Two Sides to the Art Market: Spending Down 32 Percent in 2023, Report Says, While Total Volume on the Rise

At the top of the art market dwell collectors. Without them, there’s no one to warrant the countless gallery exhibitions, seasonal day and evening sales, and almost monthly art fairs that batter the art world calendar.

According to a report released today by Art Basel and UBS and written by art market soothsayer Dr. Claire McAndrew that digs into the buying habits of more than 3,600 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in 14 major markets during 2023 and the first half of 2024, these HNWIs cut back on their art spending, breaking the upward trend from the last few years.

The average spend, the report said, dropped by 32 percent to around $363,905, mainly due to a dip in purchases at the top end of the market. That metric gives weight to the flurry of articles in recent months proclaiming that the market, especially for contemporary works, has taken a downturn that it may never recover from. 

That is, of course, if one only looks at contemporary artists and the fact that the market has been increasingly disturbed by what the report calls “an ongoing backdrop of high interest rates, persistent geopolitical tensions and trade fragmentation that weigh on the sentiments of buyers and sellers alike” that did not exist during the freewheeling, speculation-driven market of the Covid years.

Median spending, however, has stayed relatively stable, according to the report, falling only slightly from $50,165 in 2022 to $50,000 in 2023. During the first half of 2024 that median spending hit $25,555 which suggests that the market was mostly stable moving into 2024. 

One of the most notable takeaways from the report was generational. Millennial spending in 2023 dropped a whopping 50 percent from the previous year. In 2022, Millennial HNWIs had some of the biggest increases in average spending overall, especially at the top end of the market. The massive decrease among Millennial HNWIs could explain why the market as a whole seems to have taken a such a dramatic dip in 2023 while median spend has stayed relatively flat. Conversely, Gen X HNWIs saw low but steady growth of 3 percent year-on-year, and reported the highest average spending in 2023, $578,000, compared to the $395,000 spent by Millennial respondents, and their lead continued in the first half of 2024.

However, according to McAndrews, the spending shift, which comes at a time when the amount of billionaires is actually rising (there are 141 more billionaires that there were last year, according to Forbes) doesn’t mean people are buying less art. They are just buying less expensive art. 

That means that despite the growth in billionaire wealth, some HNWIs are starting to cut back on how much of their personal wealth they allocate to art. This peaked at 24 percent in 2022 but fell to 15 percent in 2024. 

“I’ve been asked, because billionaire wealth is rising, whether the high-end dip we are experiencing is just from billionaires not buying as many high value works. There is less spending at the top end yes, but the fact is those very wealthy people are actually buying lower value works” McAndrews told ARTnews, especially in the under $700,000, and even under $10,000 range including prints and works on paper.

“That does create a slightly lower value market,” she added, “but that is not necessarily a negative thing.”