I founded my art consultancy 20 years ago to bring contemporary art to people who were curious about collecting. Over the years, the art market became bigger, global, financialized, and diverse. But while the rest of the world went digital, the art world didn’t, cherishing the physical and placing primacy on the experience of bricks and mortar art galleries and museums. At times, the art market seemed almost antithetical to technological innovation.
That all changed with Covid 19, which drove the art world to lean into digital marketing and direct-to-consumer strategies. Simultaneously, a younger, more diverse generation has grown up that sees and consumes on a screen. Nothing replaces the IRL art experience, but the art market is now, more than ever before, driven by digital consumption. As we leave the turn of the century firmly behind and enter the 3rd decade of the 21st Century, how art gets made and sold is changing.
DIRECT TO CONSUMER
Art in the Age of Instagram
Instagram is the #1 direct-to-consumer art marketplace. Will the ‘gram replace the gallery or merely decentralize the art business?
Instagram, founded in 2010, has given artists more agency over the distribution of their art
Artists share their images on Instagram, so galleries are no longer the art “gatekeepers”
Collectors now have the ability to contact artists on Instagram, bypassing galleries
Galleries find new artists on the app, which helps feed demand from a growing pool of buyers
We are all impacted by endlessly scrolling through images, which causes attention fatigue (more on that later)
Sidebar: How will museums, which require focused looking, adapt to appeal to the Instagram generation?
Art that looks great on Instagram tends to sell best, so that may be influencing how art is actually made. Buyer beware! How will that art age over time?
Instagram is now the largest art gallery in the world, challenging galleries and museums to remain relevant
🔥 HOT TAKE #1: Instagram is to Web2 as NFTs are to Web3*
*Web2 = all the apps (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
Web3 = blockchain, the next level of innovation
NFT (not for the timid)
JK, NFT actually means Non-Fungible Token. But what does that mean? Read on…
An NFT is a unique digital asset (it can be a digital image of almost anything, including a physical work of art)
What makes it unique? It’s registered on the blockchain, so its authenticity and ownership can be verified by anyone anywhere
Blockchain allows for the “life” of an NFT to be tracked, so whenever ownership changes hands, there’s a permanent record
This can be useful in terms of establishing provenance for physical works of art (Artory, founded in 2016 already offers this service)
NFTs are made by, and appeal to, the CRYPTO community, which is mostly outside the traditional art world—but that’ll soon change, just watch 👀
🔥 HOT TAKE #2: If you already own Facebook stock (i.e. a piece of Instagram), consider adding NFTs to your portfolio
Shopification of the Art Market
If you find yourself zoning out after scrolling through auctions and art fairs online, rest assured, you’re not alone: everyone is glazed over, and screen fatigue is real
The still above from the animated video, 2 Lizards, 2020 sums it up
The series, a combo of real-life footage and 3D animated video, was created by Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki during the early days of lockdown in NYC and went viral when first posted to the ‘gram
In 2021, it was acquired for the permanent collections of both the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, permanently marking “the moment”
Auctions Go Digital > Market Share
In 2021, Christie’s and Sotheby’s both made historic sales, each in excess of $7 billion *cha-ching*
Over $1 billion of that came from private sales, grabbing market share from galleries
They slashed costs (and saved some trees!) by halting the production of printed catalogs, the second-largest expense besides salaries
Auctions and private sales were marketed online, increasing access to art and removing a layer of exclusivity—which will continue indefinitely
They added “buy it now” categories, in partnership with galleries, to sell primary works of art online, blurring their traditional role as resellers
Christie’s brilliantly partnered with Beeple, an NFT artist, and Sotheby’s followed suit, achieving NFTs sales of $250 million (!) combined, sending shock waves through the art market
80% of NFT bidders were new to the auction houses, representing a lucrative source of future business
Is their DTC strategy working? You bet! Online transactions are up 50% from 2020 📈
🔥 HOT TAKE #3: get in on that Sotheby’s IPO rumored to be on the table in 2022
The Primary Market: Galleries + Art Fairs
Galleries didn’t fare as well as auction houses with DTC marketing. Why? Instagram is more fun than websites, full stop. But some innovations worked:
Superblue: an outpost of Pace Gallery in Miami showcasing digital, interactive art that you pay to visit. Expect to see more Superblue locations open this decade
Platform: Zwirner Gallery’s collab with younger galleries, selling emerging art directly from the Zwirner website (which has a robust following)
OVRs: online viewing rooms were created by galleries for virtual art fairs during the pandemic. Fairs are once again live *phew*, but OVRs will continue as an added feature, allowing DTC collecting and broader access to art
🔥 HOT TAKE #4: the Cromwell Art Collectors’ Club is a DTC platform for people who want to collect art at an accessible price point with my guidance. Visit www.cromwellart.com to learn more.
LOCAL IS THE NEW GLOBAL
As the art world becomes more global, active local markets remain key market drivers.
Miami, Palm Beach, the Hamptons, Aspen, and Marfa are all increasingly art-fied with new gallery outposts from NY and LA
And speaking of LA, several key galleries have opened outposts in NY to showcase talent (because NY is still a make-or-break-it market venue)
In Europe, France is edging out post-Brexit-UK as the Paris gallery scene grows, along with local auction revenues (due to lower duties on art)
The glow up continues in the South of France with Luma, Arles: a new art world destination that is also revitalizing a formerly depressed region
Accra, Ghana has a bubbly art scene driven by artists exporting awareness, showing their work in market centers like NY, LA, London and Paris
The Gulf States are low-key serious investors in art, with the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a satellite of the Guggenheim Museum slated to open in 2026, and the Qatar Museum currently hosting a major Jeff Koons show
Asia is the second-largest art market outside the US, fueled by demand from a new, younger generation collecting Western Contemporary art
Spotlight on Seoul
Unless you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t seen Squid Game 👆, you already know that South Korea’s music, film, fashion and food scenes are exploding 💥
As such, a new generation of wealthy creatives from these industries are getting in on the action, collecting Contemporary art
Western galleries have taken note, opening hubs in Seoul, adding to the city’s overall vibe and fueling demand among the already well-established collector base
Watch for the ultra-hip Frieze art fair, making its Seoul debut this spring
And for a stateside Korean art primer, check out The Space Between: the Modern in Korean Art, opening at LACMA in September 2022