Powerful art market columnists

Every day Artprice provides art market data and analyses for the world’s major newspapers. This week Artprice has decided to reverse the polarity by inviting the world’s most respected art journalists to express their views on the year’s trends in the market and to stick their necks out with predictions for 2012. Here are their responses:

Georgina Adam – The Art Newspaper / Financial Times (United-Kingdom)
The past year, despite widespread economic and political turmoil and a crisis in the Eurozone, was the best ever for sales of art at auction, according to the results reported by Artprice.com. The art data site recorded €11.25 billion in sales, higher than any other year including the boom year of 2007 (€9.4 billion). The impact of Chinese buying is significant in this picture, as preliminary figures suggest it accounted for an astonishing 39% of the global art market in 2011.
So what explains these excellent results? China had a tremendous effect on the figures, as did the results of the sales of contemporary art. This remains the strongest part of the market and the November sales in New York were extremely good. The top of the market remained buoyant, reflecting the fact that the very rich have retained their wealth, or in many cases recovered it after the 2008-09 financial crisis.
However going in to 2012 the picture may not be quite so rosy. The market faltered towards the end of the year in many areas and the middle market remains weak. Even the previously booming Hong Kong market showed some slowing down.
With elections looming in many countries, buyers may be more cautious. Buying art is ultimately an act of confidence, as is the decision to sell. While investors may be turning towards tangible assets for at least some of their portfolio, they will only want to buy the very best – top condition, provenance and established names. This is likely to accelerate “the best and the rest” phenomenon, leading to more polarisation in sales with the top pieces doing well, but little take-up for more average wares. And lot will depend on vendors. The art market is supply driven, and if collectors decide to hold on to their art, this could have a dragging effect on the market as a whole.

Armelle Mavoisin – Le Journal Des Arts / L’œil (France)
A triple-D year, dominated by the DragonIn 2011, the art market showed veritable resilience to the crisis. Better still… auction prices for masterpieces and major works reached very high levels, often generating new records. Wealthy buyers, undoubtedly guided by knowledgeable advisors, selected works not only on a signature basis, but also on the basis of significant criteria such as the historical importance of the painting or sculpture, its newness to the market, its provenance, its decorative quality (particularly the theme) and its format. This “museum quality” segment — that is the visible part of the iceberg – is essentially the high valuation segment of the market or the “investment/pleasure market”. Last year, the supply of such works was sufficiently abundant despite collectors’ general resistance to the idea of selling for want of a better place to invest their cash. The 3-Ds (debt, death, divorce) played a substantial role such as Liz Taylor’s collection which generated a total of $156.8m including fees at Christie’s. Even if economists are predicting an even tougher 2012, the art market should continue on its current path if it is able to find similar purchase opportunities. From this point of view, the catalogues for the February Impressionist & Modern Art sales in London are not disappointing. It is difficult to see any further ahead. It will largely depend on the volume of works generated by the 3D phenomena. Only the future can tell.
Then of course there is the Chinese market which has become the leading global marketplace in the last two years. This rapidly expanding country with its growing population of new millionaires wants to buy back its cultural and artistic riches. After several years of frenetic activity with speculative buying by a hard core of Asian dealers, there are already some signs that the locomotive is slowing. As the Chinese market matures it will become more selective, with a corresponding risk of some prices adjusting downwards. Will the forthcoming year of the Dragon (Imperial symbol) in China be as dynamic for the Chinese art market?

Katya Kazakina – Bloomberg (USA)
It’s hard to make predictions with so much financial volatility out there. What I can say is that there is a strong appetite for trophies in all collectible categories. I just reported on George Washington’s wine cooler that sold for $782,500 at Christie’s, above the high estimate of $600,000. Art, in particular, is being seen by a growing number of people as an important element of asset diversification. So the flight to quality and rarity is likely to continue in 2012. But the price must be right.
Here in New York, we are seeing another wave of gallery expansions by young and established players. Several new galleries are in the pipeline and there’s plenty of activity below $30,000, and even more below $15,000.

Marilena Pirrelli – Il Sole 24 Ore / ArtEconomy (Italy)
In 2011 art withstood the crisis of the financial markets well and represented, with its masterpieces valued sometimes at more than millions of euros, a safe haven to protect investments. But it is art with a capital A, the one which is already in the history books and museums, and still turns up in private hands, to have survived the recession, continuing to achieve records at auction. The buyers were collectors from China, Russia, America and Middle East. Europe was the seller.
The middle market, however, under 300,000 Euros, has suffered and has registered closures of galleries and dealers in Italy. Galleries have seen their profit margins decreasing, while auction houses have clung to average values, below 100,000 Euros, and the major Italian auction houses have reduced their sales.
What about the future? The change comes from the Web: the online trading is growing, but it lacks in transparency of transactions and security of authenticity and value of the works. How to guarantee them?
The wealth management industry, which is interested in the art sector to diversify portfolios, asks for rules, while the art market has few, if any. In 2012 the resilience of the market for masterpieces of all time will surely be confirmed. The historicized 20th century will continue to rise, while the younger contemporary art segment will sail by sight.

Haryanto Gunawan -C-Arts Magazine (Indonesia)
“I believe that economic crisis in Europe and United States will have no big impact to the art market especially in Asia.
And this is the chance for young Asian contemporary artists to become more appreciated, not only in the market, but also in the term of discourse or the quality of the artworks– to be more highlighted in renown museums or biennales”.

Carlos García-Osuna – Tendencias del Mercado del Arte (Spain)
Overall, the global art market shrank over this last year. Collectors starting looking for emblematic works by the fundamental creators of the 20th century instead of their usual signature chasing.As for Spain, Christie’ annual auction in Madrid – which used to serve as a temperature gauge for the Spanish market – was discontinued in 2009 and seems unlikely to be reinstated. Moreover, several historical auction houses decided to wind up their activities.Economic forecasts for 2012 are expected to deteriorate. The market will eschew “gambles” and will continue to prioritise the major names of the 20th century. In the particular case of Spain, this has been confirmed by the results obtained for its most internationally appreciated Contemporary artists: Miquel Barceló heads the podium with 4.4 million euros for his Faena de muleta followed by Antonio López (1.9 million euros) and Antoni Tápies (1.07 million euros).”

Maria Ganiyants – RIA Novosti (Russia)
Looking back on 2011, I can say that at first glance : the art market shows increase practically in all its parts and segments, but the main question remains on how stable will be this growth.On the Russian art-market, we can see strong demand for top-works, but the ordinary segments of antiques and contemporary art cost around 20-30% less then before 2008, and have trouble finding buyers. To resume: supply exceeds demand. But our local problem in Russia, is the absence of institution to evaluate and estimate art, and as the result, there are no mechanism of secure investment in art. We have only two mutual art-funds, and they just started, though also our banks don’t want to work with the complicate asset that is art. But the situation is slightly changing. There are big lobbies inside the country that want to make the art-market more open and more profitable.
For 2012 ? We can see that the global financial system has now lost its stability and did shattered the coordinate system. In this situation, any investment is risky. In these circumstances, investment ideas are increasingly looking for real material financial assets, such as gold or precious metals, and perhaps – art. So perhaps the art market may continue with a global (but slow) growth. And perhaps art market will be more open, and will use methods of financial engineering, to ensure that growth.