Art's value in the 21st century for emerging markets

Recently going through 2023 art sales and stats on buyers preferences on old masters, modern art, contemporary vs ultra contemporary art pieces it was apparent that investors have lost a bit of their faith in contemporary, still vibing with old masters, modern revolutionary artists and passing by contemporary elements.

Biggest sales of the past are long gone it seems. Maybe we will recover by 2025 Q3 though.

Looking through prism of value of modern art which is also slowly facing accusations of being too controversial and disattached from human realities at the moment, it does make sense to keep the chaos to develop by itself for a while.

What will sell then? and how 2024 will be projecting on art sales.

Women artists are finally getting their due.

Collectors are paying increased attention to the women in the room. Auction sales of works by women artists were up 10% last year to $788 million. This comes on the heels of two big increases in 2022 and 2021, which saw sales grow by 29% and 55% year over year, respectively. Although the top three women artists by sales were Yayoi Kusama, Joan Mitchell and Georgia O’Keeffe, some lesser-known, historically important women artists are receiving recent attention. One example is Joan Snyder, whose painting The Stripper sold for nearly half a million dollars during Christie’s fall 2023 auction —300% more than its high estimate. Snyder joins the ranks of other women abstract artists, such as Grace Hartigan, Lynne Drexler and Alice Baber, who worked during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and have only recently gained significant secondary market momentum. These artists have all reached their auction highs in the last two years. Last year, 14 of Hartigan’s works and about a dozen of Baber’s works sold for triple their estimates, and 63 works by Drexler achieved hammer price ratios that were nearly double their estimates.

Interestingly, these women’s proximity to canonical artists (for example, Hartigan had a close relationship with both Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and Drexler studied under Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell ) may be one of the reasons for their particular appeal in a period of economic uncertainty. The recent emphasis on quality and narrative may continue to drive value-seeking collectors to focus on A+ works by underrepresented historical artists more broadly over B works by canonical artists: The entry price is lower, the market is not yet saturated and the proximity to the establishment still makes it a relatively safe bet.

The performance of blue-chip works at auction

Christie’s and Sotheby’s reported a combined auction and private sales total of $14.2 billion in 2023, a 13% decrease from $16.4 billion in 2022. This slump was felt acutely at the top end of the market, where the top 100 lots at auction last year generated a little more than half the sales value compared to the year before, falling from $4.1 billion in 2022 to $2.4 billion last year.

It’s important to note that 2023 came after a bumper year of historical, record-breaking sales at auction, which partly explains the fall in numbers.

Another notable factor across auction sales last year was that several prominent blue-chip artists’ works—normally surefire bets under the hammer—failed to reach the low end of their presale estimates. Across New York’s blockbuster fortnight of auctions in November, for instance, works by George Condo, Alberto Giacometti, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Mark Bradford, and Salvador Dalí all hammered below their low targets. Auction houses also took steps to manage their sales by withdrawing some key lots—a worrying sign that demand wasn’t quite as strong as expected.

While blue-chip artworks are only a slice of the auction market, they are significant gauges of demand at the top end of the market. It will be interesting to see how and if they bounce back in 2024.

External influences and low trend economic outlooks

Every time we will have low or bad projection of the country economics, art sales will be weakened as the collectors will focus on their existing assets and their ROIs.

However, globally, new emerging markets and ever growing list of new millionaires will have the power to add some value. However, as the art market gets more exclusive and has rather small reach out to "nouveau riche" to educate and to show the value of the purchases, market buyers will be purchasing in rather chaotic habits.

Emerging markets and their chess games

Recently many rumors started to fly around that, many new and unrecognized art curators, as well as established ones with somewhat reputation from the west started to flock the new emerging art markets and are in search of new life founded by governments or foundations in mid-eurasian and Central Asian countries. Some have succeeded as some has failed miserably.

Emerging markets, some strong and filled with their own respective local experts have already set in motion their development map and local wealthy families already started to purchase some art pieces of (globally)unknown artists. However, one thing for sure, many art curators, which also are collectors and middle managers of some second hand galleries, have failed in their promises or have not fulfilled their original contracts of introducing members of selected artisans to the west and mid-west countries.

With new trends emerging, artist of contemporary art scene choose wisely to work with the past successors styles, however, create and add their own touch into them. Recently looking through new sales and some emerging artists, Picasso and Dali's "handwork" was resurrected so nicely that it created whole new nostalgic demand in the art market. Works are flying for USD 3500 reaching USD 7000 in some cases.

New emerging markets, have a unique value to provide new motives, such as cultured, colored and highly colorful works, both on dark and light subjects, personal motives or representing countries specifics. Political themed works will also add more emotions into buyers collections.

Looking forward for starting your new art collection or adding wonderful real estate to your exiting portfolio? make sure to email me and lets start building up that wonderful business plan of yours.

The Art Investment Group distinguishes itself as a unique coalition of specialists in the Art investment arena. Our Group boasts an exceptional portfolio of masterpieces especially from the 17th to the 20th century.

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Leyla Rasulzade

Strategic Business Development | B2B | Building High-Value Partnerships | Consultant on Mid -Eurasian & Asian Art Markets | Consulting on Building Personal Brands