ART MARKET TRENDS 2010 TM THE WORLD LEADER IN ART MARKET INFORMATION Art Market Trends 2010 p 5. Editorial p 7. Roller coaster p 8. Post-War and Contemporary Art in the global market p 8. 2010: Renewed competition p 10. A mixed return for Contemporary signatures: the “successes” of Hirst, Murakami and Koons p 12. China: the new global leader p 13. New York vs. Beijing p 14. Catching up on Old Masters and imposing their Contemporary artists p 15. France’s place in the art world: doomed to decline p 18. Art Market Confidence Index – 2010, a positive year p 21. Twitter: 2010 in 140 characters p 22. Top 10 Artists p 30. Top 100 auction performances in 2010 p 32. Top 500 artists by auction revenue in 2010 3 ART MARKET TRENDS 2010 Editorial In the words of Thierry Ehrmann, the After the previous art market meltdown founder and CEO of Artprice, the world in 1991, it took 4 years of patience before leader in art market information, China’s prices began to recover. This time round it accession to the lead- took only 18 months. ing position in global Fine Art sales repre- During the past decade, two strong sents an “electroshock trends have emerged: firstly we have seen in the history of the a veritable mutation in the commerce of global art market...”. art. The market’s structure has changed It took just three years with the evolution of Internet (with the ac- for China to jump celeration of online sales), the competition from third place (pre- generated by the more than 2601 art fairs Thierry Ehrmann viously occupied by organised each year around the world and France) in 2007 to first place in 2010, ahead the importance of investors and invest- of the UK and the USA, the grand masters ment funds in the market. Among the lat- of the market since the 1950s. ter, a large number went bust in 2008 and 2009 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers The year 2010 was rich in events: after - nevertheless, the example they set and the strong price inflation between 2004 the media attention they received was suf- and 2008 and the severe market contrac- ficiently strong to make investment in art a tion from October 2008 to the summer of new socio-cultural phenomenon. 2009, a rapid recovery followed, taking the market to unprecedented highs. In short… The assimilation of art to a financial asset the decade saw a very substantial accelera- by a minority of investors clearly gave birth 5 tion of the market and a considerable shift to a new model: that of an “art exchange”. of its polarity towards Asia. China seems to have been a pioneer in this 1) o/w 154 for Modern & Contemporary Art in 2010. ART MARKET TRENDS 2010 Art price growth Base $100 in 2000 250 200 150 100 50 © artprice.com 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 artprice.com© fi eld as the Chinese government launched the Ministry of Culture and Finance to in 2009 the Shenzen Cultural Assets and make museums free in China2. The pride Equity Exchange (SZCAEE). This “art ex- of Chinese culture has also been clearly ex- change” model has already been copied pressed by its valuation on world markets. elsewhere. In France notably, where Pierre Chinese collectors are regarded as role mo- Naquin has launched his Art Exchange, dels, working for the good of the nation. off ering in January 2011 his fi rst thou- Indeed, on the back of the sponsorship sandth parts in the works of Sol Lewitt and and investment patronage of these collec- Francesco Vezzoli. tors, Chinese artists have closed the price gap on Western artists incredibly quickly. The second strong trend in the year 2010 was a veritable revolution in the geopo- This year, Artprice’s annual art market re- litics of the global art market… China has port – based on 5.4 million auction results overtaken the United States and the UK as from 3,600 auction houses around the the world’s largest auction marketplace world – will focus particularly on China’s for Fine Art. In 2008, after the collapse of successful conquest of the global art mar- Lehman Brothers, China became the motor ket. Our 2010 Art Market Trends contain of global economic recovery. At the same macro- and micro-economic analyses time, the Chinese government showed the providing the keys to understanding the 6 importance it attributes to art and culture annual evolution of the global auction at events such as the Olympic Games in market. It discusses the major trends in the 2008, the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 market, analysed throughout the year on and with the groundwork performed by 2) Access to all public museums in China is scheduled to be free by the end of 2012. the ArtMarketInsight page of our website, than $9.36 billion, i.e. nearly as much as by the Artprice press agency and by our during the speculative euphoria of 2007 Econometrics Department. To comple- ($9.39 billion) and three times the revenue ment this objective appreciation of the art generated in 2000! market based on a year of global auction results3, Artprice also off ers numerous ori- After the 2005-2008 bulimic investing ginal rankings such as the Top 500 artists in profi table quick purchase and resale by auction revenue and the Top 100 auc- operations, the auction houses decided tion results of the year. to change their strategies in 2009, almost completely dropping the practice of gua- ranteeing results, reducing their off er to the hyper-speculative emerging segments Roller coaster and attempting to off er collectors more aff ordable works and safer investments. In 2007 the art market reached unprece- Despite the numerous precautions taken, dented highs, with the global revenue for the cash poverty of investors and art col- Fine Art reaching $9.39 billion, more than lectors combined with the general mood double the 2005 total4. of suspicion generated by the fi nancial cri- sis substantially diminished the annual rev- Driven by galloping prices and an inten- enue fi gures posted by the major auction- sifi ed demand from rich collectors and in- eers: in 2009, Christie’s, the famous auction vestors, million-dollar results rained down fi rm owned by François Pinault, saw its an- like never before: in just the fi rst six months nual revenue shrink by 47% compared with of 2007, 4,023 artists’ records were beaten 2008 and Sotheby’s dropped by 60%. and the general infl ation went substantially higher than the speculative peaks reached During this period of turmoil, the Old in 1990 (the Artprice Global Index based on Masters segment was the only area of the repeat sales was 16% above the 1990 level). market to show good resistance, prima- In the autumn of 2008 the market turned, rily because it is little aff ected by fashion and the following months saw a very strong eff ects or speculative buying. In fact, the price correction and a serious increase of income generated by Old Masters in auc- unsold rates. Two years later, this crisis is tions rose by 4.9% in 2009 vs. 2008. But the already a distant memory and the competi- other segments took serious corrections: tion is as thriving as it ever was. 19th Century Art dropped 47.7%, Modern Art lost 37%, and Post-War Art contrac- In fact, the art auction global revenue5 ted by 50.6%! The worst hit segment was nearly doubled in 2010 vs. 2009 to more Contemporary Art which shrank by 63.8% 7 3) Fine Art: prints, photographs, paintings, drawings, between 2008 and 2009. However, the re- sculptures and installations. covery was just as spectacular as the fall 4) $4.2 billion in 2005. 5) Throughout this report, we refer to hammer prices, with total revenue from the segment dou- i.e. excluding fees and commissions. ART MARKET TRENDS 2010 bling in 2010 vs. 2009. The year’s total was the segment’s price index has increased still 29% below the 2008 total6. by 105.6%. This index rise is still lower than the +157.9% infl ation that has gripped Post-War Art over the decade (its total an- nual revenue rose by $1.46 billion over the Post-War and Contemporary same period)9. Art in the global market Alongside these superb performances, price indices have remained stable for Old Contemporary Art is the most specula- Masters and 19th Century artists. Little by tive, media-exposed and volatile side of little these two segments, in which high the art market. Its eff ervescence is fuelled quality works are becoming increasingly by a whole new generation of collectors rare at auctions, are losing ground to later who have been seeking in recent years to generations of artists. They are essentially buy works in phase with the attitudes and restricted by their limited off er whereas zeitgeist of the current era. the Contemporary market is almost unli- mited. The share of 19th Century Art in the At the beginning of the decade, there market has considerably declined. Today it was still a certain mistrust of Contemporary represents 9.59% of the global market vs. creation in the art market. In 2000, the mar- 28.38% in 200010. ket accorded the highest values to Modern Art (45.29% of the market in revenue terms), 19th Century Art (28.38%), Old Masters (15.16%), Post-War Art (8.33%) and lastly, 2010: Renewed competition Contemporary Art at 2.83% of the global market.