A Quick Look at the Contemporary Art Middle Market

Forbes just published a quick look at the middle market for contemporary art, with info from Christie's on activity of sales under 100,000 GBPs. The post notes some signs of strength in contemporary art, but also points out that many indicators have the overall art market declining.

Forbes reports

Christie’s reports that its contemporary art sales attracted a 52% increase in new clients that were bidding on works estimated at £100,000 or less. To mere mortals (like me), £100,000 or even £10,0oo is still a massive wad of cash, but any sign that the contemporary art market is attracting more broad-based support and is not solely reliant on the deep pockets of a few trophy-hunting billionaires to keep it growing is definitely a good thing.

Before we get too excited, though, it’s worth remembering that the most recent snapshots of state of the global art market have been less sparkling. Artnet’s analysis of auction house sales for the first half of the year show that global sales are still down 3% from where they were at the same point last year, even after an extremely strong second quarter.

Finally, while Christie’s reported an increase in private sales in the first half of 2013 over the same period last year, which is now a pretty established trend at the top auction houses, we can only only hazard a guess at what’s going on in the wider private market that accounts for over 50% of global transactions.

Source: Forbes