PARIS — Art
auctions saw a record year in 2021 with $17.1 billion in sales as the market
continued its rapid growth in
Asia and recovered from its coronavirus slump,
experts Artprice said Monday.
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The figure marked a 60-percent increase on
2020, when sales were hit by the initial disruption of the
COVID-19 pandemic,
and 28-percent compared with 2019, according to the firm’s annual report.
“The global art market regained much of its
customary dynamism, and a whole lot more as well,” the report said.
It was boosted by a number of big-name
auctions such as the $45-million Botticelli and $34.9-million
Frida Kahlo sales
in New York.
There was also the landmark moment when
digital artist Beeple sold a NFT for $69 million, the third-highest figure ever
paid for a living artist.
Most NFTs are sold on crypto-exchanges
(Ethereum alone sold some $40 billion of them last year) that do not qualify
for Artprice’s monitoring of “regulated auctions”.
But it still counted some 300 traditional
auctions of NFTs, worth $232 million in all, putting the medium ahead of
photography.
“The health crisis accelerated the art
market’s digitization — 87 percent of the 6,300 auction houses that we follow
now have a back-office dealing with online sales,” Artprice president Thierry
Ehrmann told AFP.
Contemporary art — counted as anything
created after 1945 — accounts for a growing share of sales, with 20 percent of
the market, up from 3 percent in 2000.
China, with $5.95 billion or 35 percent of
all sales, now counts the world’s largest art market.
The US, on 34 percent, was pushed into second
place, though its market is still more diversified, selling more artworks at a
lower average price compared with China.
South Korea has seen rapid growth — entering
the top 10 with $237 million in sales, up from $58 million before the pandemic.
The effects of
Brexit and competition from
Hong Kong were felt on Britain’s art market, which saw sales drop 10 percent on
2019 to $1.99 billion.
“Hong Kong is increasingly asserting itself
on the global chessboard and competing directly with the English capital,”
Artprice said.
An increasingly active market also means
fewer items are being left unsold. A record-low 31 percent of items did not
find a buyer in 2021, compared with traditional levels between 34 and 39
percent.
Gerhard Richter and Banksy remain the best-selling living
artists — some 1,186 Banksy artworks were sold in 2021 for a total of $206
million.
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