Dealers at The Art Show Weigh in on a Soft Market: ‘A Great Picture Always Sells’

Not even an hour into the opening of The Art Show, the annual fair of the Art Dealers Association of America, New York dealer Charles Moffett had sold half of the seven egg tempera on wood New York City-scapes by emerging artist C’naan Hamburger he had on view—priced $8,000 to $15,000—and had the other half on hold. By the end of the night, he had sold five. That was a strong result, Moffett told ARTnews, considering the state of the market.

“The first time I worked the fair it was 2008. I was just out of school, working for another gallery, and the phone barely rang,” he said. “You could draw some comparisons to the current moment in terms of the pace of the market.”

On Tuesday evening, 75 of the ADAA’s 200 member galleries gathered in the creaking hall of the Park Avenue Armory for the benefit preview of the 36th edition of The Art Show, a philanthropic fair that raises funds for the social services non-profit Henry Street Settlement. (All ticket proceeds go to the organization, with the fair having raised $37 million in its history.)

Of the 75 exhibitors at the fair, 43 have single artist presentations, a good number of which are, like Moffett’s focused on contemporary artists. (This is the first solo presentation for Hamburger, a 2023 graduate of the Hunter MFA program.)

That figure is notable considering that The Art Show has typically been associated with secondary market, historical works. It shows in the demographic of the crowd, which skews older, or as one dealer delicately put it, “the philanthropic crowd.”

“It’s people from the neighborhood,” David Norr, a partner at James Cohan, which operates galleries in Tribeca and the Lower East Side, told ARTnews. Norr was referring, of course, to the Upper East Side. “They’re a dedicated group of discerning collectors who know exactly what they like. Honestly, it’s kind of refreshing,” he added.

So while some exhibitors at The Art Show are catering to the tastes of an older generation of connoisseurs, the ADAA has been adding more primary and younger dealers to the association in recent years, meaning that there is now both historical and contemporary work on view. While that mixes up the offering, it now feels more unclear what kind of collector the fair is for. Something for everyone, perhaps? 

The Art Show has shifted into a more regional fair, according to some dealers at the fair, largely due to its isolation in the social calendar. Prior to the pandemic, the fair historically led into the Armory Fair in New York, and all the assorted events and openings that happen alongside it. That helped draw an international crowd of collectors and curators. That’s trickier now, though the fair still gets its share of notable guests, including the Hammer Museum’s Nicole Berry, curator Raquel Chevremont (now a cast member on The Real Housewives of New York), Studio Museum director Thelma Golden, Art Basel Miami Beach director Bridget Finn, Frieze US Fairs director Christine Messineo, powerhouse art advisor Sandy Heller, and others.

“The fair exists on an island now,” Derek Piech, a partner at Chelsea’s Mary Ryan Gallery, told ARTnews. “There are no other concurrent fair or major auction previews to bring in a critical mass of attendees. But look, this is the only peer-reviewed art fair in the world. All of the booths at this fair were voted on by the members of the ADAA organization, and for that reason, you continue to see an excellent showing of interesting new work and fantastic older material across the range.”

Meanwhile, dealers are back from Frieze London, Paris Basel, and all the satellite fairs in both cities, which had encouraging performances within the context of this year’s sleepy market. Still, next week’s presidential election is looming.

“Obviously, the election is top of mind,” Daelyn Farnham, a senior director at San Francisco’s Altman Siegel, told ARTnews. “It can be hard to get people’s attention in a moment like this.”

Farnham said that while sales weren’t stunning for the gallery in London, Frieze provided a ton of exposure for the gallery and its artists to curators. Paris, meanwhile, was energetic. And why not? 

“Everyone wants to be in Paris in October,” said Norr. “But energy doesn’t necessarily translate to sales.”

And while the opening night energy at The Art Show translated into those five sales for Moffett, a first-time exhibitor at the fair with his eponymous gallery, he nevertheless said that, in this soft market, one has to always think about “adjusting expectations.” Just a few years ago, work was flying off the walls and getting flipped soon afterwards. That’s simply no longer the case.

“We used to sell out shows just by sending out PDFs,” Moffett said. “Now it takes the full run of a fair, or a show. It just takes more work than it used to.”

It’s in times like these that we need to get back to the basics, art advisor Michael Altman told me after a firm introductory handshake.

“This is a market of individual objects,” he said. “In a good market, a great picture always sells, and it sells well. In a bad market, a great picture will sell too, just not as … buoyantly. In a good market you’ll make back what you bought it for plus 20 percent. This is why there isn’t that much great stuff available. Collectors are gonna wait for that 20 percent.” 

So, the market is cyclical. Please, write that down. Another good piece of advice? Just wait.

“The Fed has finally addressed the interest rates so let’s see how that affects the market, especially at the higher end, in six months,” said Maureen Bray, ADAA’s executive director.