MILANO – Art treasure hunters also moved online during 2020, as did consumers of everyday goods due to pandemic impositions. In the fifth Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, the latest trends in the art and antiques market emerge, a segment that last year recorded sales of $ 50.1 billion: a decrease of 22% compared to the 2019. If all of us have learned to shop online, even the Scrooge collectors (2,569 holders of large assets ended up in the lens of the Swiss bank) have turned to the web and social networks to search for the most precious pieces.
Indeed, the survey shows that social media continued to be a key channel used by the art market. Between a post from influencers and favorite actors, around a third of collectors bought art using Instagram. Since it falls to 1% for Italians, obviously more traditionalists from this point of view.
In a landscape where two-thirds of collectors say they have increased their interest in art (and for this reason a 2021 with business is expected to recover), online sales have reached a record of 12.4 billion dollars. , doubling in value compared to 2019. They now account for a quarter of the market and for the first time the share of e-commerce in the art market has exceeded that of general retail. These are mainly women’s business: collectors have seen their average spending rise by 13% in 2020, while the generation that opens their wallets the most is that of the Millennials: 30% of them have invested more than 1 million dollars in art.
Globally, the decline of almost a quarter of the market is very intense but it must be remembered that the great recession of 2009, the one born from the stock market’s hazards and then exploded all over the world, was much worse: then sales plummeted by 36% dropping to a minimum of $ 39.5 billion. The US shrinks the absolute leaders: 42% of business takes place in the United States, followed by China and the UK for 20% each. But Beijing overtook the United States to become the largest public auction market, with a 36% share of the sales value.
The number of works bought by Italian collectors remained stable at 11, with an average value slightly decreasing to 135 thousand dollars. Italians struggle to “see” women among their favorite artists: on average in their collections there are only 34% of female works, the second lowest percentage among the ten countries analyzed.
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