Art Market Eye

Georgina Adam, our editor-at-large, comments on major art market trends and their impact on the trade. Her column appears on the first Thursday of every month on our website and in our Art Market Eye newsletter in which our art market editors Anna Brady, Anny Shaw and Kabir Jhala analyse the latest news and works coming up for sale.

What's behind Endeavor's plan to sell Frieze?

The art fair's parent company is apparently exploring "a potential sale", but who might buy it?

Pricking the art market bubble?

New report makes grim reading in run-up to London’s autumn sales season

Choppy waters ahead for the art market

Sotheby’s reported plunge in earnings is part of a bigger picture

UK general election has art trade on tenterhooks

The almost certain Labour victory could have major impact on art buyers, who were restrained during the summer season

Art Market Eye | Who’s afraid of the big bad cyberwolf?

Christie’s was hit by ransomware hackers—and now by a class action suit

Art Market Eye | The Biennale Venice effect at work

There are so many discoveries to be made at Adriano Pedrosa's international exhibition this year

Art Market Eye | Can Inigo Philbrick return to the art market?

The convicted art dealer is out of jail—and likely to return to the trade

Art Market Eye | Will there be more or less work for art lawyers in 2024?

In what looks likely to be the continuation of a declining market, we may see more litigation in the art world this year

Cold feet? Why fewer investors are guaranteeing art at auction

According to a recent report, guarantees are down—what's happened?

End of an era? Jussi Pylkkänen's departure reveals much about today’s art market

The star auctioneer is leaving Christie's after 38 years to share his experience "with a new generation of collectors"

Sharing the Bacon: how fractionalisation is taking the art market by storm

Artex, the latest in a slew of new initiatives, is offering shares in a Francis Bacon triptych for as little as $100—but is it a good investment?

Rogues’ gallery? Three reasons why the art market is vulnerable to wrongdoing

Lavish lifestyles, misplaced confidence and the wish to keep up with billionaire clients can all wreak financial havoc

'From "wet painting" to NFTs: the art market is moving on faster and faster'

Cycles in the industry are getting shorter with trends now coming and going within a year

'New French restitution laws should benefit the market—and maybe force change in Britain too?'

As the Washington Principles turn 25, the complexities of restitution in a global art world have mushroomed—leaving lessons to be learned for institutions, governments and art market players

Kusama and Louis Vuitton: Who is signing on the (polka) dotted line for artist's mega-brand deals?

Yayoi's signature style is currently adorning 400 objects in a collaboration with the French luxury fashion house—but it is not clear how involved she is

Death in Miami: crypto winter imperils NFTs and the 'effective altruism' movement too

The collapse of FTX has not only devastated the crypto world, but also threatened the ethics of “make money, do good”, touted by its founders

LVMH and Gagosian: why the rumour of a buy out makes sense, even if it isn’t true

A shared client base, product exclusivity and international reach—just some of the reasons why these two brands are perfect bed fellows

Art marketcomment

Charm, pedigree, contacts: how to dupe the art market

Court documents from the ongoing Inigo Philbrick fraud saga reveal that the secretive art market and the sheer attractiveness of its lifestyle will always suck the punters in

Which East Asian city will become the region's next market hub?

While Seoul is now the main contender to take Hong Kong's prime position, Tokyo and Taipei also present attractive prospects for the art trade

What’s with dictators and bad art?

Imelda Marcos is just one of a series of despots with appalling taste

Fair-mageddon: Can art fairs recover from such dramatic losses?

Fairs haemorrhaged exhibitors and visitors during the pandemic—the events will need to find a new way forward

A surfeit of riches: a good time to sell art, despite the war?

From the $200m Warhol Marilyn at Christie's to the second part of the Macklowe sale at Sotheby’s, the May auctions in New York will be bigger than ever—against the odds

NFTs of Old Masters—good or bad?

Are the digitally produced copies of museum works sold as NFTs for six-figure sums simply very expensive digital posters?

Art Basel in Paris: an earthquake in the fair landscape

Fiac's eviction from the Grand Palais came as a shock to the French gallery scene—what was behind the move?

Who will be the gatekeepers of digital art?

Museums, curators and art professionals endorse traditional art, but who will be the gatekeepers for the online world?

Is the art market corrupt to the core? Balderdash.

An attorney in the Inigo Philbrick fraud case described the trade as completely rotten, I disagree

Has Impressionism still got it? This months auctions should tell us

Will the wave of young Asians buying hot young artists also wash into the higher-priced, blue-chip artists on offer in New York, or has older art lost its charm?

Why the figures bandied about in the art market are subject to caution

Estimates of the potential size of the art market are way off the mark

How a new digital art market could mimic the traditional one—including in bad ways

The new breed of art buyers are likely to need administrators, curators and lawyers much like those in the conventional art world