Art market update: What recession? Global art collectors are spending more than ever
Global art trading, and the prices wealthy collectors are willing to pay, are up strongly. Fast growing Asian art hubs Seoul and Manila are in the top 15.
What recession?
A new report by investment bank UBS and Art Basel, which surveyed about 2,700 art collectors and high-net-worth individuals (each with at least $1 million in assets and spends at least $10,000 annually on art), found that the demand to add works to their collections, and to view art across international forums, is strong, despite post-pandemic and global economic concerns.
The report, titled “A Survey of Global Collecting in 2022,” states that collectors are facilitating an increase in art being traded across international borders, following a pandemic slump, with imports and exports of art increasing by 38% in 2021 and 41% in 2020.
Spending on art among collectors has also increased across global market hubs, the report states.
In the first half of 2022, the median spending of high-net-worth collectors (based in the US, Europe, and Asia) surveyed was $180,000, up from $164,000 in 2021 and $100,000 in 2020 as previously reported by UBS and Art Basel. And collectors are spending at a higher price points: 23% of collectors reported regularly buying works over $1 million — nearly double the previous year’s figure of 12%.
Art economist Clare McAndrew, the report’s author, said the findings reflect “an unwavering engagement” of high-net-worth collectors in the commercial art world that has “buoyed” a post-pandemic recovery across the globe.
Despite the specter of an economic recession, rapid inflation, high energy costs, and war that may be impacting other asset classes and spending habits, those concerns are not affecting collectors’ spending on art, the report found. Active buying has led to auctions and art fairs bouncing back, with 74% of the collectors surveyed purchasing work at an art fair in 2022, up from the 54% reported in 2021. Around half of collectors reported regularly buying work without seeing it in person.
“Despite the volatile context, high-net-worth collectors have shown amazing resilience,” McAndrew said, “they undoubtedly feel that art is a relatively safe haven or store of value in turbulent financial times.”
Top 15 countries
In another report, art market information firm Artprice revealed the world’s top 15 contemporary art auction hubs, which include fast growers South Korea in fifth place and the Philippines in fourteenth place.
“It remains an undeniable fact that fine art is a fine investment. All forms of art have shown a marked tendency to rise — and even soar — over the years.”
— J. Paul Getty
One of the best ways to protect ourselves from economic and geopolitical uncertainty is to invest in high quality art over the long term. Art provides the world with a sensory experience like no other. To own a piece of this world is a dream, to view it a privilege, and to earn a rate of return on it, a bonus.
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