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Artprice by Artmarket publishes its 2020/21 Contemporary Art Market Report. With Frieze and FIAC soon re-opening, the Contemporary art market has grown 2,700% in volume over the last 21 years and 117% within the last 12 months, essentially driven by NFTs

PARIS, Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

According to thierry Ehrmann, CEO of Artmarket.com and Founder of Artprice:

Sales strategies offering a large number of works at relatively affordable

prices and growing demand from multi-generational collectors allowed the

Contemporary art segment to resist the negative impacts of the health crisis a

lot better than any other segment.

In fact, the 2020/21 period marks the Contemporary segment's best year in

auction history, both in terms of lots sold and in terms of global auction

turnover, and it saw the Contemporary art segment move into a new space

vis-à-vis the rest of the art market.  

Part of this movement was driven by the sensational arrival of NFTs and the

staggering prices obtained for works by very young artists, both of which

appear to have profoundly transformed the art market's overall landscape. The

NFTs very likely mark a substantial acceleration of the Hegelian power struggle

that will release artists from their condition of slavery and make them masters

of their own markets… and reconfigure the entire global art market in the

process.

The 2020/21 period also saw a very marked opening of the Eastern art market to

Western art, a trend that has allowed Hong Kong to establishing itself as the

world's second hub for buying and selling Contemporary art after New York.

In the past 21 years, the Contemporary art market has posted a volume increase

of +2,700%  and it rose sharply by +117% last year. It is now a fully-fledged

global market, active on five continents.

"As an artist/sculptor for over 35 years and creator of the Organe Contemporary

Art Museum (dubbed "Museum of the Future" by L'Obs.

https://youtu.be/29LXBPJrs-o) which manages the Abode of Chaos, I believe that

in 2021 – in a society that is rapidly destroying all forms of singularity –

Contemporary art remains the last singular domain of activity that can affirm

our humanity. And I believe this explains the growing passion for art which now

attracts 120 million collectors, professionals and art enthusiasts."

As announced exclusively on AFP on 4 October 2021 (along with key figures),

Artprice's 2020/21 Contemporary Art Market Report is now (5 October 2021)

online in full. This Report represents an essential tool as we head into the

major autumn art fairs (notably the Frieze and the Fiac) and is now available

free of charge at the following address:

https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2021

Key figures

This performance sets Contemporary Art apart from all other periods of

creation.

102,000 Contemporary works sold at auction over 12 months generating a total of

$2.7 billion,  up 117% compared with the 2019/20 period (which shrank 34% vs.

2018/2019).

Contemporary Art accounted for 23% of the entire art market in 2020/21, vs. 3%

in 2000/01; that's eight times more lots sold and 26 times more value than 20

years ago.  

The offer of Contemporary artworks has never been so diversified and so well in

tune with demand, with 70% of the works offered finding buyers.

It covered works by 34,600 artists, including 1,300 auction debuts (i.e. new to

the auction market) and it generated 5,000 new auction records.

The works were sold through 770 auction houses in 59 different countries.

In terms of turnover, Christie's (32%), Sotheby's (26%) and Phillips (10%)

accounted for two-thirds of the global total.

In terms of location, New York and Hong Kong hammered 60% of total global

turnover from Contemporary art.

Painting was the top category, both in terms of value (73%) and in terms of

lots sold (42%).

Painting accounted for 82% of the 7-digit results versus 6% for drawing and 6%

for sculpture. The NFT medium already generated nine 7-digit results, i.e.

three times more than the photography medium in the same period.

Our Contemporary Art Price Index has climbed 400% since 2000.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting In This Case (1983) was worth $1million in

2002. In 2021 it fetched $93 million!

China became the world's leading hub for Contemporary art, accounting for 40%

of the segment's global turnover.    

Unsurprisingly, the USA (32%) and the UK (16%) were in second and third place.  

Hong Kong posted exceptional turnover growth of +277% overtaking London.

Beijing also posted respectable turnover on the Contemporary segment with $305

million (up 161%). Paris was in 5th place with $55 million, lagging even

further behind its primary global competitors.

Marking the first-ever sale of an NFT in a public sale, Beeple's Everydays

alone accounted for 3% ($69 million) of the Contemporary art segment's total

turnover.  

Banksy joined the Top 5 best-selling artists on the entire art market, behind

Picasso, Basquiat, Warhol and Monet.

At just 34 years old, the American artist Avery Singer saw one of her paintings

fetch over $4 million at auction.

FRIEZE versus FIAC:

London will soon be hosting the Frieze art fair and its museums, galleries and

auction houses will no doubt once again demonstrate the strength of its art

market, just two weeks before Paris draws the international art community

towards the FIAC.

While the UK capital has little to fear from the French capital (which

generates only half of London's fine art auction turnover), it must

nevertheless be concerned by the rise of Hong Kong. The former British colony

has become ultra-attractive, especially for the high-end Contemporary art

market. In H1 2021 alone Hong Kong generated $962 million compared with $1.2

billion in the UK.

London nevertheless remains unavoidable for Modern art (with the sale this year

of a superb painting by Kandinsky) and it is still contributing to Banksy's

extraordinary market ascent with a new record at $23.3 million. In terms of

annual auction turnover, the anonymous street artist, originally from Bristol,

is now the world's most popular living artist on the secondary market.

Methodology

This report analyzes the Contemporary art market (artists born after 1945)

based on public auction results for works of Fine Art hammered around the world

between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021. It concerns only results for paintings,

sculptures, installations, drawings, photographs, prints, videos and NFTs, and

excludes anonymous cultural artefacts and furniture.

All sums quoted in US dollars ($) refer to hammer prices, including buyer

premiums, converted to US dollars on the day of the sale.

2021, an exceptional vintage  

The Contemporary art segment (artists born after 1945) posted a historic

auction turnover performance in H1 2021, up 50% versus H1 2019 (and five times

the total hammered in H1 2020, impacted by the early days of the covid

pandemic).  

At the root of this historic performance ($1.58 billion in H1 2021) there was a

rapid adaptation of the Contemporary art market during the second half of 2020

in response to the health crisis and involving a successful transition to

online sales and an equally successful orientation of the market towards a new

and emerging population of Contemporary art buyers. The resulting growth was  

particularly visible in the United States ($592 million in H1 2021) and Hong

Kong ($435 million), but also in Germany ($21.7 million) all of which posted

unprecedented turnover totals for a first semester on the Contemporary segment.

The Modern (-8%) and Post-War (-4%) segments did not quite regain the levels of

activity that prevailed before the health crisis, making the Contemporary

segment's performance look even more pronounced. Twenty years ago, Contemporary

art accounted for just 3% of the entire art market. In H1 2021, it represented

23%. With a total of over $300 million in just six months (twice Andy Warhol's

total in the same semester) Jean-Michel Basquiat alone generated 4.3% of the

entire art market's auction turnover (all periods combined).

Asia... the market pivots towards the East

After an extremely difficult 2020, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan posted

exceptional performances in H1 2021) taking their total turnover from sales of

Contemporary art for the 2020/21 period to USD 1 billion, i.e. 40% of the

segment's global turnover.

The Asian market has therefore become the primary global hub for sales of

Contemporary art and these sales concerned Asian artists of course, but also a

growing number of Western artists. This new phenomenon reflects an increasingly

solid and active market in Asia and the Pacific rim.

Four artists representing four major trends:

Banksy (1971) - Street Art recognized as a major global discipline

At 47 years old, the anonymous Street artist is one of the world's top-five

most successful signatures on the secondary market, all creative periods

combined.

In the specifically Contemporary segment, he ranked second behind Basquiat with

a turnover total volume of $181 million, representing 7% of the segment's total

income. This represents a new record for one of the three most sough-after

artists on the Contemporary art market.

Over the last five years, Banksy's annual turnover total has been growing

exponentially: $3 million in 2016, $7 million in 2017, $16 million in 2018, $29

million in 2019, $67 million in 2020 and $123 million in H1 2021...

Amy Sherald ( 1973) - Woman Power

One of the strongest results in the 2020/21 period was for a work by Amy

Sherald, the artist who painted Michelle Obama's official portrait in 2018 and

who has since been represented by Hauser & Wirth.  

On 7 December 2020 Phillips sold her painting The Bathers (2015) for an

impressive $4.26 million, 21 times its high estimate. The canvas depicts two

black women in colorful swimsuits against a blue background. Six months later

Phillips hammered another mega-result for her canvas It Made Sense Mostly In

Her Mind (2011), again in New York. Estimated between $500,000 and $700,000,

the work fetched over $3.5 million.

These two results dwarfed the artist's previous auction record of $350,000 in

2019.

Beeple (1981) - The viral madness of NFTs

Completely unknown to the traditional art auction market last year, Beeple is

today one of the three most expensive living artists in the world – all media

combined – after David Hockney and Jeff Koons.  

With a single result that was not only colossal but was also online and for a

non-fungible token and paid in Ethers, Beeple attracted the second best

Contemporary art auction bid of the 2020/21 period. The first NFT ever offered

in a public auction, Beeple's Everydays: The first 5000 Days (2021) fetched an

eye-watering $69.3 million against a starting price of $100... and for an

artist who had no gallery, no exhibitions and no previous auction sales!

But he did have several million followers on Instagram and the support of

Christie's, one of the oldest and most reputable auction houses on the planet.

Amoako Boafo (1984) - The art market is also integrating Black Lives Matter

Another young artist now selling internationally is Amoako Boafo. On 2 December

2020 he made a sensational auction debut in Hong Kong (Christie's) with a

canvas titled Baba Diop that fetched a new personal record at $1.14 million, 10

times its low estimate.

It was therefore not that surprising when the following day his drawing

Untitled (Two Hands) multiplied its high estimate by ten, also at Christie's

Hong Kong.

Images:

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Artprice's 2020/21 Contemporary Art Market Report by Artmarket.com:

https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2021

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