Wealthy collectors spent on average 32 per cent less on art and antiques in 2023, according to the latest Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting, published today. The report, written by Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics, compiles responses from 3,663 high net worth Individuals from 14 regions of the world, all active in the art market, and found that their average spend fell from $532,985 in 2022 to $363,905 in 2023.
While the millionaires’ wealth was found to have grown a little after a 2022 dip, the report finds that, come 2024, their allocation to art as a percentage fell for the second year in a row, from a high of 24 per cent in 2022 to 19 per cent last year and to 15 per cent in the first half of 2024.
McAndrew reports that the drop in average spend is mostly due to the buying behaviour of millennials (defined as 28-43 years old). These were high spenders in 2022, but in 2023 they more than halved their average outlay, from $864,940 to $395,000. Taking the median spend of all buyers, which removes outliers, the fall is much less stark, McAndrew notes — from $50,165 to $50,000 — as the reduced spend was experienced mostly at higher price levels. On a median basis, buyers from mainland China (numbering 300), spent more than double that of any other region across 2023 and the first half of 2024.
During the 18-month period, more than three-quarters of respondents say they had bought a painting — the most popular medium — but there are signs that prints and works on paper, as well as emerging, new and female artists, are benefiting from a more price-conscious clientele in a recalibrating market, McAndrew writes.
For the rest of this year, the survey finds that the market’s trajectory is “not entirely clear, with mixed signals in different sectors”. There is, however, no evidence yet that the “drag on growth” at the higher end will cease, given that “the persistent backdrop of geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, higher-for-longer interest rates, and other region-specific issues continue to weigh on the sentiment and plans of buyers and sellers.” The full report can be read at theartmarket.artbasel.com
Paula Cooper Gallery has joined forces with developers Brookfield Properties and WatermanClark to mount a show of Claes Oldenburg and his longtime collaborator and wife, Coosje van Bruggen, in New York’s recently renovated Lever House. The exhibition, the first major Oldenburg showing since he died in 2022, will comprise approximately 20 pieces of sculptures, drawings and prints in the publicly accessible lobby and outdoor spaces of the Midtown modernist office building. The show, organised by Jacob King, runs from November 18 until autumn 2025 with the majority of works for sale, ranging from $25,000 to $6mn.
Two of Oldenburg and Van Bruggen’s large sculptures — “Architect’s Handkerchief” (1999) and the “Plantoir, Red (Mid-Scale)” (2001-2021) — will be in the outdoor plaza, while the presentation inside will emphasise their consumer product-based works, in recognition of the building’s original 1952 owners, Lever Brothers (known more widely as Unilever). These include Oldenburg’s toothpaste sculpture “Tube Supported by its Contents” (1981). “It’s an exciting project because themes of consumerism featured so strongly in Claes and Coosje’s work,” says Steve Henry, senior partner at Paula Cooper gallery.
Lever House is no stranger to art — its previous owner Aby Rosen, co-founder of property group RFR Holding, hosted exhibitions and commissioned art for the building, which has since undergone a $100mn redevelopment.
Additional EU customs procedures in place since Brexit meant that works by three artists which were due in the booth of London’s Soho Revue gallery at Barcelona’s Swab art fair did not arrive in time for the VIP opening. “We did everything we could. Given the new legislation, I used one of the best companies to organise it, but it seems it has all got so much more complicated since Brexit,” says gallery founder India Rose James.
For the fair’s October 3 opening, in place of works by Hanne Peeraer, Anne Carney Raines and Alanna Hernandez, the gallery instead pinned printed notices reading that, despite “heroic efforts to speed things along, it seems bureaucracy has other plans,” adding that the art was available to see on the gallery’s online viewing room.
The notices at least proved a talking point — “we met loads of new collectors,” says James — and once the art did arrive, she made sales of Peeraer’s work (around £1,000 each). “I’m sure over time it will be fine, but for now, my art-world job has become about logistics and postage”. She says she is still waiting for some of the Barcelona works to come back to the UK, with the added customs bottleneck since the Frieze and Art Basel Paris fairs.
A new gallery dedicated to living female artists will open in London’s Shoreditch later this year. SLQS is named for its founder, Goldsmiths College graduate Sarah Le Quang Sang, who says there is a need “to educate collectors to look differently at the careers of female artists”. For example, she says, the art world tends to prize youth when it comes to seeking out exciting, emerging talent, “but women often start later or take a break [to have children] so their CVs don’t fit the mould. They don’t always qualify for, say, awards for artists under 40.” Le Quang Sang, whose parents are French and French-Vietnamese, will also give visibility to artists from Vietnam such as Hoa Dung Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, for whom she plans an early show.
Le Quang Sang previewed her gallery programme at this month’s Minor Attractions and Women In Art Fair events, with works by Beverley Duckworth and a sound performance by Laima Leyton at the former, and a striking showing of Damaris Athene at WIAF (Athene will get a solo show in the gallery next year, Le Quang Sang confirms.) She will open on Club Row, close to Kate MacGarry, and says “I’m starting a business in the worst of economic times, but the gallery is well-located and compact.”
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