The Art Market Had an Awful 2024: Report

The art market had a brutal 2024, with global sales declining 12 percent by value, according to a new report by Art Basel and UBS.

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UNITED STATES -

The pain was spread across borders. Sales in the United States fell 9 percent by value year over year. In China, they fell 31 percent, to the lowest level since 2009. Sales in France declined 10 percent, Germany 4 percent, Italy 10 percent and South Korea 15 percent.

"I can't sugarcoat any of the findings," says Dr Clare McAndrew, founder of the research and consulting firm Arts Economics, who wrote the report. "It was tough in all 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 percent year over year, driven by what the report outlines as lower-priced objects in the low six figures or below.

However diminished, about US$58 billion (S$78 billion) of art was sold in 2024, says Mr Noah Horowitz, chief executive of Art Basel. "That's a lot of art."