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PARIS, Nov. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

With 18,600 lots sold at auction last year, photography is one of only two

mediums on the art auction market (along with with prints) that the health

crisis has accelerated. Thanks to the increase in online sales, the volume of

photographs exchanged in public sales has intensified and, most notably, in the

below $100,000 price range.

The result is a greater circulation of photographs on the secondary market, but

a lower level of overall auction turnover, with fewer 'spectacular' sales. The

Paris Photo fair (from 11 to 14 November 2021) had to take this new reality

into account while also competing with the recent arrival of NFTs as a new

medium on the art market. Fortunately, this new technology represents more of

an opportunity than a threat to the photography market.

SWOT analysis of the photo market

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Annual auction turnover on photographs compared with NFTs

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1689715/Artmarket_turnover.jpg

Thierry Ehrmann, CEO and Founder of Artmarket.com and its Artprice department:

"The majority of photographers today work with digital cameras and rework their

photos on their computers. Their photos are therefore completely dematerialized

and there is no reason why they shouldn't circulate much more fluidly alongside

NFTs. However, a number of legal issues relating to these new assets still need

to be resolved".

A new technology totally adapted to digital photography

While the photography segment of the art market has somewhat contracted over

the past ten years, the first NFTs to arrive in public sales have been greeted

with immense enthusiasm, notably in Asia and particularly in Hong Kong.

The former British colony has recorded exceptional art market growth over the

past ten years driven by dazzling sales of Contemporary Art. Unfortunately

Asian collectors have never been passionate about photography and no photo has

yet sold above the $1 million threshold in Hong Kong. This past year, the

medium's best result there was hammered for a work by Wade Guyton at $390,000,

which is third best-ever auction result for a photograph in Hong Kong's auction

history. Meanwhile, five NFTs have already exceeded the million dollar

threshold in Hon Kong in the last six months!

New prospects for an expansion of the market

Until now, photography offered one of the rare solutions for marketing a whole

set of conceptual works and getting them into private collections. From Marina

Abramovic to Andy Goldsworthy to Matthew Barney, photography offered a simple

way to immortalize a performance or an installation and give collectors a

chance to acquire 'traces' of the work.

NFTs may well change this situation: you only have to see how this technology

is already opening up new possibilities in the world of sport. Already entire

leagues, teams, players and equipment manufacturers are imagining NFT products

capable of offering new experiences that younger generations (15-30 years old)

adore. Not only do NFTs offer an incomparably more efficient way of exchanging

dematerialized goods (securely, instantaneously and without the control of a

central body) but they also open up countless perspectives in terms of the

management of these assets, thanks to smart contracts.

A lacklustre market

The photography market has the particularity that it is dominated by living

artists. There are only four artists whose photographs regularly exceed $1

million at auction, all of whom had a major impact on the medium during the

second half of the 20th century: Andreas Gursky (1955), Richard Prince (1949),

Cindy Sherman ( 1954) and Gilbert & George (1943, 1942). However, they no

longer as well on the secondary art market as they did 5-10 years ago.

According to Aurelie Cavana and Etienne Hatt: "Although the photography market

seems stable, it has nonetheless been substantially undermined by a whole new

breed of online sellers and it has to adapt to the extraordinary volume of new

images that are increasingly flooding the  market". Contemporary Photography: A

Market (De) Constructed. Art Press, November 2021.

At the start of 2021 (from January to October inclusive), public sales of NFTs

have already generated twice the volume of turnover hammered for photographs.

Blockchain technology also makes it possible to create as many NFTs as desired

around a single artistic creation, as proved by the sale of The Fungible

Collection by Pak at Sotheby's. On the first day of that session, 19,737

identical cubes, each numbered, sold for $500 each.

The NFT therefore borrows an intrinsic characteristic of the photograph, i.e.

the possibility of creating works that are both unique but which have multiple

copies around the world. The main difference is that NFTs are currently

enjoying such enthusiasm on the part of collectors that the latter are willing

to assimilate immense editions. Indeed, it seems that the popularity of the

work is a key part of the DNA of NFTs, whose history began with "internet

memes". Conversely, traditional art – to which photography essentially belongs

– is focused, above all, on the rarity of the work.  

Reminder of the Press releases of November 9, 2021:

Artmarket.com: perfectly positioned to generate enormous revenue from its NFT

Marketplace on Artprice-nft.com

#ArtMarket by #ARTPRICE $ PRC #NFT #CryptoArt #metaverse #DigitalArt #NFTs

#MarketPlace #BTC #ETH #OpenSeaNFT #raribleNFT #Ethereum

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Artmarket is a global player in the Art Market with, among other structures,

its Artprice department, world leader in the accumulation, management and

exploitation of historical and current art market information in databanks

containing over 30 million indices and auction results, covering more than

770,000 artists.

Artprice by Artmarket, the world leader in information on the art market, has

set itself the ambition through its Global Standardized Marketplace to be the

world's leading Fine Art NFT platform.

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in the world: no less than 180 million digital images of photographs or

engraved reproductions of artworks from 1700 to the present day, commented by

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from 6300 Auction Houses and produces key Art Market information for the main

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that today represents the leading Global Standardized Marketplace(R) to buy and

sell artworks at a fixed or bid price (auctions regulated by paragraphs 2 and 3

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