The short answer to that question in the headline: not so well. The Skate’s Art Market Index (SASI), which tracks 16 publicly listed art companies (including Sotheby’s, Poly, and MCH Group, the owner of Art Basel), is off almost 15 percent this year. By comparison, as the graph above shows, the S&P 500 is up a touch (about 1 percent as of Friday’s close) and Sotheby’s, which is part of the index, is off slightly. Last year, Skate’s reported that SASI fell 25.8 percent, its worst year on record. Will things improve this year? Only time will tell.
Skate’s is the art business intelligence unit of ARTnews S.A.