Clare Mcandrew, An Art Economist, Looks At The Latest Global Art Market Report.

In March 6th, the Basel art exhibition and UBS released the fourth edition of the Basel art exhibition and the UBS global art market report. The report was written by Dr. Clare McAndrew, a famous cultural economist and founder of Arts Economics, an art economics research consultant. In the research field, there are few people who can be called "art economist". As we all know, due to the fact that most art transactions are not recorded and there are many buyers and sellers, the transaction data in the art market is hard to be statistically measured. Clare McAndrew is an exception. She is one of the few art economists who have long evaluated and studied the macro market.

In 2002, she earned her Ph.D. in economics from St. Trinity University, Dublin, Ireland. She later moved to Dallas to become the chief economist of the fashion boutique consulting company, There, she and David Kusin, the founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art curator in New York, began a formal evaluation of the art market, and gradually moved towards the current art market annual data statistics. From 2005 to 2015, she wrote an annual macroeconomic report on the global art market for the TEFAF European arts foundation.

Since 2016, this year's Global Art Market Research Report has been commissioned by the Basel art exhibition and UBS group. The Basel art exhibition and UBS global art market report (hereinafter referred to as the "report") has now become the industry benchmark report on the main trend of global art and antique market. In this regard, the twenty-first Century economic report interviewed Clare McAndrew, excavated the causes behind the important data in 2019 report, and interpreted the new trend of the art market.

Clare McAndrew. Data map

Prudent and prudent in the market

"If we can only sum up the 2019 art market in one sentence, I think it is actually quite robust. If viewed from 2000, the market is generally down the road, down by 5%. But from the year of 2020, which is full of crisis, it is prudent and stable in 2019. Clare concluded.

Sales of global art and antiques decreased by 5% to $64 billion 100 million in 2019 compared with 2018, but the market returned to a slightly higher level than in 2017, according to the report. The United States, Britain and China are ranked the top three in the world's major art center markets. Among them, the US market in 2019 decreased by 5% to 28 billion 300 million US dollars, but by value, the United States accounted for 44% of the world's total sales, at its second highest level in history, holding the first place in the global art market. Ranked second of the UK due to the impact of Europe, after two years of steady growth, last year dropped by 9% to $12 billion 700 million. In the third place, China's sales decreased by 10% to 11 billion 700 million US dollars in 2019. This is the second consecutive decline in sales, but it still accounts for 18% of the global market value.

Overall sales in China's largest market ranked the top three. Clare told reporters that China's GDP growth rate was stable in 2019, and there were also factors of Sino US trade friction, and external demand was weakened. In 2019, China's main auction market sales fell by 9% compared with the same period last year, while sales in Hongkong, China, fell by 25%. Although the Chinese art market is now fluctuating, Clare thinks: "this makes it more and more close to a formal and mature market."

Link makes the art fair thrive.

According to the report, sales of galleries and distributors in 2019 amounted to US $36 billion 800 million, up by 2% over the same period last year. Dealers surveyed said that finding buyers is the biggest challenge in 2019 as buyers continue to saturate. They admitted that in the past ten years, dealers have to deal with all kinds of practical challenges, including cultural differences, language barriers, payment cycles and discounts, in order to continuously absorb new customers from different regions, so as to ensure that sales will not stagnate. But looking forward to 2020, only 22% of dealers expect sales to decline, and 40% of dealers are optimistic that the market will go up.

The Art Fair is another important channel for artwork to trade and connect sellers and buyers. According to statistics, in 2000, the number of international international art fairs was 55, and in just 19 years, the number has increased to 300. There are many new generation of art fairs, such as Taipei, China, Singapore and S.E.A Focus. The report also found that the total sales volume of art fairs reached $16 billion 600 million in 2019, of which 15% of sales took place before the Expo, 64% took place during the Expo, and 21% of the transactions were completed after the Expo.

Clare pointed out that even though today people have online shopping channels, there is no substitute for "community sense" provided by the real art club. She said: "although heavyweight collectors have received exhibits information prior to the start of the art fair, they will not rush into actual transactions. They still want to go to the exhibition site and feel that they are part of the art community, and people want to be seen by others. For exhibitors, many social and business relationships need to be trained personally, and face to face with collectors is one way.

The millennial generation is the main force of online shopping.

From the perspective of auctions, the third main channels of art transaction, the sale of public auction of decorative art and antiques in 2019 is down 17% to 24 billion 200 million US dollars, due to the fact that the sales of major global auction centers are cold. But in contrast, private auctions have increased. In this regard, Clare explains: "when people realize that the market economy is in a bad state and usually the environment is pessimistic or uncertain, people tend to avoid the public auction department, because if the final filming is made, it will leave the impression that the public can't sell or" cheap ", and it will be difficult to sell the work again. Therefore, people are more inclined to engage in private negotiations in the private sector. No matter whether it is sold or not, no mark will be left to the public.

When the economic situation is very optimistic, public auction may take off more than expected, but when the economic situation is bad and uncertainty increases, people will tend to turn to gallery sales.

In terms of the type of patting, post-war and contemporary artworks account for the largest share of the art auction market in 2019, accounting for about half of the total value of the auction. The modern works of art in the past 20 years followed closely, accounting for about 1/4 of the total value of the auction; behind the Impressionist and post Impressionists, the lowest proportion was the work of classical masters (7%). Gender differences remained the focus of the 2019 report. The research team found that 44% of the main galleries in 2019 were women, representing an increase of 8% over the previous year. The proportion of these female artists in total sales is also rising, averaging 40% (32% in 2018).

It can be seen that despite the failure to achieve a complete gender balance, many galleries and institutions have made positive changes in coping with the imbalances in recent years.

In addition to the three major art trading platforms of galleries and distributors, art fairs and auctions, the report also mentions that in the past ten years, online art transactions have witnessed substantial growth. As in the past few years, the online market has focused mainly on the sale of a large number of low-priced art works. Even in the field of online auctions dominated by the dominant industry, transactions mainly focus on low priced art collections and luxury goods, and large and expensive artworks are usually not sold online. According to the report, online sales of art and antiques in 2019 were $5 billion 900 million, down 2% from the same period last year, accounting for 9% of the sales of the art market.

Among them, Millennial collectors are loyal fans of online channels, and as many as 92% have tried to buy works of art online. Among them, 36% paid more than $fifty thousand for the single piece of art purchased online, and 9% spent more than one million dollars.

Clare told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that the total volume of transactions completed through the online platform will increase this year as a result of the overall steady growth of online sales. This year coincides with the outbreak of the new crown, many art fairs have opened online exhibition hall and online sales channels, we have more reason to believe that the growth of online sales will be an inevitable trend of the market. She said: "I think this is just a test period. After this crisis, the feasible channels screened by the market will be retained and normalized."