“Is a Bad Economy Good for Art?”
“The Storm Hits the Art Market”
Anyone following the art market has seen such headlines in outlets like The Art Newspaper, Puck News, and The Financial Times.
As publishers looking to build and meet the market for contemporary prints, we have been paying attention.
For two years, gloomy reports of lagging sales, bursting bubbles, and painful gallery closures have become familiar. The statistics are grim. ArtTactic reported that auction sales of paintings costing more than $10,000 million fell 44% last year. According to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, overall “Sales in the global art market declined by 12% in 2024 to an estimated $57.5 billion.”
Even the art world’s headiest, buzziest commercial galleries aren’t immune. This September Olivier Babin of Clearing candidly detailed the abrupt closure of his New York and Los Angeles outposts after a mediocre return at the Art Basel fair in June. As told to journalist Katya Kazakina, “We gave it our best shot, and we missed.”
Is the art market–an industry sector that hovers around $60 billion dollars–in a freefall? And if it is, is this a cyclical downturn that can be blamed on rising interest rates, inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty? Or, is this contraction an overdue structural correction? Some experts see the latter.
Advisor Jacob King wrote in 2024, “I believe that the pronounced market slowdown is due largely to forces endogenous to the art market itself, in particular, various feedback loops that caused prices for art to spiral higher, while propelling an ever-greater supply of new material onto the market.” According to him, excessive prices and oversupply were driven by the corrosive “investment mindset” that overtook the art market in the last fifteen years.
At Process/Process, we work with artists from “studio to market.” We produce, publish, and sell new original artworks–limited edition prints–primarily to individual collectors, museums, and corporate collections. Price points for our works range from several hundred dollars to under $5,000. This is a common spectrum for publishers of our tenure and size, though many long established players in the industry price works by living artists up to $50,000 and even over $100,000. (Examples: Julie Mehretu at Highpoint Editions in Minneapolis and Cecily Brown at Two Palms, New York).
When it comes to the sales of prints in our range, the primary market picture may be indeed rosier. This is first supported anecdotally by our own experience as emerging publishers–Process/Process was “born” in the summer of 2024 in the context of an art market already struggling. But in our first 18 months, we’ve found, if nothing else, consistency, enthusiasm, and growth–for which we owe gratitude to our clients and supporters! But much more importantly, there is the data.
Recent analysis points to durability along the lower end of the market.
According to The Financial Times, the collector class is “turning its taste towards lower-priced art, for which “emerging” normally fits the bill.” In The Art Newspaper, Artrprice data revealed that “91% of art offered at auction worldwide in the first half of 2024 sold for less than $10,000—the fastest growing sector of the market, more than doubling in volume in a decade.” With regards to prints specifically, an article in Artnews, "Are Prints Booming? Two New York Fairs Show the Medium’s Strength in the Market," touted the success and growth of New York’s International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Print Fair and Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair this April. In it, they report sales in the print sector growing by 18.3 percent in 2023 and an increase in sales to Gen Z collectors who, specifically, favor prints over other mediums.
Some positive spin is even emerging from within the industry, and in our home of Chicago. In their own press release, Freeman's declared that their September Prints and Multiples sale “attracted 21% new buyers” and an extraordinary “depth” in bidding.
Why should we–as publishers, collectors, and printmakers–care about this?
Many of the buyers with whom we work collect works at what many would consider the more approachable end of the market–under $50,000. Most buy primarily out of a deep desire to live with the art that they acquire and to support the art community.
We might consider this approach that of a “psychic” investment. The art object, however, has dual life: it is at once a cultural object (to be enjoyed and studied) and also a financial one. In fact, in the parlance of finance, an economist might call an artwork a cashflow negative asset. Why? Rather than pay dividends (like a stock) it actually costs quite a lot of money to take care of once you own it (storage, framing, insurance, conservation, transport). And naturally, even though most collectors don’t plan on putting their collection on the secondary market, and they don’t necessarily buy with Jacob King’s “investment mindset” at the fore, they would like to know that works in their collection comprise an investment that isn’t just spiritual, but rather that works will retain their resale value or maybe even grow in value over a long horizon.
And most of all? We think most collectors want to know they are participating in an industry ecosystem that is vibrant, durable, and fair. That the market–for prints at least–is not on the verge of collapse. Fortunately, the data is not telling us that it is.
If you are a collector of prints and would like to learn more about the art market, here is a list of resources. And, you can always reach out to us (or read our prior writing on collecting prints here).
Market Reporting
Art Basel UBS Art Market Report
The Financial TimesThe New York Times
Artprice
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