise of non-fungible tokens (NFT), “non-fungible tokens” in French, which boosted the market. A year ago, the art world was completely unaware of these lines of code referring to a work and a certificate registered on the blockchain.
Today, these crypto-arts represent almost 5% of Christie’s turnover. Be careful, however, with the magnifying glass effects! According to a study published in October by Scientific nature, only 1% of these crypto arts sell for more than $ 1,594.
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